Chinese-owned TikTok is set to be banned in the United States on Jan. 19, 2025, and another Chinese-owned app is welcoming American "TikTok refugees."

TikTok is still three days away from a likely ban in the United States, but many users are already bidding the app farewell and seeking out alternatives.

Whatever US politicians were hoping for, what they got was a huge increase in users signing up to Duolingo to learn Chinese and American users flooding Chinese apps.

As self-described " TikTok refugees" pour onto the Chinese social media app RedNote, also known as Xiaohongshu, some foreign netizens are already running up against the country's extensive censorship apparatus. Newsweek reached out to Xiaohongshu with a request for comment via a general contact email address.

Several social media apps have appearing high in app store chart rankings as a potential U.S. ban hangs over the heads of TikTok and its American users.

Backers of China's Xiaohongshu are looking to sell a part of their stake to the likes of Tencent , among others, in a deal that could value the TikTok-rival at at least $20 billion, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.

TikTok has resumed operations in the US following a shutdown overnight on Saturday, after the incoming US president Donald Trump pledged to “save TikTok” by delaying the proposed ban.

The American migration to Xiaohongshu (RedNote) may be the craziest accidental cultural exchange ever. Hundreds of thousands of users landed in an app not localized or in their language. One day in, and it’s already considered rude not to subtitle videos in the other language. pic.twitter.com/eG08cH1ID9

In April, President Joe Biden signed into law a bill that requires TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app to a U.S. company or shut down operations in the United States by Sunday, Jan. 19 — arguing that the app poses a risk to national security.

Ahead of the possible TikTok ban, "TikTok refugees" are flocking to the Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu, or Red Note, with strange and fascinating consequences.

Xiaohongshu, now known in English as RedNote, transformed overnight into a bridge between the realms of China's internet and America's, as a sudden wave of US users downloaded the app this week in anticipation of a national ban on TikTok.

Sensor Tower collects its ranking data from “publicly accessible estimates provided by the Apple App Store and Google Play [store].” While the firm doesn’t have direct insights into Apple’s and Google’s algorithms for determining rankings,