With the deadline to ban TikTok just days away, Chinese officials now reportedly considering selling the apps U.S. operations to Elon Musk, but with users already fleeing to other apps, has Congress's attempt to limit Chinese influence on social media backfired.

Drew DeBos is watching that today in today's tech check. Hey, Dee.

Hey, Carl. So there's an app that our audience should know now. It's called Red Note. And as of this

morning, it is still number one on Apple's App Store, highlighting really this classic

lawmaker dilemma. As users are, as lawmakers are looking to regulate or ban what they see as

the current threat, users have already moved on.

And in this case, they moved on to an app far more Chinese than TikTok.

It's known to Americans as Red Note, but its Chinese name, Xiaohongshu, literally translates

into little red book, as in Mautze Dang's Guide to Communist Ideology and Revolutionary

Principles, a symbol of Chinese communist propaganda.

This is the app. Open it up and it looks like Instagram meets TikTok meets Reddit, but

with a lot more Chinese language content. And very welcoming, by the way, to American users.

Here's a scroll through tech check producer Jasmine's red note feed this morning.

Hi, hi, TikTok refugee. First of all, I want to say, welcome to Xia Houmushi, welcome to Red Book.

You'll see a few more videos here, all sort of welcoming, self-proclaimed TikTok refugees.

And another one, an American TikTok refugee posted a guide to using Red Book and

says the Chinese people on this app, they don't want us to talk about politics because

they're not allowed to talk about politics.

Now in other words, as a Chinese app, it is heavily censored.

TikTok at least was the American version of a Chinese app with more American rules.

Red Note had few international

users until about a few months ago. According to Pitchbook, it was last valued at $17 billion

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