(Minghui.org) Those familiar with modern Chinese history know about the Cultural Revolution, during which millions of fervent Red Guards attacked their fellow countrymen in a political campaign that caused untold suffering. These Red Guards often carried a copy of xiao hong shu (the Little Red Book), a collection of quotes from Mao Zedong that instilled class struggle and hatred, as their spiritual guidance.

Decades after the havoc ended, out of nostalgia, the term xiaohongshu was used to name a Chinese social networking and e-commerce platform. The English version of the app is known as RedNote or RED. About half a million American TikTok “refugees” have recently downloaded or registered accounts in RedNote.

This sudden increase in non-governmental Sino-U.S. communication on a Chinese app has surprised and delighted Chinese users. Some even mistakenly thought the Chinese internet firewall had fallen. One could expect this seemingly relaxing environment to be heavily censored or isolated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) authorities. Nonetheless, messages from some of these “TikTok refugees” have surprised Chinese users.

A young American internet celebrity posted, “I love Chairman Mao, I love Chairman Xi; defeat Biden, defeat Trump.” Some openly mocked the U.S. government. “I love Chinese spies, and I mingle with Chinese spies,” one of them wrote. Another user held out a pile of documents in a video and said in front of the camera, “I want to hand over all the personal information to the Chinese government. They don’t need to steal it.”

Some CCP “pinks” (Chinese youths who fervently support and defend the CCP) immediately became very excited, as if coming to a carnival; some took this opportunity to repeat the slogan of “rising East [communist China], declining West” while disparaging the U.S. On the other hand, some were angry and questioned how a “great and powerful country [like China] could allow the ‘corrupt and dilapidated imperialists’ to speak English on our app.” Some chatted with the Americans, asking about their salaries and details of their daily life.

TikTok is highly effective at driving the youth toward content with agendas including woke culture, environmentalism, gender neutrality, and extreme speech. Its seemingly random content, served up by carefully designed algorithms, have poisoned a large number of unsuspecting young people in the U.S. and around the world over the past eight years. Meanwhile, any speech that goes against the CCP is censored.

Since its introduction to the international community in September 2017, TikTok has essentially played the role of a “spiritual fentanyl.” Through its content algorithms, it continually pushes communist ideology to international users, gradually developing in them a fondness for the CCP and its values.

It is unsurprising that these young American TikTok users do not know much about the Cultural Revolution, the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, the persecution of Falun Gong, and the CCP’s other human rights atrocities. They do not know about dissidents being labeled “mentally ill” and confined in psychiatric facilities, nor did they see the suffering that Chinese people endured under the CCP’s “zero-Covid” policy. They do not have a clear distinction between the CCP and China, and they make assumptions about life in China based on their own lives in other countries.

Let’s imagine a child who has lived a comfortable life since he was born and has received love, understanding, and support all along. Still, he may complain about discipline from parents, not having enough freedom, not getting enough love, and so on. Shielded from malice and hatred, he thinks other people in the world live like his family does. Meanwhile, his neighbor may be having problems making ends meet and barely surviving, so they don't have the luxury of worrying about such “first world problems.”

Someone who grows up on TikTok may think communist China also respects dignity and privacy, and he may even think that Americans have the least freedom. Little does he know that what he has seen had been carefully packaged and curated by sophisticated algorithms.

The CCP’s unrestricted warfare has no moral boundary. From the wave of “TikTok refugees,” one can see just how deeply the CCP has infiltrated America. But this is just one of many traps. Besides TikTok and RedNote, the CCP also controls WeChat and Lemon8, a sister app of TikTok owned by the same parent company.

While more people have realized the CCP’s deception and brutality, we now see that a large number of youths in America, Taiwan, and other places have been heavily influenced by the CCP’s ideology. How to wake them up is a serious and urgent issue.