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Taiwan has blocked the Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu, in a rare move for a democracy that has long shied away from limiting access to Chinese media despite concerns over Beijing’s influence campaigns.
Taipei said it had imposed the ban because the Instagram-like lifestyle app exposed users to scams and that the company, which lacks a local office as required by Taiwan law, was not addressing its concerns.
Taiwanese users cumulatively suffered NT$247.7mn (US$7.9mn) in losses from 1,706 cases of online fraud linked to the app since the beginning of last year, the interior ministry said on Thursday.
It added that Xiaohongshu had failed to respond to a request in October to make changes to comply with local laws.
The ban began on Friday and will initially be imposed for one year pending steps by Xiaohongshu to set up a legal presence in Taiwan. It comes as concerns mount in President Lai Ching-te’s administration over what officials say is Beijing’s growing use of cognitive warfare.
But Taiwanese officials have previously argued that banning Chinese apps would be politically unacceptable in a country that prides itself on protections for freedom of expression. Taiwan topped all Asian countries in Freedom House’s 2025 report on internet freedom.
China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and threatens to invade if Taipei refuses unification indefinitely.
Taiwanese national security officials in October accused China of meddling in a Taiwanese intraparty election for the first time, with an online campaign supporting Cheng Li-wun to be chair of the opposition Kuomintang.
Cheng won the election and has since pushed for closer ties with Beijing and opposed higher defence spending.
Xiaohongshu, a photo-sharing app where more than 300mn users worldwide exchange travel, leisure and beauty tips, generally does not focus on politics.
But observers said that alongside ByteDance’s short-form video apps Douyin and TikTok, Xiaohongshu, which is also known abroad as RedNote, was one of the avenues through which exposure to Chinese content was influencing young Taiwanese.
“Although Xiaohongshu differs somewhat from TikTok in its content format, the concern that soft political propaganda will be transported through [Chinese] popular culture and content such as travel, beauty and lifestyle still deserves attention,” said Eric Hsu, an expert at Doublethink Lab, a Taiwanese think-tank that researches digital influence operations.
Taiwan’s government estimated the number of active users of Xiaohongshu in the country at about 3mn.
According to a survey on Taiwanese social media use by top research institution Academia Sinica, 32.8 per cent of high school and vocational school students, 24.8 per cent of junior high school students and 13.1 per cent of children in primary school use the app.
Xiaohongshu declined to comment.
Taipei’s ban triggered an immediate backlash among users. A young Taiwanese Xiaohongshu user surnamed Sun wrote: “This is nonsense. Why not block Facebook? There are way more scams there.”
Users also began exchanging tips on workarounds. “So now people on both sides of the [Taiwan] Strait have to use VPN,” a Guangdong-based user named JoKa said. “A must-have skill for all Chinese.”
Additional reporting by Eleanor Olcott and contributions from Tina Hu in Beijing
