Little Big RedNote

Sometimes, after a long day speaking English, former WBUR podcast fellow Cici Yu https://www.wbur.org/inside/staff/cici-yu just wants to zone out and spend time on the internet where everyone is speaking her native language, Chinese. Her app of choice? Xiaohongshu, or RedNote. So, when Cici logged on recently to find a feed filled with English-speaking Americans, she was surprised. Show notes: "The great social media migration: Sudden influx of US users to RedNote connects Chinese and Americans like never before" (CNN https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/14/tech/rednote-china-popularity-us-tiktok-ban-intl-hnk/index.html) "More speech and fewer mistakes" (Meta https://about.fb.com/news/2025/01/meta-more-speech-fewer-mistakes/) "Instagram hides search results for 'Democrats'" (BBC https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g32yxpdz0o) "Instagram and Facebook Blocked and Hid Abortion Pill Providers’ Posts" (The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/23/technology/instagram-facebook-abortion-pill-providers.html) Credits: This episode was produced by Grace Tatter. Mix and sound design by Paul Vaitkus. It was hosted by Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken?, a podcast from the Marotra Institute at BU Questrom School of Business. A recent episode explores how AI is reshaping our schools. Stick around until the end of this podcast to preview the episode.

• 0:17Speaker 01

  When everything feels nonstop, movement becomes the pause. So give Lululemon this holiday season. Smooth, seamless running gear builds momentum through every mile.

• 0:29Speaker 01

  Targeted support adds steadiness to every pulse and hold.

• 0:35Speaker 01

  And dynamic stretch expands presence through every pose.

• 0:41Speaker 01

  Give the feeling. Shop in-store and on lululemon.com.

• 0:47Speaker 02

  Now at Kroger, your points add up to more ways to save every trip. Use them your way to take dollars off groceries at checkout or save at the pump. You can even save up to $35 on your next fill-up. Same points, more choices. And with low prices on fresh, quality food, plus digital and personalized offers tailored to how you shop, your dollar goes further. Redeem your points online or in the app. Kroger, fresh for everyone. Restrictions apply. See site or store for details.

• 1:18Amory Sivertson?

  WBUR Podcasts, Boston.

• 1:29Amory Sivertson?

  Ben, you're not much of a TikToker.

• 1:32Ben Brock Johnson?

  More just a talker.

• 1:36Amory Sivertson?

  That you are, which I can say because I am too. And while we have not spent a lot of time talking on TikTok, we have talked a lot about TikTok, especially the past few weeks as its future hangs in the balance.

• 1:51Ben Brock Johnson?

  Death to TikTok. Long live TikTok.

• 1:54Amory Sivertson?

  It's been a real roller coaster for TikTok users. A congressionally imposed ban was supposed to go into effect on January 19.

• 2:01Ben Brock Johnson?

  And it did.

• 2:02Amory Sivertson?

  For 14 hours at least.

• 2:05Ben Brock Johnson?

  But then the app was back up.

• 2:07Amory Sivertson?

  With a message to users thanking President Donald Trump.

• 2:10Ben Brock Johnson?

  Hmm, even though he was not yet the president.

• 2:14Amory Sivertson?

  Right. TikTok might have inaugurated Donald Trump on January 19th, but he did not technically become president until the day after.

• 2:22Ben Brock Johnson?

  At which point, he issued an executive order saying that the ban won't be enforced for at least 75 days. This roller coaster ain't stopping.

• 2:33Amory Sivertson?

  But some people are looking for a smoother ride. Before the TikTok ban went into effect and then out of effect, a lot of Americans began downloading another app.

• 2:44Ben Brock Johnson?

  This is an app that neither of us knew much about.

• 2:48Amory Sivertson?

  Nope. But fortunately, there was one person in the endless thread orbit who did. Former WBUR podcast fellow C.C. Yu.

• 2:56Speaker 05

  Yay, that's me.

• 2:58Ben Brock Johnson?

  What's up, C.C. Welcome to the studio.

• 3:04Amory Sivertson?

  C.C. was here to talk to us about Red Note.

• 3:07Speaker 05

  Actually, let's be clear. That's the official name that the company gave itself.

• 3:13Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay.

• 3:13Speaker 05

  In Chinese, we call it xiao hong shu.

• 3:15Ben Brock Johnson?

  Xiao hong shu.

• 3:17Speaker 05

  Yes, that's pretty good. Yeah, xiao hong shu.

• 3:20Amory Sivertson?

  Translation, little red book.

• 3:25Amory Sivertson?

  I'm Amory Sivertson.

• 3:27Ben Brock Johnson?

  I'm Ben Brock Johnson, and you're listening to Endless Thread.

