SHANGHAI — Users of the Chinese social media app RedNote welcomed “TikTok refugees” from the United States with selfies and messages on Wednesday, as Beijing said it encouraged stronger cultural ties with other countries in response to the sudden influx.

Known in China as Xiaohongshu and as a platform to find lifestyle recommendations on areas from beauty to food, the app has in recent days been transformed into an unexpected bilateral channel for U.S.-China exchanges, with users swapping photos and questions about pets, favorite foods and their lives.

Not everyone was happy, though, with some grumbling that their platform was being taken over and nationalist bloggers warning against American influences.

The influx of more than 700,000 new users has been driven by a looming U.S. ban on TikTok, used by 170 million Americans, on national security concerns.

Many Chinese users on Wednesday posted selfies and messages saying “welcome TikTok refugees”, and responded eagerly to questions from U.S. users on topics such as popular Chinese dishes, city tourist sights and even China’s birth policies.

Among them was Jacob Hui, a translator in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, who said he joined a live chat co-hosted by Chinese and American influencers on the platform and posed questions – such as what video games were popular in the U.S. – to the new users.

“There were not many such opportunities to directly interact with Americans in the past,” he said.

Chinese state media has also cheered the trend, with state broadcaster CCTV saying that the TikTok users had found a “new home”. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun, asked at a regular press briefing, said the use of social media was a “personal choice”.

“China has always supported and encouraged strengthening cultural exchanges and promoting mutual understanding among the peoples of all countries,” Guo said.

China has for years tightly controlled cyberspace through its “Great Firewall” censorship architecture and blocked foreign social media networks such as Instagram and X.

While many Chinese social media platforms such as Weibo allow foreign phone numbers to register, they usually limit such users to the international versions. ByteDance restricts TikTok to foreign users and runs a separate version for mainland Chinese residents called Douyin.

RedNote, in contrast, does not require users to have such a number and maintains only one version of its app. The company did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment on Wednesday.

In the past, other Western social media platforms, such as Clubhouse, have enjoyed a similar trend of Chinese mainland users joining in swathes before being blocked by Beijing’s censors.

‘PROPAGANDISTS FROM THE UNITED STATES’
The newcomers to RedNote have not been universally welcomed, however, with criticism from some Chinese users unhappy with how they were changing the content of the platform and from some nationalist Chinese bloggers.

Ren Yi, the Harvard-educated grandson of a former Chinese Communist leader who runs a popular WeChat blog under the pen name “Chairman Rabbit”, warned his followers against being unsuspectingly influenced.

“Propagandists from the United States can easily achieve their goals by following a simple routine – first praise you a few words to make you ‘relax your vigilance’, and then bring their own goods to subtly influence you,” he said in an article first published on Wednesday morning that was later deleted.

Beijing-based independent industry analyst Liu Xingliang said he believed the sudden popularity of RedNote among TikTok users would be short-lived, though the current atmosphere was “very warm and joyful.”

“American netizens are in a dissatisfied mood, and wanting to find another Chinese app to use is a catharsis of short-term emotions and a rebellious gesture. You can see that Xiaohongshu is also caught unprepared, the experience on it is not very good for foreigners,” he said.

There were also signs that some new foreign users were testing the platform’s censorship limits, with some posting on social media network X that they were unable to post about topics known to be sensitive in China such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.

Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing two sources familiar with the company, that the platform was scrambling to find ways to moderate English-language content and build English-Chinese translation tools. — Reuters

NEW YORK — Disappointment, denial and confusion flooded U.S. TikTok on Wednesday upon hearing the news that Chinese owner ByteDance planned to shut off the app for its 170 million US users by Sunday, seemingly throwing in the towel on efforts to keep the popular video-sharing platform going.

Users who have amassed followings and careers on the app hoped for months that TikTok would find a way to avoid a US ban passed into law in 2023. But resignation and anger have begun to set in, with Jan. 19 just a few days away.

“TikTok signaling that white flag is very discouraging and very sad,” said Joonsuk Shin, 28, a research manager and content creator based in New York.

Some users called for a boycott of apps like Instagram and Facebook, owned by Meta Platforms and X, owned by Elon Musk, which are expected to pull in advertisers who used TikTok frequently.

“We all need to delete our Facebook, X and Instagram accounts that same day,” one user said.

ByteDance was given until Jan. 19 to sell the U.S. assets of TikTok or face a US ban, following lawmakers’ concerns that the app poses national security risks because China could compel the company to share the data of its U.S. users. TikTok has denied that it has or ever would share U.S. user data.

TikTok and its parent company ByteDance have sought to delay the law’s implementation, which they say violates the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment protection against government abridgment of free speech.

Unless the US Supreme Court decides to halt the ban, people attempting to open the app on Sunday will see a pop-up message directing them to a website with information about the shutdown.

