(The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)
By Hudson Lockett
HONG KONG, Jan 20 (Reuters Breakingviews) - More than 3 mln Americans joined the Tencent- and Alibaba-backed Chinese social media platform as its bigger rival's ban neared. The refugees are sparking cross-cultural repartee but also pushing up RedNote's costs and causing security concerns, complicating its path to an IPO.
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Nearly 3 million new users joined China-based social media platform RedNote, known domestically as Xiaohongshu, in just one day, Reuters reported on Jan. 17, citing analytics firm Similarweb. A further 700,000 had signed up earlier in the month, Reuters reported a day earlier. The influx was triggered by a U.S. ban slated for Jan. 19 on TikTok, the Chinese-owned video platform used by 170 million Americans. However, Tiktok began restoring service after President-elect Donald Trump announced he would revive U.S. access to the app.
Some of Xiaohongshu’s top backers are in talks to sell shares at an implied valuation of at least $20 billion, Bloomberg reported on Jan. 16, potentially marking a rebound from lower valuations caused by Beijing’s tech crackdown in 2021. On the same day, The Information reported regulators had instructed the company to segregate Chinese and American users and improve censorship of English-language content.
(Editing by Antony Currie and Ujjaini Dutta)
((For previous columns by the author, Reuters customers can click on hudson.lockett@thomsonreuters.com))
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