social media

Duolingo sees 216% spike in U.S. users learning Chinese amid TikTok ban and move to RedNote

TikTok U.S. users have been learning Chinese on Duolingo in increasing numbers amid their adoption of a Chinese social app called RedNote ahead of the TikTok ban. The U.S. law, scheduled to go into effect on January 19, unless halted by the Supreme Court, will see TikTok removed from U.S. app stores and will stop

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TikTok users’ attempted migration to Chinese app RedNote isn’t going too well

American TikTok users have been thumbing their collective noses at the U.S. government’s decision to ban TikTok by spitefully joining another Chinese social media app, Red Note (aka Xiaohongshu), sending it to the top of the U.S. App Store on Monday. Unfortunately, many of those who already made the transition have faced problems with having

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Decentralized Instagram alternative Pixelfed launches mobile apps

Pixelfed, a decentralized alternative to Instagram, has launched its official mobile apps. The service today runs on the same ActivityPub protocol that powers an open source X alternative Mastodon, a YouTube competitor PeerTube, and other decentralized social apps, now including Meta’s Threads and Flipboard (plus its newer app, Surf), that are part of a growing

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Xiaohongshu, China’s answer to Instagram, hits no. 1 on the App Store as TikTok faces US shutdown

On the heels of TikTok’s looming shut down on January 19 over its ownership in the U.S. (unless the Supreme Court intervenes), it looks like another Chinese app is catching some attention. American users are flocking Chinese short-form video app Xiaohongshu (known as RedNote in English). The app today surged to the number-one spot for

Xiaohongshu, China’s answer to Instagram, hits no. 1 on the App Store as TikTok faces US shutdown Read More »

Xiaohongshu (RedNote), China’s answer to Instagram, hits No. 1 on the App Store as TikTok faces US shutdown

On the heels of TikTok’s looming shutdown on January 19 over its ownership in the U.S. (unless the Supreme Court intervenes), it looks like another Chinese app is catching some attention. American users are flocking to Chinese short-form video app Xiaohongshu (known as RedNote in English). The app today surged to the No. 1 spot

Xiaohongshu (RedNote), China’s answer to Instagram, hits No. 1 on the App Store as TikTok faces US shutdown Read More »

TikTok ban: How both sides made their case to the Supreme Court and what the justices asked

On Friday, the nation’s highest court heard arguments on whether to uphold or block a law that could effectively ban TikTok​ in the U.S. The bill, signed into law by President Biden in April 2024, gives TikTok’s parent company ByteDance until January 19 to divest its U.S. operations or face a ban in the country.

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TikTok tells LA staff impacted by wildfires to use personal/sick hours if they can’t work from home

Wildfires are currently devastating the greater Los Angeles area, burning over 45 square miles, torching over 1,300 structures, and putting nearly 180,000 people under evacuation orders as of Thursday. And yet, TikTok’s LA-based employees are being told to either continue their work from home or use their personal/sick days if that’s not possible, while the

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Google searches for deleting Facebook, Instagram explode after Meta ends fact-checking

Google searches for how to cancel and delete Facebook, Instagram, and Threads accounts have seen explosive rises in the U.S. since Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company will end its third-party fact-checking system, loosen content moderation policies, and roll back previous limits to the amount of political content in user feeds.  Experts see

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