- US Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban
- RedNote has exploded in popularity in recent days
- The platform is very popular in China
News that the US Supreme Court has upheld a TikTok ban has many looking at RedNote. However, what is RedNote and why is everyone talking about in light of the looming TikTok ban in the US?
TikTok’s fate stateside hangs in the air because of bipartisan efforts to stop it from operating in the United States.
Questions still linger about whether this is still happening. Unless something major occurs, it will be forced to stop operating on 19 January.
Read more: Is the TikTok ban still happening?
This is one day before the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, who is set to be sworn in on Monday, 20 January.
Many think the Trump administration could reverse the ban or find an appropriate buyer. Much of this speculation is down to how useful it was to his re-election campaign. In 2020, during his first term, Trump attempted his own ban.
What is RedNote?
First debuting in 2013, RedNote is a video-sharing app, similar to TikTok. It also shares elements with other social media platforms like Instagram and Pinterest.
With a $3 billion valuation, it is one of China’s most popular social media sites. Recently, Tech Crunch reported that it earned more than $1 billion in venture funding.
Why is TikTok being banned?
Last April, US politicians voted to pass a bipartisan bill banning TikTok unless it found an American-based owner.
Lawmakers on Capital Hill claimed TikTok posed “a national-security threat of immense depth and scale” due to apparent connections to the Chinse government. Fears were expressed there was the possibility of US user data being shared with the Chinese Communist Party.
Both TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, have strongly denied these accusations.
Read more: Why are TikTok users flocking to RedNote and Lemon8
Last week, the US Supreme Court denied TikTok’s claim that the law violated the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech.
Chief Justice John Roberts said in an oral argument, “Congress doesn’t care about what’s on TikTok. They don’t care about the expression. That’s shown by the remedy. They’re not saying TikTok has to stop. They’re saying the Chinese have to stop controlling TikTok.”
Justice Elena Kagan said that the “law is only targeted at this foreign corporation, which doesn’t have First Amendment rights.”
