TikTok ban: data reveals sharp traffic decline and rapid shift to alternatives | Hacker News Reader

TikTok ban: data reveals sharp traffic decline and rapid shift to alternatives

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69 pointsemot96 comments

For the first time in history, US and Chinese can communicate directly with each other using the Red Note app, despite the language barrier. I think this is a great social experiment and if it continuous for sometime it will be interesting to get statistics on perceptions from both sides (perhaps through a detailed academic study). We need more understanding between nations and less war mongering.

Except...

>In what is perhaps the greatest irony ever, the operators of RedNote (known as Xiaohongshu) have decided to "wall off" US TikTok refugees fleeing to its service as the TikTok ban looms. The reason? The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) wants to prevent American influence from spreading to Chinese citizens... Many Chinese users are not happy with the influx as having "ruined" their ability to connect with "Chinese culture, Chinese values and Chinese news."

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/01/17/2146214/rednote-may...

that is all based on some reddit comments, very fake news you have shared here.

I think we need to wait and see. So far is speculation by commenters, as per the link you posted. From a technical point of view IMHO just some geofencing is necessary in order not to change the user experience too drastically for RedNote Chinese users.

For anyone who actually has the app this claim comes of like someone going “The night sky is yellow, trust me, don’t look up!”

That is to say it’s so obviously false if you want to see for yourself just download the app.

Will be ironic if TikTok is unbanned and Chinese apps only gain more popularity from this whole ordeal.

Streisand effect in full display.

Late yesterday I was blocked, but today I have access again. Same source IP.

Same. The website allows browsing from my computer, but the app doesn't work very well. Haven't tried logging in yet.

Whoa. App is back for me now too.

TikTok is back up in the USA.

All the doomscroll apps are dangerous in terms of addiction and mental health. Even something with a less effective algorithm, like YouTube shorts, is incredibly addictive.

Shareholder value is the only metric by which to evaluate human endeavour in 2025. I have zero hope that social media will be reigned in.

With tech oligarchs capturing the US government I have less than zero hope.

Counter-point: it's only "doom" if one configures it that way with their interaction. My FYP had a lot of positivity, pro-mental health, art, technology, and creativity type content on it. I actively filtered politics and other draining topics from my feed until I never saw it.

Whatever you think of the ban, it looks like the Republicans played the politics game very successfully here.

1. Get the ban to come in a day before Trump enters office. While the opposition is in power. 2. Get them to announce to all their market that trump will save the app. 3. Swoop in and save the day.

I think the young generation will remember Trump as the man who rescued tiktok.

Certainly doesn't help that he has Shou Zi Chew kowtowing about how Trump saved the app and how Trump beat the "others'" unmitigated censorship

And it’s back. Thank trump. I guess it’s time to binge on TikTok for another 90days.

Why not 100%?

It’s a 85% drop in traffic, not access. People are still clicking on links, apps are still trying to connect, etc.

It’s not only TT but all Bytedance owned domains. Also this is DNS so still lots of queries to see the new update page.

They monitor DNS stats, seems plausible some devices already had their tiktok domains cached

> (and Surge to Alternatives)

Jiminy Cricket, people. It's the weekend. Try to pretend you're not addicted. Let yourself get bored, and find something constructive to do.

(To put my money where my mouth is, no HN for me for rest of weekend. uBlock Origin reminder filter: `||ycombinator.com^$important`)

Too bad they're just replacing it with Little Red Book. Funny how Obama legalized propagandizing the nation and China does it better and moves faster than our lazy, corrupt politicians.

Would love to see parity in these sorts of trade restrictions between the US and China. Me personally, then I'd have zero problems with TikTok being PRC-owned.

As it stands, foreign businesses operating in China are much more constrained, and laws they must comply with are enormously more invasive (e.g. censorship) than going the other way.

For those that disagree with the above: Reciprocity is an important part of trade. China is making these choices, and the US is just putting things on a level playing field.

Those laws also apply to Chinese companies operating in China too. They have different stuff for outside of China. For example, TikTok's algorithm which is the general use one is AFAIK banned in China.

Correct, TikTok itself is banned in China, which makes the complaints about it being banned in the US even more hilarious.

i think this is a fun tack but personally i should be allowed to read and watch whatever i want even if China is a bad actor

Trade has been within the purview of the government, every government really, to regulate since basically forever.

