from the my-chinese-spy dept

TikTok Users Gleefully Embrace Even More Chinese App To Spite US TikTok Ban

Great job, US government. You went so overboard with your “TikTok is an evil Chinese app” and deciding to ban it that you’re pushing kids to go even deeper into the Chinese app ecosystem.

The US government’s ham-handed attempt to ban TikTok on national security grounds is not only a troubling attack on free speech and the open internet, but it’s already backfiring by sending users flocking to Chinese apps that pose even greater privacy concerns, as young people mock their misguided paternalism.

As I type this, the top two apps on the iPhone iOS app store are:

That first one is Rednote, a Chinese app that is sort of more like Instagram/Pinterest, but which was not particularly popular in the US. At least until this week. Lemon8 is also owned by TikTok/ByteDance and has been around for a bit, though has never been that popular. It was ByteDance’s attempt to create a Pinterest-like app.

Many people are pointing out that Xingin, the maker of Rednote, is even more closely tied to the Chinese government than TikTok ever was.

Meanwhile, the biggest (and perhaps final?) big trend on TikTok is kids saying “goodbye to my Chinese spy” as they expect the TikTok app to potentially go dark this weekend. If you go on TikTok and look up the #chinesespy hashtag, there’s a never-ending stream of people effectively mocking the US government / mourning the potential loss of an app they like.

It’s basically all just people mocking the out-of-touch, censorial US government as it sets up its very own “Great Firewall.”

There was a time when the US looked on the Great Firewall of China as evidence of how closed off and censorial China was, as opposed to the US’s approach of openness and freedom. But with this move, the US has not only made a mockery of its own support of free speech and an open internet, but given a huge gift to China, by suggesting their approach of banning foreign apps to “protect its citizens” is the right approach.

The Supreme Court will weigh in some time in the next few days, and there’s a decent chance it will mock the First Amendment and freedom, and fall for the moral panic about China.

But the kids who are using TikTok are all pretty clearly aware of just how stupid this all is and are commenting on it the best way they can, spitefully mocking out-of-touch politicians, judges, and the media.

Still, the end result of this nonsense will be an end of an era of American belief in free speech and an open internet. In trying to “protect” Americans from China, our gripped-by-moral-panic political class has made us just like China. The government has decided that the only way to combat China’s techno-authoritarian censorship model is to emulate it.