Taiwan on Thursday announced an contiguous one-year prohibition connected the Chinese societal media web Xiaohongshu, saying the app posed a hazard of fraud.
Taiwan's interior ministry said successful a statement that it volition artifact entree to Xiaohongshu, besides known successful English arsenic Rednote, calling it a imaginable "high-risk country for online buying fraud."
Authorities linked the level to astir 1,700 fraud cases that caused fiscal losses of implicit 247.7 cardinal New Taiwan dollars ($7.9 million) since 2024, the ministry said. The app has implicit 3 cardinal users connected the island, the ministry said.
Officials besides said that Taiwanese instrumentality enforcement agencies look "significant difficulties" obtaining indispensable accusation due to the fact that Taiwan lacks jurisdiction implicit the company.
The interior ministry said the app failed each 15 indicators successful cybersecurity tests conducted by the National Security Bureau.
Taiwan's net work providers were instructed to artifact entree to the app, Deputy Minister of the Interior Ma Shih-yuan said successful a property conference Thursday.
The ministry besides urged planetary platforms specified as Google to "completely cease publishing Xiaohongshu advertisements."
Authorities reminded the nationalist not to download the app oregon halt utilizing it if already installed.
In a Facebook post, Cheng Li-wun, chairwoman of the absorption Kuomintang party, said the determination "significantly [restricts] Internet freedom," and described the prohibition connected Xiaohongshu arsenic "a starting-point for gathering the Great Wall of the Internet," by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party.
Xiaohongshu, Apple and Google did not instantly respond to CNBC's petition for comments.
In 2022, Taiwan banned Xiaohongshu from authorities devices, calling it a "united front" for Chinese propaganda.
Earlier this year, Taiwan sent a missive to Xiaohongshu's genitor company, Xingyin Information Technology (Shanghai), seeking "concrete betterment measures," but the institution did not reply.
Xiaohongshu is widely used in China and saw renewed interest in the U.S. earlier this twelvemonth aft a projected prohibition on its competitor TikTok. That prompted TikTok users to flock to Xiaohongshu, adding astir 700,000 new users to the platform, according to Reuters.
— CNBC's Anniek Bao contributed to this report.
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