It's not a content-based restriction, and yeah, trade wars can kinda suck, even for end consumers, no denying that.

no, it’s a content and editorial restriction. it is not merely trade.

No, it's not. There's no opinions on TikTok videos that would be legislatively banned by the US on other platforms.

If you do have examples of those kinds of speech restrictions, by all means, provide examples.

the use of bytedance’s algorithm is an editorial decision that is being banned

And yet the exact same algorithm used by a platform owned by another country would not be banned. Thus, it is not actually content-based.

That's the opposite of a principled stand (cicero is rolling in his grave over your use of his name to say this). It was, and is, boo hoo so terrible when the prc forces American companies to engage in forced sales, hand over the crown jewel IPs to local partners and "request" 50% ownership for the govt.

> It was, and is, boo hoo so terrible when the prc forces American companies to engage in forced sales

Reciprocity is a standard part of trade. If you come down on foreign businesses in your country, don't be surprised when the same thing happens to your businesses in other countries.

When Trump threatens tariffs, other countries threaten to respond in kind. That's how trade basically always works. There's a reason why free trade deals focus on reducing restrictions going both ways.

Not to be on a high horse but I would actually love if these "scroll" apps all disappeared. So much time collectively (myself included) being spent on nonsense. I have a timer on mine to only let me spent 15 minutes and it just goes by so fast. I'll see something funny or something I like maybe 1/25 videos.

I know I should and could just delete it but my friends send me stuff and usually its pretty good stuff... it just hooks you in tho.

I’ve never understood this take - no one is being forced to use this stuff. Don’t use it personally if you don’t like it.

Some things are so incredibly harmful for society it is in the governments interest to regulate those things.

Sure, but this isn’t remotely about that. If it was, we’d get some privacy laws and bans on Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts.

We should, but we won’t.

“We need to do something” and “we will do something” are not the same.

Seemed like the comment was. It mentioned wanting to see banning all scrolling apps and was implying because they cause addiction. Did you sense a different implication from the poster?

I don't know about ban, but parents today are so totally disconnected from the dangers associated with scrolling. Kids today live in their phones. The ones that stay away are going to have such a competitive advantage. So maybe not forbid, albeit that would really serve the community, but the goverment should get off their asses and start informing schools and parents about what their kids are doing to themselves.

But it is a super-difficult problem to solve, because a lot of parents depend on just letting their kids sit with their phones a couple of hours every day to enable wfh etc (or in worse cases, go out with friends to socialize).

My wife is super-aware and is a stay-at-home mom and even she thinks it is a real challenge (mostly because of what friends are allowed to do). We have rules that say no screens (with exceptions for research, school work, some programming) during weekdays. We banned TikTok and Roblox years ago. The kids get 1 hour per day during weekends. These rules, when my wife introduced them, made a HUGE difference. They're different kids (they get so bored they clean their rooms, play chess, read books, play with Lego, don't have problems with their chores etc).

Looking at causes of death, soft drinks and fast food should be at the top of the list.

Somehow tiktok is banned and cigarettes are still legal.

this is just the thugs being mad someone else is better than them...

I think it depends on how you define a lot of stuff, and what you think the effects are.

If you think there are mental health effects, then it's really no different than outlawing anything with negative effects. "I don't know why we outlaw fentanyl. Nobody is being forced to use it. Don't use it personally if you don't like it."

If someone believes that these type of apps pose a real danger to people and society, it's a take that makes sense.

It’s designed to be addictive. It’s like saying nobody is forced to use drugs, alcohol or tobacco. There’s a reason those are very difficult to quit.

HN ist also addictive for many people. So lets also ban it, ok?

There's no endless stream of short videos. That's the hook of these apps. A slow, bare, text only website is probably low on the dopamine trigger scale. Worst case scenario you're now addicted to post graduate conversations.

Text can be addictive though, silly and arbitrary distinction.

Hmm I'm no neurologist but I would place solid money on the fact that it really doesn't activate the same neurological circuits. Saying this because I had issues there and reading really change my brain patterns tangibly.

Plenty of articles documenting how TikTok is designed to be addictive. Show me equivalents for HN.

