Ahead of U.S. TikTok ban, Canadians flock to Chinese ‘RedNote’ app [Video]

With TikTok facing an imminent ban in the United States, many Canadian users are moving to rival Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu — also known as RedNote — pushing it to the top of download charts in Canada.

The ban is being driven by security concerns about TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance Ltd. Chinese national security laws compel organizations in the country to assist with government intelligence gathering.

On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld the federal law that will ban TikTok starting Sunday unless ByteDance sells it. The court said the threat to national security posed by TikTok’s ties to China trumps concerns about limiting speech by the app or its 170 million users in the U.S.

The looming ban has many users in both the U.S. and Canada installing the Xiaohongshu app, better known as RedNote, which is based directly in China and designed in Mandarin.

Stephanie …