Americans Are Posting 3D-Printed Gun Videos to China’s RedNote With Surprising Success

Americans have flooded the Chinese-based video app RedNote in recent days in a coordinated campaign to say “fuck you” to their own government as the ban on TikTok is set to take effect on Sunday. And while some cultural conflict is bound to be expected, some Americans are testing the limits of U.S.-China digital relations by posting videos about 3D-printed guns. And surprisingly, they seem to be getting away with it so far.

Daily Dot was the first to report Wednesday about a social media user named YZY who decided to join RedNote specifically to teach Chinese users about 3D-printed guns. These so-called ghost guns operate in a gray area within U.S. law but are decidedly illegal in China, which has strict gun laws.

“Us Americans have a moral obligation to download RedNote and show the Chinese how to build unserialized ghost guns,” YZY wrote on X.

The needle is moving. pic.twitter.com/HArFGN5m7K

— yzy (@yzy_is_who) January 15, 2025

While YZY tweeted that he’d had one video removed, it was quickly restored, and other videos have seemingly been allowed to stay up. The user told the Daily Dot that he’d actually run into fewer moderation issues than on TikTok, where he didn’t have an active presence.

“It would not surprise me if they just straight up never thought to make a policy against this,” the user speculated to the Daily Dot.

This may be the first ever Chinese 3D printed gun fed post pic.twitter.com/cs0tkZN3w1

— yzy (@yzy_is_who) January 15, 2025

YZY and a few like-minded friends have planted their flag at RedNote. And while it’s not clear whether the company will get more or less strict about the presence of gun-related content, they seem to be operating just fine this week. A handful of users have asked YZY questions in Mandarin and English. And while the discussion has been respectful, there are some RedNote users who are clearly uncomfortable with ghost guns, as many Americans obviously are.

The oper8rs on Xiaohongshu are telling people to put the safety on between reloads pic.twitter.com/U9t2T72Ore

— yzy (@yzy_is_who) January 15, 2025

Citizens of China can get permission to own a firearm but it’s nowhere near as easy as it is for Americans to obtain one. China had just 1,126 gun deaths in 2019, compared with the U.S., which had 37,040 that same year. The numbers look even worse when you remember that China’s population is much larger at 1.4 billion, while the U.S. has just 335 million.

The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that Trump plans to issue an executive order to stall the implementation of the TikTok ban as soon as he takes office on Monday. But the ban is supposed to go into effect on Sunday and it’s not entirely clear what kind of legal standing Trump’s EO might have. In some sense, issuing the EO is likely just a signal to the Department of Justice to ignore the law. Because if the DOJ doesn’t try to enforce it, that’s one way of just invalidating the legislation that Congress passed.

Nobody actually knows what’s going to happen with TikTok in the coming days and weeks, as the Supreme Court is expected to hand down a verdict any day now. But whatever happens, Americans will be venturing to push boundaries, even as many American and Chinese users see this as a unique opportunity for cultural exchange, embracing the “global village” idea of the late 20th-century techno-utopians.