Could TikTok alternatives RedNote and Lemon8 be banned? 

As the possibility of a U.S. TikTok ban looms, consumers have found alternatives. RedNote and Lemon8, Chinese-owned apps that allow users to post short-form videos and photos, have hit the top of the Apple App Store. 

Lemon8 is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, which also owns TikTok, while RedNote is owned by a company called Xingyin Information Technology.

President Joe Biden signed a law last year requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok to a U.S. company due to national security concerns. The app will be banned if ByteDance fails to do so by Sunday, although the deadline could be extended 90 days if the company indicates it’s making substantial progress toward a sale.

The Supreme Court is considering the constitutionality of the law and could rule in the coming days. 

Even if the court upholds the ban, the other apps are safe — for now. The president would have to determine whether they pose a threat to national security, and the U.S. government would have to take action against them separately, said Julian Ku, a law professor at Hofstra University. 

These apps are much less popular than TikTok, but if they grow to comparable scale, the government may be more willing to go after them, Ku said. 

If TikTok is banned, you’ll still be able to access the version that already exists on your phone, but you won’t be able to download updates, Ku said. App stores and web-hosting services would be prohibited from hosting it, he added. 

Though the law doesn’t cover copycats, a TikTok alternative might still encounter problems if it infringes TikTok’s intellectual property, said Barry McDonald, a law professor at Pepperdine University, though that corporate rivalry problem would not apply to Lemon8 since it’s owned by ByteDance.

“For instance, if RedNote were to try to adopt TikTok’s look and feel, essentially attempting to make folks think it was essentially TikTok, then the latter might sue for trade dress infringement — attempting to pass off one’s service as another’s,” McDonald said.

TikTok has become a phenomenon with a moat of user loyalty around it. U.S. ventures that have tried to replicate TikTok’s success haven’t come “anywhere close to matching its scale, strategy, or execution,” said Rob Lalka, a business professor at Tulane University.

“Backed by ByteDance’s resources,” Lalka explained, “TikTok invested heavily in creator incentives, marketing, and localization, creating a personalized and engaging user experience that set it apart from competitors.”

The field has its share of failed contenders. For instance, a Twitter property known as Vine, which Lalka called a “pioneer of short-form video,” shut down in 2017. “Vine struggled to monetize and retain creators, many of whom moved to platforms like YouTube.”

Big Tech companies have launched competitors, like Meta’s Instagram Reels and Alphabet’s YouTube Shorts.

“But both have faced challenges,” Lalka said. “Their short-form video features are just part of their offerings, while TikTok remains singularly focused on quick and addictive content with an algorithm that’s amazingly attention-grabbing.”

The U.S. government raised alarms about TikTok’s ability to obtain detailed personal data on its multitudes of American users. Ku explained that the Chinese government and ruling Communist Party would have access to that information, which could be exploited for surveillance, espionage, future political influence and other nefarious activities, according to this argument.

But opponents of the law call the TikTok ban a violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution. The rights to free speech and access to information apply to social media, Jameel Jaffer, head of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, told Marketplace last year.

“Congress can’t impose restrictions without good reasons,” Jaffer added.