Summary
Many Americans are migrating to RedNote, a Chinese-owned app based in China, raising significant privacy and security concerns.
Experts warn that RedNote, based in China, is subject to Chinese laws, including the Personal Information Protection Law and Data Security Law, which grant the government rights to request data and cooperation with intelligence operations.
Enforcement of these laws is often opaque. Analysts highlight risks of data collection, algorithm manipulation, and censorship on RedNote.
Critics argue the U.S. lacks comprehensive privacy laws, driving users to platforms like RedNote that may pose even greater risks than TikTok.
Boo hoo! The US can’t spy on it’s people anymore because everyone got wise and switched to foriegn apps.
This has nothing to do with the security or privacy of the people. They’re pissed because they’re losing power over them.
On a side note, everyone that has joined REDnote is waking up to the lifetime of propaganda the american government has been feeding them. This past week has been wild.
I just learned from red note that Chinese people don’t pay property taxes. Once they pay off their mortgage, they just own their home. I’m definitely the one living in a third world country.
there’s genuinely been some class consciousness getting into play
i saw some users from both countries compare prices of eggs and vegetables, and they even did the necessary math of accounting for average wage and cost of living. the chinese users are not allowed to talk about their politics (sadly; this is a bad thing) but they are allowed to talk about foreign politics and they are probably bigger fans of Luigi Mangione even than i have seen in English speaking social media. there are candid discussions of queerphobia as well in its different social (and for the US, political too) manifestations between countries.
The funny thing is at any point the US government can ban the collection of personal user data. It could just be illegal for any company to do this in the US.
But like you said, it’s just about the US wanting to spy on its own citizens but not wanting other countries to.
Look at the companies with the highest market cap in the US and just start counting how many make money from selling personal data. The US will never implement wide sweeping privacy laws. To the detriment of everyone.
“it’s okay when we do it” —the US on literally everything it criticizes in other nations
not wanting other countries to did it without paying the tech bro
The Chinese aren’t the ones firing people for posting pro Palestinian things on social media or attacking protestors on college campuses or protecting white supremacists in Oregon or Washington. That’s our agencies, our cops.
First of all: US companies and agencies will be assholes about what you post, wherever the content is hosted. Same for Chinese companies and agencies.
Second: I’m not advocating for using US state-controlled social media. But China-controlled social media is not any better, and I certainly wouldn’t call switching to it “getting wise”.
Particularly switching to one that’s known to inject keyloggers into its webviews, especially when keyloggers seem to be a staple of Chinese state surveillance.