RedNote Splits Its Systems to Serve Chinese and US Users Separately

Chinese social media platform RedNote has set up two separate computer systems to handle users in different countries, after millions of Americans flooded the app when TikTok was briefly banned in January 2025. The 12-year-old platform, called Xiaohongshu in China, now routes new users outside China through servers based in Singapore rather than through its Chinese data centers.

The platform added nearly 3 million US users in a single day in January, briefly becoming the top free app in the US App Store as people looked for TikTok replacements. This sudden traffic forced RedNote to make a significant change to how it operates.

How the Split Works

RedNote now maintains two separate web addresses: Xiaohongshu.com for Chinese users and Rednote.com for people outside China. Anyone who signed up after December 8, 2025 lands on Singapore-based servers, while some existing accounts have been moved from Chinese to international infrastructure as well.

The company has published different terms of service for each group and says it stores international user data on Singapore servers. This is new for RedNote—historically, it ran everything on the same system for both Chinese and overseas users.

Unlike ByteDance, which operates TikTok and its Chinese version Douyin as completely separate apps, RedNote kept itself as a single platform until now. The company still runs the same app framework for both audiences, but the behind-the-scenes infrastructure is now split.

Different Rules for Different Users

The infrastructure split also means different content moderation for Chinese versus international users. Users in China face real-time keyword filtering that blocks politically sensitive posts, while international users operate under different rules. RedNote staff in Shanghai indicated that international users will see algorithmic feeds weighted more toward North American content than Chinese posts.

This mirrors what other Chinese platforms do. WeChat, for example, applies different content filters depending on where a user signed up—those with North American phone numbers face fewer restrictions than Chinese users.

RedNote recently announced rules against unlabeled artificially generated videos after reports of fake video proliferation, and these rules apply to both user groups.

Regulatory Pressure from Multiple Directions

RedNote faces regulatory pressure from multiple governments. China's cyberspace authority summoned and penalized Xiaohongshu in September 2025, while Taiwan imposed a one-year ban in December over fraud concerns.

Chinese authorities also summoned RedNote along with Douyin and Taobao in April to address cross-border e-commerce rules, particularly concerning illegal marketing of imported health products.

Growth in the US Market

CEO Charlwin Mao and President Miranda Qu, who founded RedNote in 2013, are investing heavily in the US market. The company is hiring staff, running college promotional events, and setting up shopping features for American shoppers, built on the e-commerce tools it already uses in China.

RedNote's Chinese base of roughly 300 million monthly active users treats the platform as both social media and search engine, sharing detailed knowledge about niche hobbies and interests aimed at middle-class audiences.

RedNote is attempting to navigate a delicate situation—staying available in both China and the US while following the different rules that each country enforces. By splitting its infrastructure, the company has found a way to keep one brand while running two different operations behind the scenes. Whether it can manage this complexity over the long run will depend on how well its teams can handle operating two separate systems while meeting the regulatory expectations of both Beijing and Washington. For American users who left TikTok, RedNote's technical overhaul shows a company serious about building a presence in the US market while keeping its dominant position at home.