The threat of a TikTok ban is driving Americans to Duolingo to learn Chinese

The impending possibility of a national TikTok ban, to be formally decided by the Supreme Court on Sunday, has seen US app users respond in some unusual ways.

Last March, after a push notification urged TikTokers to contact Congress to protest the social platform’s divestment-or-ban bill, lawmakers’ offices were flooded with up to 20 calls per minute from incensed users. More recently, a trend has emerged where people are saying goodbye to their “personal Chinese spy,” jokingly thanking the perceived security threat for cultivating their beloved algorithms.

Perhaps one of the most ironic outcomes of the proposed ban, though, is that swaths of people are now flocking to Chinese social-networking app Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote, specifically to spite US authorities’ concerns regarding the Chinese government tracking American users through ByteDance-owned TikTok. 

In fact, as reported by Reuters earlier this week, over 700,000 new users joined Xiaohongshu in just two days, with US downloads of the RedNote app rocketing 200% year over year.

Tok-ing my language

Now, self-described “TikTok refugees” are going one step further by learning Mandarin to become better acquainted with the Shanghai-based app’s default language… prompting a spike in people taking courses on Duolingo.

The language-learning platform took to X to announce that it had seen ~216% growth in new Chinese (Mandarin) learners in the US compared with last year. True to its owl mascot’s trademark sass, the company remarked: “oh so NOW you’re learning mandarin.”

At the time of writing, Duolingo’s stock is up more than 8% today — though that may be due to the company announcing another new AI-enabled product.