Even that is not entirely relevant. I think the criteria here are likely actual addiction combined with harm from that addiction combined with scale of that harm. So even if we showed that HN was addictive, the harm and scale are so low that banning it shouldn't even be a conversation. Under the same framework, we have TikTok, which combines an algorithm designed for addiction, actual or imminent harm from a foreign power, and probably the most massive scale possible. So it seems within the realm of possibility that banning TikTok should be a discussion.

You're looking at this in a binary way but there's a spectrum of addictiveness. Some things are a little bit addictive, some things are more addictive, and some things are intentionally designed to be addictive.

Sure, there's some individual out there who spends 8 hours a day on HN and is completely addicted to it. But there are a much larger porportion of users on other platforms that are at that high level of addiction, because those platforms are designed to be addictive.

Scrolling apps don't want you to leave. Ever. In contrast, HN stops you from commenting if you keep doing it too fast.

Quick-access video and audio is particularly psycologically impactful.

We ban chemicals that are designed to be addictive to humans. The exception are substances that are addictive but also have high medical utility. Those are carefully controlled (sometimes less carefully of course — see OxyContin).

It doesn’t seem impossible to make similar value judgments about social media apps, but clearly it’s even harder than with chemicals.

HN ranks fairly low on the "designed to be addictive" scale, and fairly high on the utility scale. With TikTok, it's obvious that it's off the charts on the former while the latter is a very complicated value judgment.

HN is not intentionally engineered to be as addictive as possible now, is it?

Yes! That sound good to me actually.

The weird thing is that labeling tobacco as addictive did actually seem to produce a decline in use. Labeling social media apps as addictive has, from what I’ve seen, given a lot of people an excuse to keep using it. The narrative has shifted toward “It’s not my fault I use it so much, it’s the company’s fault for making it addictive!”.

Something about moving the locus of control to a 3rd party opens the door for people to forgive themselves for using it so much.

Obligatory “not everyone”, of course, but I can’t believe how many conversations about social media use will immediately shift all blame to the company and downplay any individual choices.

I think part of this is the genuine benefit of social media, it's used for education, connection, political organization... not quite the same as a cigarette. You can pick any emotional or moral response you're having from it and cite some aspect of its multifaceted nature to bolster your position.

There should be an age restriction, the same way 17 year olds can't drink vodka and smoke cigars.

But targeting Tiktok specifically spits in the eye of the spirit of the law. The government is doing the bidding of its lobbyists here.

> But targeting Tiktok specifically spits in the eye of the spirit of the law

The Supreme Court of the United States, the highest court in the United States and arguably the arbiters of the letter and spirit of the law, disagrees with you.

They're only arbiters of the letter. The spirit doesn't have a place in the courtroom.

Wasn't there a 13 years age limit in the US?

Nobody is forced to gamble, shoot heroin, smoke cigarretes, etc. We still think it's a good idea, at the very least, to restrict them to adults, ban advertising, and similar restrictions.

Social media is possibly even more destructive than e.g. gambling. Yet it's routinely peddled to kids and pushed as practically mandatory to live in society.

Do you want to unban cocaine, heroine, meth, too?

They aren't forced on anyone.

This is a question in good faith. I want to understand where people are coming from who oppose TikTok ban- is it the philosophy of unchecked libertarianism, or isbit coming from the faith that social media can never be as harmful as cocaine et al?

If there's a spectrum of harm that includes speeding 5mph over the limit and abusing heroin, I have a pretty good idea where I might put watching cat videos on your phone.

Yes, I would like to unban these even if heroine and meth are crap, just put warning labels on them.

You can't die and OD from TikTok usage, and believe it or not many benefit from it. There's little inherent benefit to cocaine.

Depressed? Aha just stop being depressed it's that easy

Addicted to alcohol? Well just stop drinking, duh?!

That's how all these "nobody is forcing you" comments sound to me

Even though it's banned and the app wont' work, people are constantly switching back to the app and opening it over and over out of addiction, see that it doesn't work, close it, and a few seconds or minutes later, do it again.

Yeah that's the first stage of grief, denial

We will all be forced to reckon with the consequences of this stuff. Whether we personally scrolled or not.

