As Chinese users settle into their nightly routine on Xiaohongshu, they are overwhelmed by a flood of English-language content. Tens of thousands of self-proclaimed “TikTok refugees“ from the United States have arrived at this Chinese app, which, even lacking an official English name, has been dubbed “Red Note“ by US users.

　　“Hello everyone, my name is Ryan. I'm a TikTok refugee. The American government is banning TikTok, so we're looking for an alternative. … We're very sorry to interrupt you here. Hope we don't have to stay for too long,“ he said in a video posted on Monday, seemingly addressing the app's Chinese users.

　　The video, which includes a Chinese translation read by a robot voice, received over 75,000 likes in one day.

　　The growing belief in the US that the Supreme Court will uphold a law banning TikTok has left its 170 million US users frustrated. The ban is set to take effect on Sunday, unless TikTok is sold by its parent company, ByteDance, but a sale seems unlikely, as ByteDance has firmly stated it will not sell, despite interest from potential US buyers.

　　As US users tag themselves as #tiktokrefugees, they are flocking to the Chinese app. By Tuesday, there were over 114,000 posts using the hashtag, with more than 2 million discussions and 73 million views as of 6 pm Beijing time.

　　Xiaohongshu had become the most downloaded app on the US iOS app store on Tuesday. The second most downloaded app was Lemon8, another ByteDance-owned lifestyle platform, which is also experiencing a surge in traffic from displaced TikTok users.

　　The flow of “TikTok refugees“ is seen as a strong social media protest against the expected ban on TikTok, with the excuse of the so-called “China threat“ to US information security, experts said.

　　Dissatisfaction reflected