Around midnight on January 18, millions of American users’ TikTok screens displayed a message: “A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the US. Unfortunately, this means you cannot use TikTok for the time being.”
The shock was immediate. For many users, TikTok was more than just a short-form video app—it was a place to connect, entertain themselves, and in some cases, their main source of income. Even before the servers went down, Reddit forums were buzzing with strategies to get around the blockade. VPNs, proxies, and other makeshift solutions gained traction on the American internet. But alongside the desperation came an alternative that politicians in Beijing and the White House had not expected: a Chinese app called RedNote.
Founded in 2013, RedNote – originally known as Xiaohongshu – was already a phenomenon within China, but it had never attracted so much attention outside the country. With around 300 million active users, the platform began as a space for sharing shopping, travel and street food tips, but has evolved into a content creation ecosystem similar to Instagram.
Unlike TikTok, which prioritizes instant virality, RedNote relies on an algorithm that favors authentic posts and less reliance on big influencers. Its feed is built based on users’ real interests, allowing for a level of personalization that quickly captivated Americans.
According to Sensor Tower, in the days leading up to TikTok’s blockade (from January 13 to January 19), RedNote saw its downloads in the US increase by 300%. When TikTok finally went offline, RedNote reached the top spot on the US App Store. Thus, what seemed like just a digital migration turned into a geopolitical experimen
Cultural bridge between superpowers
On one side, newly arrived Americans were trying to understand a completely new interface, immersed in an environment where Mandarin was the default language. On the other, Chinese users, accustomed to a national digital bubble, observed the sudden arrival of curious and often lost foreigners.
As expected, culture shock ensued. Americans were surprised to discover that the cost of living in China was much lower than they had imagined. Videos went viral showing doctor’s appointments for $15, subway tickets for $0.50, and rents 80% cheaper than in New York. According to the World Population Review, the average monthly salary in Shanghai, one of China’s most expensive cities, is $1,400, while in New York it exceeds $6,000 – a disturbing economic contrast.
Furthermore, while Americans were trying to decipher the app’s menus and functions, Chinese users were also offering their help. Local profiles began teaching Mandarin to newcomers, and searches for Chinese lessons on Duolingo skyrocketed. Data from the language-learning platform indicates a 216% increase in the number of new American users studying Mandarin, directly linked to the rise of RedNote.
Like never before, the exchange between the superpowers has become a hot—and sensitive—issue for the United States. “For the first time, Americans are seeing China without the filters of Western media. RedNote may have been China’s biggest soft power coup yet,” said Cyrus Janssen, an American user on his YouTube channel. As of this writing, his video analysis on the cultural implications of cross-platform migration has already racked up more than 300,000 views.
Legal and diplomatic grey area
The debate over banning TikTok in the US is not new. During the first Trump administration, the stance towards the platform was firm, but open to negotiations. In August 2020, Trump threatened to ban TikTok, but at the same time sought a middle ground: he allowed negotiations for American companies to acquire the local operation of the app.
Microsoft, Oracle and even Walmart entered the dispute to buy the platform, which could continue operating in the country under new control. At the time, the strategy was pragmatic – instead of depriving millions of users of an essential communication tool, the US would try to absorb its economic potential while minimizing the risks of foreign influence.
Under the Biden administration, however, the approach has changed. The White House has taken a more direct and hardline stance: TikTok must be sold to an American owner or be banned permanently. Unlike the previous administration, which explored alternatives, new legislation passed in April 2024 – the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act – has removed the possibility of negotiations and has put ByteDance on the spot, arguing that the Chinese government could use the data of American citizens for espionage and information manipulation.
Still, the decision raises questions. If the problem is data misuse, why don’t other major platforms, such as Facebook and Google, which also collect huge amounts of personal information, face similar restrictions? The incongruity was evident when former President Trump himself, who previously advocated banning TikTok, recently declared that “Banning TikTok will not make Americans safer.” Indeed, cybersecurity experts point out that US citizens’ data is already widely accessible through data brokers and other platforms that sell information to anyone willing to pay for it, including Chinese companies.
Faced with this paradox, the United States has entered a legal and diplomatic gray area. The government now faces a dilemma: whether to maintain the coherence of its security policy or admit that the decision is more linked to geopolitical interests than to the protection of citizens. If the intention was to limit China’s influence, the massive migration to RedNote shows that the public is not willing to give up its digital preferences. Rather than reducing China’s presence in the United States, the decision may have further accelerated its cultural and technological penetration, something that Beijing is certainly watching closely.
fragmented internet
The internet, which once symbolized the promise of an interconnected global space, is fragmenting into distinct digital blocs. The concept of the “splinternet,” in which each country establishes its own digital borders, has gone from being a mere trend to a fact in the Western world. The US Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the mandatory sale or ban of TikTok indicates that the days of a free digital environment may be coming to an end.