• 3:30Amory Sivertson?

  Coming to you from WBUR, Boston's NPR, today's episode, Little Big Red Note.

• 3:47Ben Brock Johnson?

  I know a little something about Little Red Books.

• 3:50Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah?

• 3:50Ben Brock Johnson?

  Because I've been to China, and I used to have a Little Red Book.

• 3:53Amory Sivertson?

  Oh, my god.

• 3:56Ben Brock Johnson?

  When I went to China in 2002, Little Red Books were kind of everywhere. Some people not from China who I was with at the time treated them like a tourist curiosity, including early 20s me, admittedly, which is a little odd, I guess, considering everything connected to the Cultural Revolution in China. Whatever the case, I just want to clarify, I'm not a Maoist. I do not read this book every night before I go to bed.

• 4:19Amory Sivertson?

  I mean, you don't read books. You scroll Reddit.

• 4:22Ben Brock Johnson?

  I'm a Redditist. Yeah.

• 4:25Ben Brock Johnson?

  But for the uninitiated, The Little Red Book is a compilation of quotations from Mao Zedong. And during the Cultural Revolution, Mao's government wanted to make sure that pretty much every Chinese person had one of these.

• 4:38Speaker 05

  Maybe that, like, that little cultural reference, the company used Red Note instead of Little Red Book as a direct translation.

• 4:45Ben Brock Johnson?

  Because they didn't want to freak anybody out.

• 4:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, I guess so.

• 4:48Ben Brock Johnson?

  Outside of China.

• 4:49Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah. Red Note is pretty much Cece's favorite place to hang out on her phone.

• 4:54Speaker 05

  This app is, is a go-to app. It has more than one function.

• 5:02Amory Sivertson?

  Design inspiration like Pinterest, chatting with friends.

• 5:06Ben Brock Johnson?

  Career advice, recipes.

• 5:08Amory Sivertson?

  It's all on Red Note.

• 5:09Speaker 05

  If I have any question, I actually will use Xiaohongshu to search and answer. Like, for example, I sprained my ankle like a month ago. I'll type it on Xiaohongshu and be like, what should I do after I sprained my ankle?

• 5:21Ben Brock Johnson?

  Right.

• 5:22Speaker 05

  And there are answers from doctors because they are in Xiaohongshu as well.

• 5:25Amory Sivertson?

  Why are you personally choosing to search for answers about that in Red Note instead of just Googling it?

• 5:33Speaker 05

  Well, you know, because I am Chinese. That's a short answer.

• 5:38Amory Sivertson?

  Okay, okay.

• 5:38Speaker 05

  Well, okay, so I'm living, I'm living in America and I work here. I use English as my primary language, you know, most of my time. And when I'm off the work, like, I would like to go back to my mother language channel. Like, I would like to switch back to another brain and not think about English.

• 6:01Ben Brock Johnson?

  So Cece was surprised on a recent Sunday to be scrolling on Red Note and to all of a sudden be hearing a lot of this.

• 6:10Speaker 06

  I am a TikToker. I feel like a foreign exchange student on this app and I'm loving it. I'm going through in just.

• 6:16Speaker 07

  Following everybody that is a TikTok refugee. I want to show you guys in China, right? This is turns out.

• 6:25Speaker 06

  I don't know any Mandarin. I'm a little bit scared.

• 6:27Speaker 07

  And hopefully, we can just follow a bunch of people and build the algorithm to show us more TikTok folks. So.

• 6:34Speaker 05

  And I'm like, what the heck? What happened?

• 6:40Amory Sivertson?

  This was January 12th, a week before the TikTok ban was supposed to go into effect. And American users heard about this app, RedNote, which, like TikTok, uses an algorithm to deliver you content instead of just serving you what your own social network is posting.

• 6:56Ben Brock Johnson?

  So at first, Cece is not thrilled to see and hear these American self-proclaimed refugees in her feed.

• 7:04Speaker 05

  My secret social media has been discovered. Like, why?

• 7:09Amory Sivertson?

  She's also just confused because this app is super Chinese.

• 7:14Speaker 05

  All the contents are in Chinese. Like, if you are here, you know, doesn't know anything about Chinese, you'll be so confused. You're just looking at characters that you don't know.

• 7:27Ben Brock Johnson?

  But soon, her confusion and consternation.

• 7:30Speaker 05

  Turn into delight. I saw these, you know, really funny interaction between Chinese people and Americans.

• 7:38Speaker 06

  Hi refugees. It's Roxy Kaya Cassis, a.k.a. your 10th refugee guy. There are two main things we do here. Check in and throw shade. Say it with me. Da ka. Since you're in my home, please enjoy the massive hospitalities and please do speak as much Chinese as you could. My grandma does read the comments, and I don't want to let her hang.