We aren't capable of self regulation. Just look at what people eat and the size of the general population. In general we have no self control.

Should we outlaw refined sugar? There's definitely debate to be had on a lot of these things, but I'm having a hard time reconciling banning adults from using something that they personally enjoy and doesn't bother anybody else if you care about freedom/liberty.

It at least shouldn't be as easily available as it is today. I lived in Japan and been all throughout Asia, returning to the US you realize something is deeply wrong when looking at people. People are suffering.

Perhaps not literally forced but socially, effectively yes.

I could drop Instagram/Facebook but that would be me making a choice to drastically change the way I interact with some people that I know and like and want to interact with.

I think there's a parallel with app stores. Can you go through modern life right now without using the Play Store or the App Store? Sure, you can, but there's so much more weight on the "use it" side than the "lose it" side.

"no one is being forced to use this stuff."

No one is forced to use heroin either.

What about it is confusing? I just wish they didn't exist. Even if I threw my entire phone away, it wouldn't change that so much time is collectively being wasted. Not to even touch on how its changed social gatherings. The minute something isn't "happening" the phones come out.

"I've never understood this take - no one is forcing people to drink, snort drugs, smoke cigarettes, gamble their life away. Don't use it personally if you don't like it"

none of those are banned, dunno what your point is.

"Don’t use it personally if you don’t like it"

You seem oblivious to the addictive nature of things ...

Doesn't matter if it's banned or not.

And let me know where snorting drugs is legal so I can plan my weekend. Thanks.

go to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_cocaine and sort by legality

On the other hand, you have to ask if we want a society where you can generate massive wealth by peddling addictive substances to people.

And that's what "just don't get addicted" doesn't track.

I'm not sure where to draw that line when it comes to social media, but there's more to the convo and we probably do want to figure out where that line is or isn't.

No one forces you to smoke cigarettes, but claiming that it's purely a decision ignores a major confounder: they are addictive. Social media is the product of thousands of A/B tests to arrive at the most engaging (addictive) platform possible.

That's particularly hard when you are in middle school/high school and all of your peers are using them. It might sound easy on principal children are cruel and something as simple as "You don't use tiktok, weird." could be social suicide for a teenager.

I don’t think we should rule out the existence of digital heroin e.g. a digital experience so compelling that humans forget to eat.

Whether short form video is this or not is debatable, I’d be surprised if there wasn’t a digital media experience even more addictive.

It would be funny to have accounting of time spent on scrolling or mainly-scroll apps, per country or globally.

I think it would be depressing. I wouldn't be surprised if the average is 3-4 hours a day with the way some will spend upwards of 6-8.

depressing for sure but it would help value the loss too, a first step

maybe we should have a system where you let the government know and it bans it for you.

but frankly, i’m sorry you struggle with addiction to this, i get healthy use out of it - and i would prefer not to be punished for your lack of self control

I'm not addicted to it. I have a 15 minute timer and it locks me out of the app after 15 minutes... and even 15 minutes feels like too much sometimes.

I'm not arguing that it should be banned. I'm saying I simply wish these scrolling apps didn't exist.

I'm sure people get a nice high from heroin. I wish that simply didn't exist too.

I think TikTok was the cleanest of it, in that the social aspect was non existent (other than sharing links to friends as modern equivalent of small talk).

The most toxic combo is having fomo as a Hook (social for fb/Instagram, laboral for LinkedIn, etc) pushing you to check frequently and then being hit with the unending feed once inside.

At the very least I think we should separate the scroll apps and the social networks by law.

Vine was the cleanest and the fact that anyone is using BlueSky or any Dorsey-endorsed product after he killed Vine is the strongest possible evidence of the Gell-Mann effect.

The fact Twitter bought Vine and just shut it down still blows my mind. Sometimes I wonder what things would look like if they kept it alive. At the very least, I don't think Elon could have bought Twitter.

Yea. I'm not even arguing for any policies right now, just wishfully thinking it could all disappear. Policies are complex. Headcanon where short form content never existed is easy :)

"Infinite scroll" apps are harvesting your attention for ad revenue. That's what they are designed to do.

Absolutely. Also TV, newspapers, radio, streaming services, billboards, gas pumps, professional sports, etc.

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