Taiwan blocks mainland Chinese social media platform RedNote citing ‘high fraud risk’
Island’s digital affairs ministry says five Chinese apps collect sensitive data, access biometric functions and ‘extract system information’
The criminal investigation bureau of Taiwan’s interior ministry on Thursday announced an internet shutdown and access restriction order for RedNote, tentatively for one year.
Also known as Xiaohongshu, or “little red book”, RedNote is an Instagram-like lifestyle social media platform popular with youngsters around the world. Taiwan’s interior ministry said it had more than 3 million users on the island – around 1 million more than a year ago.
The block aimed to protect the “information security” of Taiwanese, as the platform had become a “high-risk area for online shopping fraud”, the criminal investigation bureau said in a statement.
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On Friday, mainland state news agency Xinhua published a social media post titled “Lai Ching-te’s shameless and boring action! DPP authorities ban RedNote for one year”.