Taiwan Blocks RedNote App For One Year Due To Fraud Risk
JAKARTA - Taiwan has imposed a one-year ban on social media applications from China, Xiaohongshu or RedNote, after linking it to thousands of fraud cases and failures to meet cybersecurity standards. The government says blocking applies immediately, placing the app, which has more than three million users in Taiwan, in the category of high-risk areas for online shopping scams.
Taiwan's Ministry of Home Affairs said the platform had been connected to about 1,700 fraud cases since 2024, leading to losses of more than US$247.7 million. Investigations have often stalled as Taiwanese authorities lack jurisdiction towards parent company Xiaohongshu in China.
Security tests conducted by Taiwan's National Security Bureau, showed a landslide result: the app failed in all 15 indicators tested. Taiwan's Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, Ma Shih-yuan, said all internet service providers in Taiwan had been asked to block access to the app. The government is also urging global companies such as Google to stop all Xiaohongshu ads on their platforms.
SEE ALSO:
Residents are asked not to download the application or stop using it when it is installed. This tough move immediately sparked a political reaction. The chairman of the opposition party, Kuomitang, Cheng Li-wun, called the decision a significant restriction on internet freedom, even accusing the government of building a Taiwanese version of the 'Big Internet Block'.
Xiaohongshu, Apple, and Google have not responded to requests for comment. Taiwan has previously banned the app on government devices since 2022 for being considered a Beijing propaganda channel.
The Taiwanese government actually sent a letter to its parent company, Xingyin Information Technology in Shanghai, earlier this year to ask for clear security improvements, but did not receive a response.
Xiaohongshu's own popularity has soared outside of China, including in the United States following the emergence of the discourse on banning TikTok, which has left hundreds of thousands of TikTok users on the platform.
The ban from Taiwan marks a new chapter in the tension of cross-sate technology, showing how cybersecurity issues are increasingly becoming a geopolitical competition field that is difficult to separate from daily digital life of users.