RedNote users log in one day and find themselves shunted to a new digital neighborhood. No warning. Just a banner: “Your account is a RedNote account. We have automatically redirected you to rednote.com.” Xiaohongshu.com, the original Chinese hub, stays behind for domestic eyes only. This shift hit in early 2026. It marks RedNote’s boldest move yet to wall off its 300 million Chinese monthly actives from the outsiders who flooded in after TikTok’s U.S. ban. Founded in 2013 as Xiaohongshu—Little Red Book in English—the app mixes Instagram aesthetics with Pinterest utility. Young urban Chinese share lifestyle tips, travel hauls, makeup routines. Abroad, it drew “TikTok refugees” in January 2025, surging to the top of U.S. App Store charts with over 700,000 new sign-ups in two days, according to a person close to the company cited by Reuters . But growth brought headaches. Americans swapped cat memes and roasts with Chinese netizens, bridging firewalls in rare cross-talk.…