Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu — better known globally as RedNote — is looking to improve its ability to moderate English-language content after hundreds of thousands of American users suddenly joined the platform in anticipation of a potential TikTok be forbidden in the United States on Sunday.
WIRED this week identified a handful of job listings posted on job boards by tech outsourcing companies in China looking for content moderators to help manage the unexpected influx of English videos and posts being uploaded to Xiaohongshu. Several new employment notices have also been published, in which content moderators who can work in Chinese, the platform’s default language, are urgently needed.
VXI Global Solutions, an American customer service company that has been operating in China since the early 2000s, has posted job vacancies on recruitment websites Zhilian Zhaopin and BOSS Zhipinspecifying that candidates “will moderate videos via foreign friends’ accounts on Xiaohongshu.” The recruit even tagged one of the lists “Urgent recruitment of Xiaohongshu overnight—TikTok moderating refugees, short term [contracts] adopted.”
Jinhui Rongzhi TechnologyIT outsourcing company, i Transnthe AI-powered translation service provider, also posted similar job postings this week seeking English-speaking content moderators to work for Xiaohongshu. WIRED contacted the three companies to confirm the validity of the list. None of them responded in time for publication. Xiaohongshu also did not immediately return a request for comment.
Salary for jobs ranges from RMB 4,500 to RMB 8,000 per month (about USD 600 to USD 1,100). Candidates must prove their knowledge of the English language and prove that they have passed a professional exam. One list recorded that the position must be filled within three days, and candidates do not need to apply if they cannot start immediately.
The Cyberspace Administration of China, the country’s main internet watchdog, has reportedly already become concerned about content shared by foreigners on Xiaohongshu. The CAC warned the platform earlier this week to “ensure that users from China cannot see posts from users from the US,” according to Information.
Social media platforms in China are legally required to remove a wide range of content, including nudity and graphic violence, but especially information deemed politically sensitive by the government. Platforms such as Xiaohongshu rely on large teams of contractors managed by external companies to perform routine enforcement and respond to emergency situations.
“RedNote – like all platforms owned by Chinese companies – is subject to the repressive laws of the Chinese Communist Party. Independent researchers have documented how keywords deemed sensitive to those in power, such as discussion of labor strikes or criticism of Xi Jinping, can be removed from the platform,” Allie Funk, research director for technology and democracy at the nonprofit human rights organization Freedom House , he wrote in an email to WIRED.
But the influx of American TikTok users – as many as 700,000 in just two days, according to Reuters—could weaken Xiaohongshu’s content moderation abilities, says Eric Liu, an editor at China Digital Times, a California-based publication documenting censorship in China, who himself worked as a content moderator for the Chinese social media platform Weibo.