Xiaohongshu (小紅書), also known as RedNote in English, must address fraud and cybersecurity issues even if it is willing to have an agent in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of the Interior Ma Shih-yuan (馬士元) said yesterday.
Ma went on a morning radio talk show yesterday morning to defend the ministry’s decision to suspend data parsing and restrict access to the Chinese social platform for one year, after it was found to have been involved in 1,706 fraud cases over the past two years and failed the government’s cybersecurity test.
The ministry’s order is different from placing a firewall on the app, as China does for apps from the US or Taiwan, Ma said.
Photo: Bloomberg
“It is like a highway that had no traffic control and speed cameras, but now there are roadblocks and checkpoints along the way, making it difficult for traffic to come through,” he said.
While Taiwan has seen a significant decrease in online scams and financial losses involved in scams, fraudsters never disappear and are looking for the next venue to commit crimes, he said.
Ma also highlighted differences in the use of apps between China and Taiwan, saying that while Facebook, Google and Line were inaccessible in China, Taiwanese can use China-based apps.
Taiwanese can download WeChat and TikTok, which are international versions of Chinese apps Weixin (微信) and Douyin (抖音) respectively, he said.
However, the version of Xiaohongshu that Taiwanese use is the same as that used in China, with all user data transmitted back to the servers in China, Ma said.
“We discovered that the platform is the only online highway connecting Taiwan and China,” he said.
Xiaohongshu’s international version gained 1 million users last year due to the impending TikTok ban in the US, Ma said, adding that its global user base is expected to surpass 5 million by the end of next year, thanks to its fewer restrictions and greater profit-sharing with content creators.
With such a rapid growth of users, Xiaohongshu has become a target for scammers, Ma said.
“On the surface, the online platform shows a wide variety of innocuous information. What people do not know is that it can access the information one stores in mobile phones, including Web pages and apps accessed by users as well as their passwords, credit card numbers and interaction with apps,” he said.
“We do not know what they would do with the user data stored in servers in China. It is possible that users would one day have digital avatars and do things behind their back,” he said.
Parents should be concerned if their teenagers are active users of Xiaohongshu, as the platform can transmit recorded images and conversations back to its Chinese servers as well, Ma said.
While other social media platforms have legal representatives in Taiwan, who meet regularly with government officials to combat fraud, Xiaohongshu’s headquarters in Shanghai has never responded to concerns about the cybersecurity issues on the platform, Ma said.
Asked if Xiaohongshu could resolve the problem simply by having a representative in Taiwan, Ma said that the platform must address the cybersecurity issues first.
“As Xiaohongshu is a Chinese company, the establishment of a branch in Taiwan would need approvals from the Mainland Affairs Council, the Ministry of Digital Affairs and Ministry of Economic Affairs. It would have to follow laws in Taiwan, which it is apparently unwilling to do,” he said.
“The platform must first address its 15 cybersecurity issue violations and explain how its content moderation and other mechanisms operate. It must also present improvement plans for fraud prevention and cybersecurity,” he said.
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