• 8:03Speaker 05

  Chinese people will post a meme of a dog holding to gun.

• 8:10Speaker 05

  And just be like, "Give me your data."

• 8:14Speaker 05

  Let me show you. This is really fun.

• 8:16Ben Brock Johnson?

  So it was like the Chinese users were inhabiting the ridiculous caricature of what they felt Americans assumed about Chinese users.

• 8:30Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 8:32Amory Sivertson?

  Everyone was in on the bit. And the irony that TikTok was being banned for its ties to the Chinese government, only for American users to download another app with ties to the Chinese government.

• 8:43Ben Brock Johnson?

  There's also some riffing on taxing each other, but these are not President Trump's tariffs.

• 8:49Speaker 05

  If you want to be, you know, welcome in this community, you should pay cat tax.

• 8:55Amory Sivertson?

  Cat tax?

• 8:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 8:56Amory Sivertson?

  Oh, you have to like post your cat to introduce yourself properly?

• 9:00Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 9:01Ben Brock Johnson?

  Happy to pay the cat tax.

• 9:07Ben Brock Johnson?

  All of the interactions Cece was seeing between her two countries on this app were pretty wholesome.

• 9:13Speaker 05

  I started to learn English when I'm in elementary school.

• 9:18Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay.

• 9:18Speaker 05

  And starting in like maybe third grade, we will have English class. In every English test, there will be a writing section asking you to pretend that you be Li Hua. And you write a letter to your pen pal in America and introduce your life, introduce a food in your city,

• 9:43Speaker 05

  introduce your culture, introduce Chinese New Year to your pen pal in America.

• 9:48Amory Sivertson?

  This is an experience that people share across China, embodying this fictional character, Li Hua, and writing to a fictional American pen pal.

• 9:57Ben Brock Johnson?

  Bad fictional pen pals who never write back.

• 10:00Amory Sivertson?

  Until now.

• 10:02Speaker 05

  So people, like American people, are starting to respond and be like, "Dear Li Hua, I hope you're doing well. I'm sorry that it takes so long for me to respond your letters."

• 10:13Ben Brock Johnson?

  That's nice.

• 10:14Speaker 05

  I know, it's really nice. So I just feel like such, you know, cultural exchange moment just made me feel like, yes, maybe this is just what internet is, because internet is supposed to connect people from all over the place.

• 10:30Ben Brock Johnson?

  Great job, internet.

• 10:38Amory Sivertson?

  Cici told us that this kind of online interaction between American people and Chinese people living in China is pretty rare.

• 10:45Speaker 05

  Chinese people do not have access of Western media, for example, like Google, Facebook, Instagram, because they're banned in China.

• 10:55Amory Sivertson?

  Even TikTok, which is famously owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, isn't available in China.

• 11:01Ben Brock Johnson?

  In China, they use the original app, Douyin. It's also owned by ByteDance, but you need a Chinese phone number to download it.

• 11:09Amory Sivertson?

  Anyone can download Red Note, though, leading Cici to wonder.

• 11:13Speaker 05

  Maybe this is like an app that creates this bridge between Chinese people and Americans that they can share with each other what is going on in their life.

• 11:26Amory Sivertson?

  Well, some of what is going on in their lives.

• 11:29Speaker 05

  On this app, there are a lot of things that you cannot discuss, for example, political topics.

• 11:34Amory Sivertson?

  Because in order for it to actually exist at all in China, there can't really be like expressions of huge political resistance.

• 11:42Speaker 05

  Yes, the app need to work under the Chinese regulation, which does not allow them to promote any religious conversation, political speech.

• 12:00Ben Brock Johnson?

  Where does Red Note fit into our social media future?

• 12:03Amory Sivertson?

  We'll discuss after a break.

• 12:20Speaker 00

  Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken?, a podcast from the Marotra Institute at BU Questram School of Business. How should employers measure real skills in the age of AI?

• 12:32Speaker 07

  Instead of observing the final artifact, instead of observing the final essay or the final program, observe the entire process of creation.

• 12:41Speaker 00

  Follow Is Business Broken? wherever you get your podcasts and stick around until the end of this podcast for a preview of a recent episode on rethinking academic and job assessment when AI can do the work.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  When everything feels nonstop, movement becomes the pause. So give Lululemon this holiday season. Smooth, seamless running gear builds momentum through every mile. Targeted support adds steadiness to every pulse and hold.

• 13:17Speaker 01

  And dynamic stretch expands presence through every pose.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  Give the feeling. Shop in-store and on lululemon.com.

