Taiwan blocks Xiaohongshu for one year over fraud losses and data security failures

More than 1,700 fraud cases lead to an access ban

Taiwan is blocking Xiaohongshu for one year after authorities linked the Chinese social and shopping platform to more than 1,700 fraud cases since 2024, with losses totaling about 247.68 million Taiwan dollars. The Interior Ministry says the service also failed all 15 indicators in a government cybersecurity assessment and did not meet local legal requirements.

Xiaohongshu, branded in English as RedNote, has about 3 million users in Taiwan. The restriction reaches beyond government offices to people using the app for shopping, lifestyle recommendations, photos and short videos. Internet providers have been instructed to suspend access through controls on domain names and internet addresses.

Authorities say investigators could not obtain basic information about suspect accounts and transactions because the operator has no legal representative in Taiwan. Agencies contacted its parent company in Shanghai in October, requesting concrete steps to protect users, but said they received no reply.

As of December 5, 2025, the decision has opened a dispute over how Taiwan should balance fraud prevention, data security and internet freedom. Government officials describe the suspension as a response to an operator outside effective local oversight. Opposition politicians call it censorship and warn that people will use virtual private networks to get around it.

The order is provisionally set for one year. Authorities will monitor whether the company addresses the security problems and begins complying with Taiwan law. Its response will help determine whether the restrictions are revised, lifted or followed by further measures.

Police figures show the scale of the losses

The Criminal Investigation Bureau recorded 950 fraud cases linked to Xiaohongshu in 2024, with losses above 132.9 million Taiwan dollars. From January through November 2025, officers logged another 756 cases, with losses above 114.77 million Taiwan dollars. Authorities described the combined toll since 2024 as more than 1,700 victims.

The figures cover a full year in 2024 and 11 months in 2025. They show that substantial losses continued into the second year, with the Interior Ministry putting the combined amount at about 247.68 million Taiwan dollars.

Victims reported fake storefronts, investment pitches linked to influencer posts, supposed installment payment cancellations, romance scams and sexual solicitation ruses. Many cases involved sellers asking buyers to pay outside the platform and then failing to deliver the goods.

Xiaohongshu combines personal recommendations with shopping listings. A product promoted in a friendly lifestyle post can feel more trustworthy than a conventional advertisement. That closeness between social interaction and selling helps explain how a user looking for advice can end up dealing with a fraudulent seller.

Regulators say tracing a transaction and recovering money become much harder once buyers move conversations into private messages or follow links to external sites. Investigators then need records showing who controlled an account, what was promised and where the payment went. Authorities say the operator's lack of cooperation has made obtaining those records difficult.

Why the ministry says investigations stalled

Taiwan requires major platforms operating locally to appoint a legal representative and respond to lawful requests for data. A local representative gives regulators and police an identifiable party to contact when they need records or require the company to answer for its operations.

The Interior Ministry says Xiaohongshu did not meet those obligations. Alongside the failed security assessment, officials cited the company's failure to provide the information needed for fraud investigations. Authorities say they tried to work with the operator before imposing the suspension.

The Interior Ministry described the obstacle in a written statement, explaining why police inquiries had become difficult:

"Due to the inability to obtain necessary data in accordance with the law, law enforcement authorities have encountered significant obstacles in investigations, creating a de facto legal vacuum," the ministry said.

Officials say many victims had no path to compensation because the app operates outside Taiwan's jurisdiction. Without a local representative, police and courts cannot easily compel the operator to provide records, freeze suspicious assets or resolve disputes. For someone who has lost money, that can leave both the investigation and efforts to recover funds stuck.

How internet providers will block the service

The Interior Ministry invoked Article 42 of the Fraud Crime Hazard Prevention Act, which allows emergency action against online services tied to fraud on a large scale. It directed internet service providers to suspend domain name resolution and restrict access to Xiaohongshu for one year.

The Taiwan Network Information Center said it had activated Response Policy Zone controls in the domain name system under an administrative order from investigators. The method is commonly described as DNS RPZ.

