As the deadline for the potential ban of TikTok in the U.S. approaches, TikTok "refugees" are on the move in search of alternatives. Contrary to expectations that many would migrate to Instagram, owned by Meta, they are instead flocking to apps originating from China, surprising industry insiders.

On the 19th, ByteDance and TikTok will reach the 360-day deadline set by the U.S. Congress for the sale of TikTok.

In April of last year, the U.S. Congress claimed that TikTok's installed backdoor (malicious code that allows unauthorized access to systems) was illegally collecting personal information of U.S. citizens and transmitting it to the Chinese government, thereby acting as a "spy balloon."

As a result, the U.S. Congress has forced TikTok to sell its ownership to an American company in order to continue its operations in the U.S. TikTok and the Chinese government have opposed this, arguing that it is an attempt to counter China and seize valuable companies.

Bloomberg reported on the 13th (local time) that Chinese authorities are enforcing TikTok to comply with the U.S. ban law by selling its U.S. business rights. Additionally, as part of discussions on potential cooperation with the next U.S. administration, they are considering transferring TikTok's U.S. operations to Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla.

ByteDance has not provided any separate comment on the report. In April, ByteDance filed a motion for a temporary injunction against the enforcement of the TikTok ban law with the U.S. Supreme Court, which is currently pending. The estimated valuation of its parent company, ByteDance, is $268 billion, with TikTok's business valued at around $30 to $50 billion.

Amid the political power struggle surrounding TikTok, users of the platform began a large-scale migration to other platforms. President-elect Donald Trump had previously expressed a favorable stance on the matter, stating regarding the sale of TikTok, "No one knows what will happen with TikTok (in the Supreme Court)," and added, "I will make a decision after taking office."

Nevertheless, TikTok users are proactively trying to establish a presence on multiple platforms, fearing that access to TikTok in the U.S. may become difficult, and they may lose access to accumulated data and content.

TikTok users have particularly focused on the apps "Rednote" from XiaoHongShu (Little Red Book) and ByteDance's app "Lemon8." Rednote, the international version of China's Instagram-like platform XiaoHongShu, ranked first in the Apple App Store downloads as of the afternoon of the 13th, and 8th in the social media category of the Google Play Store. "Lemon8" was the second most downloaded app on the U.S. App Store.

U.S. users are migrating to XiaoHongShu instead of Rednote. On the 13th, TikTok refugees posted thousands of posts on XiaoHongShu announcing their sign-up, using the hashtag "#tiktokrefugee."

Instagram, which was expected to benefit the most from the TikTok ban law, has seen somewhat stagnation. Unlike XiaoHongShu and Lemon8, which share subculture and content similar to TikTok, Instagram has not been able to meet the expectations of U.S. TikTok users, as its culture differs somewhat from that of the major TikTok users in the U.S.

An industry insider in marketing commented, "TikTok users tend to share a subculture rather than the fashion and shopping culture shared by Instagram Reels users," and added, "I expected them to move to YouTube Shorts, but I'm very surprised that they migrated to Chinese apps instead."

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