• 13:30Speaker 02

  When you shop Kroger delivery, you can expect the savings you love and fresh groceries delivered right to your door. From delicious produce to everyday essentials, enjoy the convenience of delivery and the trusted selection you've come to know from Kroger. Because bringing you fresh, quality groceries is what we do best. Right now, enjoy free delivery on orders of $50 or more with your digital coupon. Restrictions apply. See site for details. Kroger: Fresh for everyone.

• 14:00Ben Brock Johnson?

  In the days leading up to the US TikTok ban, thousands of users jumped to the Chinese app RedNote, which will probably just be a footnote to all of the social media upheaval so far this year.

• 14:13Amory Sivertson?

  In January, Meta announced that it was changing its fact-checking. Instead of partnering with independent third-party fact-checkers from news organizations, it's copying Elon Musk's X, crowdsourced fact-checking via community notes.

• 14:28Ben Brock Johnson?

  Meta also updated its hateful conduct policy, specifying that they now do allow, quote, "allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation."

• 14:43Amory Sivertson?

  Woof. Meta has been adamant that these changes are made in the spirit of less censorship.

• 14:49Ben Brock Johnson?

  In a video message, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that these changes were in response to Trump's election, which he said felt like a, quote, "cultural tipping point."

• 14:59Speaker 07

  The fact-checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they've created, especially in the US.

• 15:05Ben Brock Johnson?

  These changes made some users uneasy. And then, the day after President Trump was inaugurated, Instagram briefly hid results when users searched terms including "Democrats." Meta told the BBC that was a glitch.

• 15:19Amory Sivertson?

  Meta also blocked content from abortion access organizations. A company spokesperson told The New York Times that this was due to, quote, "overenforcement" of a policy against selling pharmaceutical drugs on their platform.

• 15:32Ben Brock Johnson?

  These changes and reported glitches have led to calls to boycott Meta products, including Facebook and Instagram.

• 15:39Speaker 06

  Meta intentionally lobbied against your First Amendment rights. Stop using their platforms.

• 15:45Amory Sivertson?

  I'm gonna lose considerable money by leaving Meta. I would rather not lose my integrity. February 1st, I will not be here no more.

• 16:06Ben Brock Johnson?

  Although it's unclear how many people are actually logging off.

• 16:10Amory Sivertson?

  We have seen a mass exodus from popular social media platforms before. Millions of people have already deactivated their X accounts since Elon Musk took over what used to be Twitter. And now, many subreddits are even banning links to X.

• 16:25Ben Brock Johnson?

  Combined with the TikTok ban, it feels like a global turning point for online communities and social media. And RedNote is just a small piece of that.

• 16:35Amory Sivertson?

  In the past few weeks, RedNote has scrambled to hire English-language moderators and up its translation game. Cece noticed some of these changes.

• 16:44Speaker 05

  I think RedNote will be more, you know, international in a way that it already adopt translation tool. And you can also filter English-prefered content on your feed. So it's definitely, you know, adopting their system to be more international and more welcoming to foreigner. But at the same time, are Americans going to stay?

• 17:15Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah.

• 17:15Speaker 05

  Not sure.

• 17:19Ben Brock Johnson?

  I think this is a really good question. And I also think I'm really like of two minds about this in some ways, Amory. I mean, on the one hand, what I see in the history of like tech companies and acquisitions and this kind of like endless cycle of money in the tech world is really they're not as much technology acquisitions as they are audience acquisitions, right?

• 17:46Amory Sivertson?

  Mm hmm.

• 17:47Ben Brock Johnson?

  But a lot of the time, they're doing it just to buy an audience that has been gained by that app because people understand that that's really hard to do. That's the thing that's really hard to do is build a massive audience that like stays and wants to stay. And then on the other hand, I think about this sort of like the historic battlefield of technology that is littered with the corpses of, do you, I mean, do you remember, have you ever heard of Friendster?

• 18:14Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah.

• 18:15Ben Brock Johnson?

  And MySpace?

• 18:16Amory Sivertson?

  Oh, MySpace.

• 18:18Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah. And to a certain degree Tumblr, you know, like I just, I feel like there are these other plat, you know? So I'm kind of two minds about this. I also recognize that this is different, right? Like, this is not just sort of the, the usual acquisition churn.

• 18:34Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah. It's not an app dying a natural death, the way that like MySpace did. Yeah.

• 18:40Ben Brock Johnson?

  It's this government ban that, that feels like we're in a very kind of like in-between space where there's like a ban, but there's not a ban, or the ban might continue or it might not continue and like some people can still access it and some people can't.