The domain name system helps a device find a website or service by translating its name into an internet address. Response Policy Zone controls let network operators redirect requests for specified domains, preventing users from reaching the intended destination through those requests.

Engineers will also target hundreds of IP addresses associated with Xiaohongshu. An IP address identifies a destination on a network, so these controls address another route by which the app connects to its services. Officials said the rollout would take several hours while providers updated their systems.

Users opening Xiaohongshu may see a loading spinner or an error saying a page cannot be reached. The ministry advised people not to download the app and urged existing users to stop using it and move to services that meet local security standards.

What the security assessment found

A national security review concluded that Xiaohongshu failed all 15 indicators in a government cybersecurity checklist. The assessment covers permissions and behavior involving sensitive data collection, access to storage, invasive activity in the background, information sharing with remote servers and the potential interception of communications.

Those checks concern what an app can access and what it can do while running on a device. Storage access, for example, concerns information held on the device, while background operations concern activity that continues when a person is not actively using the app.

Taiwanese officials also pointed to China's legal requirements. Chinese security agencies can compel companies to provide user data. Taiwan's concern is that information about local users, their devices and their networks could become accessible to those agencies without meaningful oversight.

Earlier in the week, the Ministry of Digital Affairs warned that five popular Chinese platforms posed significant cybersecurity risks. It named Xiaohongshu, the short video app Douyin, microblog service Weibo, messaging app WeChat and the cloud storage service Baidu Wangpan.

Taiwan has banned Xiaohongshu, TikTok and Douyin from government devices since 2019. The new Xiaohongshu order extends restrictions to general access through internet providers, affecting the much larger audience using the service outside government workplaces.

Deputy Interior Minister Ma Shih yuan said governments needed cooperation from platform operators and that vague promises were insufficient to protect users. He described Xiaohongshu's conduct as part of a challenge extending beyond Taiwan:

This is not a problem unique to Taiwan," Ma said. "From our perspective, it is a platform that sits beyond legal oversight and operates with unclear intentions.

The dispute over internet freedom

Kuomintang leaders criticized the suspension as censorship. They warned that users would turn to virtual private networks, or VPNs, to bypass the controls. A VPN routes a user's connection through another network, offering a way to try to reach services blocked by a local provider.

Lai Shyh bao, a Kuomintang legislator, argued that the shutdown threatened Taiwan's open internet. He wrote on Facebook:

Internet freedom in Taiwan is heading toward a day when people will need VPNs.

Government officials responded that the central issues were compliance with local law and fraud that had drained household savings. They said Facebook, Google, LINE and TikTok operate legally in Taiwan by appointing representatives and answering lawful requests from regulators and police.

Across the Taiwan Strait, a spokesperson for China's Taiwan Affairs Office criticized the decision and accused Taipei of using cybersecurity claims to limit exchanges. The disagreement reflects the wider political rift between the two sides, which frequently extends into disputes over information and online platforms.

How a shopping guide became a major social platform

Xiaohongshu began in 2013 as a shopping guide where users exchanged advice about buying products overseas. Founders Miranda Qu and Charlwin Mao developed it into a social network combining polished lifestyle posts, product reviews and direct links to purchases.

The service is often compared with Instagram because of its emphasis on photographs and short videos. Its early audience was largely young and female, attracting substantial advertising spending from brands seeking to reach those users.

Xiaohongshu presents itself as a lifestyle search engine. People use it to look up trends, travel notes and recommendations from other users. Its culture of recommendation is known as the grass planting economy, a term describing how posts encourage people to try products and then share their experiences.

Downloads surged in several markets when TikTok faced possible restrictions. Xiaohongshu has also faced complaints from regulators and users about fake reviews, paid posts without advertising labels and its handling of material that conflicts with censorship requirements in China.

The company has come under compliance pressure inside China when posts critical of local conditions spread on the service. Taiwan's suspension arrives amid its own longstanding scrutiny of mainland platforms, which authorities have warned can expose users to data collection and carry disinformation campaigns.

