Chinese social media app RedNote, known in China as Xiaohongshu, gained nearly 3 million U.S. users in one day earlier this week as a flood of self-proclaimed “TikTok Refugees” joined, according to new data from analytics firm Similarweb.

The Chinese-language app had about 3.4 million daily active users across both iOS and Android devices in the United States as of Monday, up from fewer than 700,000 the day prior, and around 300,000 the week prior, according to the Similarweb estimate.

The influx of users has been driven by a looming U.S. ban on TikTok, used by 170 million Americans, on national security concerns.

The data suggests an even larger shift to RedNote by U.S. users this week than was previously known, explaining its dramatic rise to the top of U.S. app store download rankings. Reuters reported on Tuesday that more than 700,000 new users had joined the app in only two days.

Meanwhile, U.S. usage of TikTok declined ahead of the ban, down 2.1% week over week to about 82.2 million daily active users, Similarweb said.

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  • tiredturtle
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    7 hours ago

    It’s for collecting phone number, network cell data etc. It’s basically the most sensitive permission and usually not needed for apps to request.

    • macabrett[they/them]
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      6 hours ago

      you need to give them your phone number to create an account

      for the rest, you can simply select “don’t allow”. That’s why its not really a concern.

      • __nobodynowhere@startrek.website
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        17 minutes ago

        I wanted to see if I could run it through an emulator but if it needs a phone number then no thanks. People are way too careless with their data.