• 18:54Amory Sivertson?

  And it has a bunch of people on the internet going, don't tell me what to do.

• 18:58Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yes.

• 19:00Amory Sivertson?

  You know what I mean?

• 19:01Ben Brock Johnson?

  As always, and as they should. Producer Grace Tatter dropped a story into the chats this week about how some people are spending thousands of dollars on phones that still have access to TikTok because if you deleted it or you got a new phone, you can't get access to TikTok via the App Store right now.

• 19:23Amory Sivertson?

  Wow. Yeah, and I think we go, I guess I should only speak for myself in feeling like, wow, the internet gives me access to all of these people and places that I can't reach otherwise, or I wouldn't know otherwise, or I wouldn't be able to connect to any other way. And also just wanting my world to be very, very small and, you know, resorting to my actual favorite app, which is just texting, just contacting someone close to me who, you know, maybe isn't on social media anymore because of everything that's happening in these spaces right now. And I want to be able to find out what's going on in their

• 20:05Amory Sivertson?

  life. And so I'm like, oh, I should just send them a message and say, hey, how's the new job? Or whatever, you know?

• 20:13Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah, I have something like that, but it's leaving two-minute-long voicemails.

• 20:20Amory Sivertson?

  Some of which start and end with meow.

• 20:26Ben Brock Johnson?

  You know, you gotta bring annoying joy in the world as much as you can right now.

• 20:34Ben Brock Johnson?

  So, you know, I guess we're curious if listeners have changed how and where they spend their time online in the last few months. We would love to hear more from you. You can email us at [email protected]. And, you know, we should say, we don't really know how this is all going to play out, but Red Note has certainly had its moment, maybe.

• 20:58Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah, at the time we're recording this, Red Note has dropped quickly from the number one free download in Apple's App Store to number 128.

• 21:08Ben Brock Johnson?

  The app at the top of the list as of recording this episode is another Chinese-owned app, not TikTok, of course, DeepSeek AI. And you're going to hear more about DeepSeek in our next episode.

• 21:38Ben Brock Johnson?

  This episode was produced by Grace Tatter.

• 21:41Amory Sivertson?

  It was co-hosted by me, Amory Sivertson, and Ben Brock Johnson.

• 21:44Ben Brock Johnson?

  It was mixed in sound design by our production manager, Paul Vikes. And thanks to our former podcast fellow CCU for tipping us off to her secret favorite app. We promise not to mess up your algorithm, CC.

• 21:57Amory Sivertson?

  Endless Thread is a show about the blurred lines between online communities and two-minute-long voice notes.

• 22:04Ben Brock Johnson?

  If you've got an unsolved mystery, an untold history, or a crazy story from the internet that you want us to tell, hit us up. Endless Thread at WBUR.org.

• 22:25Speaker 00

  Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken?, a podcast from the Marotra Institute at BU Queston School of Business. Follow Is Business Broken wherever you get your podcasts. And listen on for a preview of a recent episode featuring Janet Kang, Executive Director of the Just Horizons Alliance, on who stands to benefit from AI in education.

• 22:48Speaker 05

  I am absolutely in favor of AI in learning in the right context.

• 22:53Ben Brock Johnson?

  And just to explain why you're excited about it.

• 22:55Speaker 05

  Oh, my gosh. Individualized support, right? Personalization. And to be able to scale quality education in places where it was historically impossible. So for certain kinds of learners with different kinds of learning styles and disabilities, for example, speakers of different languages, there are amazing ways AI can boost learning. It just has to be with the right context. And age appropriateness is something we do a lot of work in because it is very different depending on where in that maturity cycle you are in terms of how your brain develops.

• 23:26Speaker 00

  Find the full episode by searching for Is Business Broken? wherever you get your podcasts. And learn more about the Marotra Institute for Business Markets and Society at ibms.bu.edu.

• 23:44Speaker 01

  When everything feels nonstop, movement becomes the pause. So give Lululemon this holiday season. Smooth, seamless running gear builds momentum through every mile.

• 23:56Speaker 01

  Targeted support adds steadiness to every pulse and hold.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  And dynamic stretch expands presence through every pose.

• 24:08Speaker 01

  Give the feeling. Shop in-store and on lululemon.com.

• 24:14Speaker 02

  Now at Kroger, your points add up to more ways to save every trip. Use them your way to take dollars off groceries at checkout or save at the pump. You can even save up to $35 on your next fill-up. Same points, more choices. And with low prices on fresh, quality food, plus digital and personalized offers tailored to how you shop, your dollar goes further. Redeem your points online or in the app. Kroger: Fresh for Everyone. Restrictions apply. See site or store for details.