the tiktok exodus is widely known! for those of you who don't know, i am in high school. i can't count with my hands how many people have talked about it, and that's just in the two classes i had yesterday (exam week, yay). i've already gotten 2 people to download it. they both made accounts and use it now! it's broken the niche internet thing into the real world, at the very least for young people.
on the app front, lots of americans are posting things like "we've been lied to, china isn't that bad!" i've come across so many americans learning about chinese culture and responding positively to patriotic or socialist posts from chinese netizens. it's insane, i'm really amazed at how, for at least a good chunk of americans, china is becoming less demonized.
One video on xhs (giving an overview for the new audience) said that the algorithm isn't centered around the "rich get richer" effect and tries to give a much more even distribution, which I imagine dilutes all the "dopamine assault" content developed to game tik-tok (profit motive) type algorithms (and other addictive qualities) plus probably makes it more useful as a search engine.