TikTok user Amber Goode, 28, a true crime content creator from Colorado Springs, Colorado, complained about waiting for the Supreme Court to make a decision on the fate of the beloved app.

“Why are they playing with us?” Ms. Goode said. “I feel like the government is avoiding giving us the answer they already know.”

The Washington Post on Wednesday reported President-elect Donald Trump is considering issuing an executive order hoping to “save TikTok,” but it is unclear if such an order would circumvent the ban.

Other users started bidding farewell this week, sharing information on where their followers can find them. Many have already decamped to China-based apps like RedNote — using translation services to decipher instructions to sign up, which are in Mandarin.

On Tuesday, users were still hoping for the prospect of a 270-day extension of the Sunday deadline, while some jokingly parroted simple Chinese phrases they picked up on RedNote, leaving TikTokers wondering: “How did everyone learn Chinese in 24-hours?”

Some are scrambling to save their content.

“My daughter passed away in 2023. I’ve been saving all her videos to my phone. I can’t lose those,” one user commented.

Other users thanked ByteDance for “not giving into the bullies” by not waiting for a ruling, while others criticized them for doing exactly that.

“It’s pretty sad because I thought we were making progress,” said former attorney and full-time creator Ishpal Sidhu, 32, who stands to lose close to 400,000 followers and her income on Sunday. She wondered if she would still be paid for her content in January.

Some users outside of the United States were more blunt — celebrating how their algorithms would no longer be dominated by American social media woes.

“Say goodbye to the Americans,” said New Zealand content creator Luke Hopewell. — Reuters

AS Los Angeles residents fled an insatiable inferno in Pacific Palisades last week, aerial firefighter Diego Calderoni was plunging towards the flames at about 170 mph (275 kph) in a DC-10 jet.

Relying on instinct and 13 years of experience, Mr. Calderoni pushed his 37-year-old jet — a plane designed to haul passengers across oceans, not to skim treetops — into a canyon and dropped a load of fire retardant, aiming between a cluster of firefighters on the ground and a wave of 60-foot-tall (18-meter-tall) flames sweeping towards them.

The 42-year-old pilot scored a direct hit, giving the ground crew the breathing space to save a nearby house.

Mr. Calderoni is among dozens of pilots from around the United States and Canada who have rushed to Los Angeles to drop fire retardant and water on fires encircling the city in a disaster that has claimed at least 25 lives and destroyed thousands of homes and entire neighborhoods.

Tankers and helicopters can slow down a fire or direct its path, but ground crews working with hand tools or hoses are the ones who actually contain it.

For aerial firefighters — or fire bombers, as they are commonly called — hitting the target is “the seat of the pants part” of the job, said Calderoni, a pilot with 10 Tanker, an aerial firefighting contractor based in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

There is no precision equipment or autopilot for fire drops, just a pilot’s view through the windscreen and his experience.

“I call it ‘feeling the force,’” Mr. Calderoni told Reuters, a reference to a mystical energy in the sci-fi film, Star Wars.

Mr. Calderoni has flown over countless fires but was still shocked by the devastation he witnessed when he flew into Los Angeles on Jan. 8.

“It looks like a war zone,” he said. “Everything’s just wiped out.”

FIRE BOMBERS
In the five or six daily runs he’s performed in Los Angeles over the last week, Mr. Calderoni’s DC-10 air tanker has been buffeted by updrafts and downdrafts, while also getting pushed by strong crosswinds whipping through canyons and passes.

Tanker pilots can call off a run if they don’t think it is safe, he said. “If you get scared, you’ve put yourself in a scenario that you shouldn’t be in.”

Sean Ketchum, a helicopter captain with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire), is one of a handful of Cal Fire firefighters and pilots trained to work at night using night-vision goggles.

Ketchum, 46, was flying so low on Jan. 10, that he could feel the heat from the flames as his team of Sikorsky S-70i Firehawks were dropping water on the Palisades fire.

Mr. Ketchum has always been drawn to the thrill and urgency of firefighting. As a young kid, he and his friends would race after fire engines on their bicycles. A 23-year veteran with Cal Fire, he has spent the last 10 years flying in the left seat, coordinating with ground crews and other aircraft. He also spent a few years in the 2000s as a backseater, helping guide the pilot.

He said he relishes being one of a small group of firefighters working in the air. He paused and added, it is “super cool to fly on a helicopter every day.”

Mike Evans, 57, began flying helicopters in the U.S. Army in the 1980s, before spending 18 years flying air rescue in Nevada, where he also started working to put out wildfires.

Mr. Evans does not consider fire bombing the most dangerous work he has done, because every move is a calculated risk. Nonetheless, pilots and aerial crew are making life and death decisions under intense pressure, he says.

“If we make an error, people tend to die.” — Reuters