For me...it's making a statement by using REDnote. My own government banned TT, infringing on my freedom of expression - even when the intelligence community said there was no discernable threat from China or anyone else in that app specifically.
I will give my data to whomever I choose to. I have no closely guarded national secrets in my stupid mobile.
TT collected data the same way that Meta, X, Reddit, Imgur, Snap, Tumblr, and Google has.
Literally identical.
We have no real user/consumer protections, and imo the stateside tech bros just hated not getting ALL the data, so they bought the Senate and Congress to get TT shut down. We need laws made to protect us from these alleged threats, and force all apps to abide by them.
I have been enjoying REDnote so far, it's pretty neat.