What changes for users and businesses

About 3 million users in Taiwan face the loss of ordinary access to Xiaohongshu during the suspension. Influencers, small retailers and sellers trading across borders who built communities on the app will need other channels to reach their customers.

The Interior Ministry urged users and businesses to switch to legal services meeting Taiwan's information security standards. For sellers, the disruption affects the same combination of recommendations, audience engagement and shopping links that made Xiaohongshu useful as a commercial platform.

Consumers shopping through social media or messaging services can take practical steps to reduce their exposure to the types of scams described by authorities:

• Check a seller's identity, company registration and working contact details.
• Choose payment methods with buyer protection and avoid bank transfers to personal accounts.
• Keep conversations inside the platform and be cautious about links leading to unfamiliar sites or payment pages.
• Watch for pressure to act quickly, implausibly cheap deals and installment cancellation scripts.
• Check reviews on multiple sites and look for repeated complaints.
• Keep ID numbers, bank login details and one time passwords private.
• Enable two factor authentication and keep phone software updated.

Two factor authentication adds a second check when signing in, alongside a password. These precautions address the risks faced by individual shoppers, while Taiwan's order focuses on the operator's legal responsibilities and security practices.

How Taiwan's decision fits the wider scrutiny

The United States passed a law requiring TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app to an American owner or face a nationwide ban. Multiple countries and the European Union have barred TikTok from government devices. Texas has also banned Xiaohongshu on government hardware.

India blocked TikTok and dozens of other Chinese apps in 2020 after a border clash with China. Several countries require foreign services to store data locally and keep it away from foreign government access.

Taiwan's Xiaohongshu review brought together two concerns: fraud involving people using the service and the possibility that Chinese security agencies could access user information. The ministry's stated reasons for the suspension include both the failed security checks and the obstacles facing fraud investigators.

Taiwan also regularly faces coordinated messaging campaigns aimed at shaping public opinion. Social platforms have become central places for that contest, prompting Taiwanese regulators to seek greater transparency and a clear line of accountability within their jurisdiction.

What officials will review during the suspension

Authorities say Xiaohongshu can return to the Taiwan market if it meets concrete conditions. The operator would need to appoint a legal representative, comply with lawful requests for user data in fraud investigations and pass fresh security tests addressing the 15 indicators it failed.

Regulators will monitor compliance during the year. The Interior Ministry could revise or lift restrictions if the company submits a credible plan and starts meeting local requirements. Without progress, authorities could extend the measures or take further action under digital security and fraud prevention laws. No specific date for a compliance review or restoration of access was given.

The events leading to the suspension span several years:

• 2013: Miranda Qu and Charlwin Mao founded Xiaohongshu as a guide to shopping overseas.
• 2019: Taiwan began banning Xiaohongshu, TikTok and Douyin from government devices.
• 2024: Police recorded 950 fraud cases linked to Xiaohongshu, with losses above 132.9 million Taiwan dollars.
• January through November 2025: Police recorded another 756 cases, with losses above 114.77 million Taiwan dollars.
• October 2025: Taiwanese agencies contacted the parent company in Shanghai seeking concrete protections for users and said they received no reply.
• The week of December 5, 2025: The Ministry of Digital Affairs warned about five Chinese platforms, and the Interior Ministry ordered a provisional year of restrictions on Xiaohongshu.

The immediate result is a disruption for millions of users. The government's conditions for restoring access center on whether the operator becomes reachable under Taiwan law, supplies records required for investigations and resolves the security failures identified in testing.

Key Points

• Taiwan ordered a one year block on Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote, affecting about 3 million users.
• Authorities linked the platform to more than 1,700 fraud cases since 2024 and about 247.68 million Taiwan dollars in losses.
• The app failed all 15 government cybersecurity indicators and has no legal representative in Taiwan.
• Internet providers are restricting domain name resolution and access to hundreds of associated IP addresses.
• Officials said the parent company did not answer an October request for concrete user protections.
• Kuomintang politicians criticized the restriction as censorship; the government cited fraud, security failures and legal noncompliance.
• Authorities will monitor compliance and could revise or lift the block if the company meets their requirements.