RedNote is based in China, which makes the app vulnerable to potential data and censorship requests.

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.

  • kibiz0r@midwest.socialEnglish
    1·
    4 hours ago

    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.

    As we can see, the vendor finally sat up and took official notice of this severe, privacy-affecting software bug on June 25th–only five days before Wu, who has previously tweeted about a vulnerability affecting the same Sogou software, was paid a visit by Chinese authorities.

    Wu explicitly drew this connection in my discussion with her:

    Five days after Tencent (Shenzhen) admits to the IME vulnerability, the Chinese person (in Shenzhen) who originally publicized it suddenly gets dragged in by the cops and forced offline.

    NONE of them could read English to see my account does not even make China look bad, it was all Baidu fucking translate and demands why I was talking about Signal and the keyboard

    Her account concluded with an unsettling revelation about the risk she would face if she were to continue tweeting: having already received two “strikes” from the authorities, a third could mean a years-long prison sentence.

    I had to sign and fingerprint a “confession”.