A little PSA.
I don't know what you all feel about that ban: But Tik Tok is in fact bad for you and yes the Chinese gov WILL use that info to blackmail you, not just throw ads at you like the US gov does on twitter or some other dome social media site. Trump uno reversed the ban, but REGARDLESS of what happens next.. I have the following advice for you-
1. Don't use tik tok, don't sign up for it.. I have personal bad experience with what the CCP can do to my friends and family, especially what has happened to Chinese friends who live in the states that have used the app. (there's a reason why its banned in china and they use Douyin instead).
2. If you use it.. just be careful what you put into your phone at all. This app doesn't just record what you do on it, it records your ENTIRE phone.. what you do on every other site, what you do in real life by using your camera and mic.
3. Don't go to Red Note just to stick it to the US gov. If you want to go on there to connect to Chinese people, that's perfectly fine, as a Chinese Major I do encourage having chinese friends and I have a few myself. Just be aware, the CCP directly controls it, its named after Mao Zhe Dong's genocide policy book- and be aware that being on that site means treating your speech as if the CCP can directly ban you for anything they want. Also they are working on a seperate servert to partition all the Tik tok "Refugees" and isolate them from Chinese users- and the reason why is obvious.
I'm not your mom, I can't tell you what to do, I just want you all to stay safe online. If you wanna keep using Tik Tok that's your choice, but remember that I live in Taiwan, here- we feel what the consequences for playing ball with the CCP all the more severely.