China’s RedNote netizens warn each other over sharing street views with US TikTok users

Posts discouraging Chinese users from sharing street views began circulating on the platform last week with warnings like: “Isn’t it strange that they all want photos of China’s landscapes? Doesn’t it seem unusual? Stay alert”. “Please be cautious when sharing real photos of your local neighbourhoods,” some users urged.

Google Street Views provides interactive panoramas from multiple positions along many streets in the world. The technology – along with most Google services – was banned in China around 2010 under Beijing’s internet censorship policies. As a result, most street view images in China are not accessible on the internet.

The company voluntarily shut down the short-video app in the United States after the Supreme Court upheld a law requiring the app to sever ties with its Chinese parent or face a ban. The service was restored hours later following an assurance from president-elect Donald Trump that he would try to pause the ban by executive order on his first day in office.

Most interactions between Chinese and US users have been friendly with many users showing curiosity about each others’ daily lives. Chinese state media has reported favourably about the exchanges while the foreign ministry said the government “supports people-to-people exchanges”.

However, more than 193,000 online discussions have used the hashtag “national security” in recent days, and warnings have frequently appeared in posts featuring interactions between users with US IP addresses.