The high-stakes race to become the next TikTok as ban looms

Most Australians have probably never heard of RedNote. Nor one of its fellow little-known rivals, Lemon8. That’s likely to change, however, as the clock ticks down on a potential US shutdown of TikTok, with influencers and users scrambling to join rival apps in a bid to start again and effectively build up their audiences from scratch.

The US Supreme Court is widely tipped on January 19 to uphold a law forcing TikTok to either sell its US operations or face a ban, amid national security concerns. The law, dubbed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversaries Controlled Applications Act, will come into effect the day before US President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

A pair of Chinese-made social apps, RedNote and Lemon8, have taken over the top two positions on Apple’s iPhone download charts in the US as users seek out alternatives to TikTok ahead of an imminent ban.Credit: Raul Ariano/Bloomberg

Trump has pledged to save the app, and incoming US national security adviser Mike Waltz on Thursday (US time) told Fox News show Fox & Friends that the federal law that could ban TikTok also “allows for an extension as long as a viable deal is on the table”.

Despite rumours that the Chinese government is angling for Elon Musk to buy TikTok, its parent company has repeatedly said it will not sell – a point reiterated to this masthead by a source close to the company with knowledge of its thinking – and the TikTok users and influencers are now preparing for the app to be effectively switched off in the US.

Once TikTok goes dark, it’s expected that it will be pulled entirely from Google and Apple’s app stores, and users will be met with a pop-up message informing them that the service is no longer available in the country.

Rival apps are thriving amid the chaos.

The term “TikTok refugee” is trending on RedNote, a Chinese social media app known in Mandarin as Xiaohongshu, which translates to Little Red Book – probably a reference to the book of quotes by People’s Republic of China founder chairman Mao Zedong.

RedNote was founded in 2013 and is typically thought of as China’s app equivalent to Instagram. It boasts about 300 million monthly active users, and at the time of writing is the No.1 app in the US, where it has already racked up millions of downloads. It’s owned by Shanghai-based company Xingyin Information Technology and is built for users that speak Mandarin, rather than English. It does not have an English language option.

Some Australian brands are already using RedNote to market towards Chinese-speaking women and young people in particular, including companies Penfolds, Sydney Airport and Medibank, and institutions such as the University of Wollongong.

More than a dozen Australian politicians are on the platform too, including Liberal MP Keith Wolahan, Melbourne Lord Mayor Nick Reece and Victorian Labor MP Carina Garland.

Lemon8 is the second-most popular app in the US at the time of writing, though unlike RedNote it isn’t available for download in Australia. An app for users to edit and share photos and videos, Lemon8 is also owned by TikTok parent company ByteDance, and has been described as a TikTok “back-up app”.

Given Lemon8 is owned by ByteDance, it’s likely to be subject to the same US law banning TikTok, given the law applies to “any other applications or service development provided by ByteDance”.

The US Supreme Court is widely tipped on January 19 to uphold a law forcing TikTok to either sell its US operations or face a ban, amid national security concerns.Credit: AP

China’s National Intelligence Law of 2017 requires all organisations and citizens to “support, assist and co-operate with the state intelligence work”, and the Australian government has banned TikTok on government devices over security concerns related to China’s intelligence laws. Governments from Britain, Canada, France and New Zealand have also banned the app from official devices.

In Australia, while some users and influencers are migrating to RedNote, others are sticking with US-based apps such as YouTube, given the national security concerns. Jordan Michaelides is managing director of Australian influencer agency Neuralle, and has spent the past few weeks working his talent, including comedians, models and DJs, on gaming out what a TikTok ban would entail.

Jordan Michaelides is managing director of Australian influencer agency Neuralle.Credit:

“We’ve basically told talent for now to proceed as they normally would,” he said in an interview. “Although a lot of them are pretty dominant on TikTok, the reality is that they make a piece of content, which is a short-form video under two minutes, and that content can go anywhere.

“TikTok has been the place of discovery over the past three or four years, but we’re planning for the potential downside, which is that it actually gets shut down.”

Michaelides’ clients are based in Australia, but he said they would probably focus less of their time and attention on TikTok and instead more on US-based platforms such as Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat, should TikTok be banned in the US.

Timothy Springs is better known as Hollywould Star, an Australian drag queen who was previously a finalist on reality show RuPaul’s Drag Race. The performer, who uses the TikTok handle @onlyhollywould and is performing at Melbourne’s Midsumma Carnival this weekend, said TikTok had been vital to building an audience globally.

Hollywould Star is an Australian drag queen who was a finalist on reality show RuPaul’s Drag Race.Credit: Eddie Jim

“I see social media as a résumé,” they said. “Most auditions, castings and roles I have gone for in the past 10 years always ask for your social media handles … It’s an online ongoing portfolio, and a huge percentage of my jobs come from social media.

“Social media can be life-changing for people, and TikTok’s demise would greatly affect artists like me, businesses, and musicians all around the world.”

Adam Stewart is a Melbourne-based TikTok content creator and works with a high number of US brands, including ChatGPT. At present, he runs the official ChatGPT TikTok account.

Stewart is exploring other platforms, including RedNote, given that many American TikTok users have moved across in recent weeks.

“I’ll be sticking around as much as possible as an Australian user, but I’m expecting to lose a lot of my follower base, and I’ll lose a lot of sponsorship opportunities and potential marketing leads from the US,” he said.

Local experts expect that should the US ban TikTok, Australia would probably follow suit, given the “Five Eye” countries – also including Canada, New Zealand and Britain – would each share similar fears that China can use TikTok to access user data.

Michaelides predicts that TikTok’s ban may create a vacuum for an entirely new app to take off, perhaps one that hasn’t been invented yet. He says that, either way, the influencer economy is here to stay.

“I tell my roster you have to be completely agnostic, you have to view yourself as an entertainer and essentially de-risk yourself from the algorithm changing or compressing views,” he says.

”One per cent of all media spend is on influencers, and it’s basically doubling every year. When I started in this industry, it was 0.2 per cent … It wasn’t even measured.

“Influencers are growing as a percentage of media spend because [brands] want trust, and consumers want trust as well.”

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