Proof of this is the escalation of trade and political tensions between the countries. In late 2024, the US imposed sanctions on 140 Chinese technology companies, including Naura Technology Group and SiCarrier Technology, restricting their access to semiconductors in order to limit the country’s ability to develop advanced chips ideal for military and artificial intelligence applications. In response, China announced export restrictions on materials essential for semiconductor manufacturing, such as gallium, antimony, and germanium. The country has also instructed its companies to avoid American chips in order to increase efforts towards technological self-sufficiency.
Digital fragmentation is already a reality for users, companies and governments. The internet is becoming a set of national networks with restricted access and their own regulations, while the digital experience is increasingly defined by geopolitics. What works in the United States may not be viable in Asia, while what thrives in Europe may not have a place in Latin America. The idea of a global and universal internet is dissolving before our eyes, giving way to a patchwork of incompatible national networks.
From social networking to generative AI
The AI hegemony has always been in Silicon Valley’s hands, but that changed in early January. DeepSeek, a Chinese open-source model, created a buzz, surpassing ChatGPT to become the most downloaded free app in the US, sparking panic in the industry.
What caught the global attention was not just the mass adoption, but the framework that made the AI model possible. Costing $5.57 million and trained on just 2,048 GPUs for two months, DeepSeek V3 challenged the status quo that cutting-edge AI requires billions of dollars and massive infrastructure.
As expected, the model’s disruption compared to its competitors did not go unnoticed. On the one hand, the feat earned praise from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who emphasized the model’s computational efficiency, and from Meta’s Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun, who illustrated the impact of open research: “Everyone can profit from it.” On the other hand, the core of Big Tech, which had been a pioneer in advances in generative AI, suffered a brutal shock with the launch of Chinese AI. Nvidia lost US$500 billion in market value, and the technology sector shrank US$1 trillion on the Nasdaq in a single day. Chinese competitors have also felt the pressure: Alibaba Cloud, the technology arm of the Alibaba conglomerate, has launched Qwen 2.5-Max, a model that the company says outperforms models such as OpenAI’s GPT-4o, DeepSeek-V3 and Llama-3.1-405B in “almost every aspect”.
The rapid adoption of DeepSeek and the interest of companies in Chinese models signal that even under U.S. sanctions, control of AI will no longer be exclusive to U.S. giants. Open-source, high-efficiency models are decentralizing computing power, reshaping digital infrastructure and expanding options for governments, businesses and users.
Islanded businesses
We are currently facing a model of “digital islands,” in which each country imposes regulations according to its own interests. In this scenario, companies seeking to survive and maintain continuous growth need to relearn how to identify opportunities and mitigate risks, always considering that the digital environment is a reflection of the divisions in the physical world.
According to data from the National Confederation of Retail Managers (CNDL) and the Credit Protection Service (SPC Brasil), 67% of Brazilian companies in the commerce and services sector have WhatsApp as their main sales channel. In addition, 62% of small and medium-sized companies use Instagram as their main digital sales and engagement channel, while 97.6% consider it the main advertising platform for their marketing strategies.
In this scenario, how could companies react to a – hypothetical – suspension of Meta’s apps in the country? Would there be a plan B or would they be completely at the mercy of the market’s geopolitical fluctuations? It is essential to remember that a significant portion of users (700,000 on TikTok alone) do not give up their digital experiences in the name of governments and ideological discourses. In the same way that users can be lost, the opposite also happens, transforming platforms into hosts for thousands of digital refugees. It is therefore essential to plan and position yourself in moments like this so as not to miss opportunities.
The fall of the Nasdaq and the rise of Chinese technology are not isolated events. In fact, they are symptoms of a tectonic transition, in which the North American Silicon Valley model – based on privatized innovation and open markets – clashes with its Chinese rival – which combines state planning, industrial scale and excellence in technical standards.
For organizations, the way out lies in hybrid adaptation: diversifying suppliers, pushing for open standards and, above all, recognizing that, in a polarized world, survival depends on the ability to navigate multiple ecosystems – without illusions that technology will one day be free from geopolitics.
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( fonte: MIT Technology Review)
