r/rednoteBefore you Ask, No it's not Chinese Propaganda
Disclaimer: I'm a Chinese, living in the US. I've lived in both countries for more than 15 years each.
Rednote/xiaohongshu (xhs)/小红书 is an app that came out in 2013. It's built by a Chinese company, for the Chinese both in mainland China and oversea Chinese. The app used to be in Chinese only, and it didn't support English localization until recently.
A very common question I see on reddit or tiktok is whether all these Chinese posts from xhs are propaganda or not. The short answer is no. However, the long answer is more nuanced.
Let's break it down.
1. The platform initially was built for oversea Chinese for shopping. That's it, its initial focus was not to be a huge social network platform. However, almost all apps in China wants to be a social platform for some reason. So xhs also has these features. So from the beginning, the app is not built to spread communist propaganda.
2. About 80% of the users are female (I forget where I get this data from, so I could be wrong). Lots of them are living average lives. I've been a user for 5-6 years, and I've seen posts ranging from "how to deal with disagreements between wife and inlaws" to "how to study abroad" to "look at this new <insert a luxury brand> bag that I bought" to "the best/worst Chinese restaurant in Seattle/SF/LA". Of course, there are a bunch of brainrot contents as well, tho not as prevalent as other Chinese platforms. There are topics about anime, daily lives, college dorm drama, stupid people showing off, travel tips, travel vlogs, anything really. Depending on what you click on, you get served different contents.
3. Why do you only or mostly see positive things so far? It's the algorithm again. You don't know the language, so you probably don't know which posts are talking about bad things or the usual drama stuff. In my FYP, there are still many posts about users complaining about all aspects of their lives. The ML algorithm will group people by their characteristics. For example, you are joining from the US, and you clicked on some tiktok refugee posts, and the algorithm learns that. It will say that oh, you are probably interested in the topics that other people from the US like/read/watch.
4. There is another side to the "only seeing positive things". Chinese people are trying to be friendly and welcoming. It's Chinese tradition to not show the ugly business to the guests. So, in a way, that creates a skewed perception for the guests (you). However, you need to remember, there are 1.4 billions people there. They are individuals with their individual experiences. The idea you get from the aggregate is probably somewhere slight above average. This is due to people with worst than average lives are less likely to post. However, I don't think that constitutes propaganda. From a statistical standpoint, this is just the sample population doesn't match the normal distribution of the whole Chinese population.
5. There are Chinese people who likes and hates China, just like any other country. However, I want to call out that because the US views China as its adversary, it puts a lot of effort in smearing China's image. This effort includes supporting the now outlawed religious group (Falun Gong) and its media outlet Epoch Times, NTD and a bunch of YouTubers. Specifically, I want to call out "China Insider" "China Observer" and "Serpentza". These channels spew out misinformation like none other. The things they talk about doesn't reflect my personal experience at all. All this is to say, you will see Chinese/others who will tell you this is all Chinese propaganda, and people who don't. Then how do you know who's right? I recommend traveling to China or talking to Chinese nationals around you to see what their perspectives are.
6. Last but not the least. The way the rednote gets popular is totally an unexpected event, both from the Chinese and American side. With the sudden influx of American users, I don't think anyone really had any idea how this was going to end. Since all the content on the platform are there for anyone to view, I don't think it's realistic to change what's being seen without its existing user base noticing.
In conclusion, are the things you see on the platform real? Yes, most of them are real Chinese people posting real stuff, with some exceptions of ads and people heavily using filters (this is a huge thing on Chinese Internet, and we often jokes about that). Are the cars and sky scrapers real and the scenery and the grocery hauls and house tours real? Yes they are but remember, there are 1.4 billion Chinese.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
