It seems entirely plausible to me that someone that uses tiktok a lot saw enough folks talking about it that they thought it would be an interesting story.

Further I feel like:

“I just wanted something that could replace TikTok, and also it was sort of an act of protest against our government,” the Texan said.

Xiaohongshu did not respond to Rest of World’s request for comment, including on the latest count of overseas users.

Although Xiaohongshu is widely used by overseas Chinese people, the platform has made limited efforts to attract a broader international user base. Even Xiaohongshu’s logo is designed with the Chinese characters of its name. It offers no in-app translation for user posts or comments, and only suggests Chinese-language keywords in its search bar.

But the sudden increase in American users likely poses new challenges for Xiaohongshu, as the platform tries to balance global business expansion with pressure to enforce China’s censorship laws.

are not really the sorts of claims that would exist in an astroturf campaign. I mean maaayybe they wanted it to appear more authentic, so they invited the writer to be more critical and portray the app in a revolutionary light that is pretty counter to it’s culture, but I think it’s far more likely to be genuine.