RedNote migration

As the TikTok ban approaches, US users have downloaded RedNote en masse - another Chinese video-focused privacy invasion app. There’s a sensational Bluesky thread describing it. It’s not even a straight up replacement for TikTok:

Please be aware, RedNote is in Mandarin. All servers are in China. It's a female dominated social media platform, sort of a cross between Pinterest and TikTok, that's mostly used by Chinese folks to get restaurant recs and beauty tips.

— Erica Wilkinson (@everywhereerica.bsky.social) January 14, 2025 at 3:50 PM

Some fascinating highlights:

  • People are doing this mostly to show the middle finger to the ban - RedNote is backlash tech, even if not the kind that Peter Watts would have hoped;
  • The application is in bloody Mandarin and Americans, who notoriously hate even subtitles, will run an app in Mandarin if they get the interactions they crave for - it’s not just that your UX sucks, but that the underlying app isn’t desirable;
  • American kids now get to point out how their own government is helping Israel pulverize Gaza as a way to self-justify using a Chinese app;
  • This is getting an entire young generation acquainted with (at least a view of) the Chinese way of living, and they’re finding out it’s not as terrible as the US would have them believe.

And if you had any doubt as to how tangled things are becoming:

And you're going to have a hard time manufacturing consent for aggressive action against China when 170 million American TikTok Refugees are mutuals with half of the RedNote netizens.

This is absoLUTELY going to have diplomatic ramifications.

— Erica Wilkinson (@everywhereerica.bsky.social) January 14, 2025 at 3:50 PM

This is culture wars bundled with social moving fast bundled with the rate of change turning entire groups’ expectations into roadkill.

Backlash technology

Backlash Technology is a term coined by Peter Watts - it’s tech for which one of the key properties is a prominently displayed middle finger at something else. Think Signal and Telegram adoption spikes whenever WhatsApp screws something up, or crypto as a reaction to the financial system (particularly in places plagued with hyperinflation).

I got reminded of the term by a discussion regarding Bluesky vis-a-vis Mastodon, the Fediverse, and ActivityPub. It seems that something being Backlash Tech can also provide a certain stickiness, since it a lot of the reactions could be summed up as “I’ve already lashed back, what else does this add?”

Here’s the link, if you are curious. The conversation is biased towards skepticism - expected, given the participants and where it’s taking place - but there are some good points in there.

The Arrival of a Train

Creativity, innovation, mash-ups, and science fiction writers… as a lens on lessons from the software industry.

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