Mining China’s ‘Little Red Book’ for Open Source Gold

The challenges of conducting open-source research in China are well-documented. Consistently named one of the most digitally oppressive countries in the world, China blocks some of the world’s largest social media platforms, such as Facebook, Google, and YouTube. Those that are still accessible are mostly Chinese-owned, strictly regulated and monitored in real time by AI systems as well as tens of thousands of “internet police” .

But despite these strict controls, Chinese apps – which boast more than a billion estimated users – remain an information goldmine for investigative journalists covering stories both within and outside China.

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Since most foreign sites are banned, Chinese platforms are the largest resource available to journalists and researchers interested in what’s going on in the world’s second-most populous country . Even when a topic is being censored, patterns in the censorship can themselves serve as investigative leads: a 2020 BuzzFeed News investigation , for example, mapped out detention camps in Xinjiang by examining areas that had been blanked out on China’s Baidu Maps .

With millions of Chinese people living overseas, social media activity by members of the diaspora can also turn into global stories.

Serial rapist Zou Zhenhao, a Chinese PhD student, was jailed in London last year after one of his victims posted a warning on Xiaohongshu, also known as Little Red Book or Rednote, an app popular with young Chinese women living abroad. Another woman Zou had raped reached out to the original poster, who put her in touch with the police – leading to the conviction of a man described by police as possibly one of the worst sexual predators in British history.

Founded in 2013 as a Hong Kong shopping guide, Xiaohongshu has evolved into a lifestyle and e-commerce platform that has been compared with Instagram, Pinterest and Amazon . Last year, it reported about 300 million monthly active users , rivalling some of China’s largest social media platforms.

Xiaohongshu saw a surge in international users in January 2025 amid a threatened ban on short video app TikTok. Photo: VCG via Reuters Connect

The app’s 600 million daily searches by the end of 2024 also accounted for half of market leader Baidu’s search volume, demonstrating that it is emerging as a critical search and discovery engine, not just a social platform.

Although primarily a Chinese-language app, Xiaohongshu gained attention in the English-speaking world last year, when millions of American TikTok users flocked to the platform in anticipation of a TikTok ban under US President Donald Trump.

Responding to the surge of international users – sparked by the #TikTokRefugees trend – Xiaohongshu rolled out an AI-powered translation feature , making the app more accessible to non-Chinese audiences. This also meant that journalists without Chinese language skills can more easily communicate on and navigate the platform.

Despite its growing popularity both within and outside China, the app is relatively new and underexplored compared to more well-established platforms such as Weibo.

This guide aims to provide a starting point for those looking to explore Xiaohongshu for open-source investigations, including an overview of its main user demographics, potential topics to explore and strategic search methods specific to the app.

User Demographics and Topics

According to Xiaohongshu’s official data , the platform’s demographic profile is mainly young, female and urban. As of 2024, 70 percent of its users were women, with half of all users belonging to Gen Z and living in China’s largest cities.

As previously mentioned, the app has also gained popularity with the Chinese diaspora . Many Chinese nationals living abroad use it as a search engine for local information , posting and searching for content related to their daily lives, from restaurant recommendations and apartment hunting to navigating foreign bureaucracies and finding community resources.

This demographic profile makes Xiaohongshu particularly well-suited for investigating stories about consumer fraud and urban livability issues. For example, Chinese outlets like Jiemian have used Xiaohongshu posts to expose the grey-market ecosystem of paid reviews and fake endorsements tied to the platform’s e-commerce model, while in 2022, International Financial News traced a mother-and-baby store scam that defrauded over 400 parents back to product recommendation posts on the platform.

Given its predominantly female user base, Xiaohongshu has also evolved into one of China’s most important spaces for feminist discourse and women’s issues. Academic researchers have used content on the platform to analyse local discussions on menstrual shaming , sexual harassment , and the controversial “ divorce cooling-off period ” introduced in 202…