Welcome to the Week in Review. This week, we look at the impact of the TikTok ban in the US, including “TikTok refugees” moving to the Chinese app RedNote, a surge of English speakers learning Mandarin on Duolingo, and more! Let’s get to it. The Supreme Court has upheld a law that will ban TikTok effective tomorrow. The decision marks the end of TikTok’s months-long legal battle against legislation that essentially forced the app to shut down unless it shuts down its US operations. Starting Sunday, app stores and internet hosting services will make it illegal to distribute TikTok. The company warned that the app would “go dark” on Sunday, but it’s unclear what will happen when the ban takes effect. American users flock to RedNote, a Chinese short video app also known as Xiaohongshu, becoming the No. 1 free app in the US App Store. RedNote hits a lot of notes for creators looking for an alternative to TikTok: It has a similar layout to Pinterest, it’s usually considered China’s answer to Instagram, and it has some social shopping features. But the transition has not been easy for some. TikTok users use Duolingo to learn Chinese by increasing the number of times they used RedNote before the TikTok ban. According to Duolingo, the app has seen an estimated 216% increase in new Mandarin students in the US compared to this time last year, with a sharp spike in mid-January when RedNote adoption began. This is TechCrunch’s Review of the Week, where we list the biggest news of the week. Want it delivered as a newsletter to your inbox every Saturday? Log in here. News Image Credit: TechCrunch Mark Cuban wants to finance the next TikTok: Entrepreneurs and investors say they are ready to finance an alternative to TikTok built on Bluesky’s AT Protocol, signaling the potential for an open social web powered by the same technology as Bluesky’s social network. Read more Bluesky gets photo sharing app: An independent developer created a photo sharing app for Bluesky called Flashes. When launched, the app could increase consumer demand for an alternative to Big Tech’s social media monopoly. Read more “ChatGPT, remind me to do my taxes”: OpenAI has a new way to make ChatGPT work for you. ChatGPT paying users can now ask their AI assistant to schedule reminders or recurring requests in a new beta feature called Tasks. Read more How to break away from Meta: After Meta’s decision to remove its third-party fact-checking system and release its content moderation policy, more people are looking for how to remove Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. We put together a handy guide. Read more UnitedHealth hides data breach notification: Change Healthcare, which lost more than 100 million people’s sensitive health data in a ransomware attack last year, said it had finished notifying those affected — but we discovered that UnitedHealth hid notification of the breach for several- many months. Read more Nintendo finally announced the Switch 2: Nintendo shared the first images of the successor to the popular Nintendo Switch, featuring a larger console with a larger display, updated Joy-Con controllers, and a less colorful design than its predecessor. Read more Sonos CEO is out: Sonos CEO Patrick Spence left the company after eight years on the job after a botched update to the software platform that was littered with bugs and removed some long-standing features. Read more Looking for a TikTok replacement? Consider this: While there is no 1:1 replacement for TikTok, there are several options that can be considered that offer a similar experience. We put together a list of different apps worth checking out to scratch that itch. Read more Even AI does not like to be interrupted: Google NotebookLM’s AI-generated podcast feature needs some “friendliness tuning” after it found to be “hostile” and snippy when interrupted by a human phone. Read more Apple pauses AI news summary: The company faces backlash for producing inaccurate news alerts in its news and entertainment apps. Apple says it is also introducing changes to the overview as a whole to allow for greater transparency. Read more OpenAI gets local news game: Axios announces partnership with OpenAI. As part of the deal, OpenAI will fund the expansion of Axios’ local newsletter into four new cities: Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Boulder, and Huntsville. Read more Turn steps into screen time: A new iOS app called Steppin blocks social media apps unless you walk a few steps a day. By reaching daily step targets, users can unlock time on the most used social media platforms. Read more
