US-made social media have a global reach. Yet, assuming that every country in the world connects with Facebook or Instagram is wrong. Around the world, there are many other social media platforms with region-specific or language-specific dominance. Here’s an overview of how people connect outside the Western world.
WeChat is China’s all-in-one “super-app.” Made by Tencent, it features messaging, social feed (Moments), payments, mini-programs, news, and e-commerce. Because of all these features, its digital footprint is substantial.
WeChat has a reported ~1.34 billion monthly active users globally in 2025.
Weibo is a Chinese micro-blogging and social feed platform produced by Sina Corporation. The app is a mix of Twitter, Instagram, and a news feed.
In China, it has ~600 million monthly active users, and it’s a relevant platform for public conversation, trending topics, influencer networks, and propaganda analysis.
Line
Line is the most dominant messaging and social platform in Japan, and partly in Taiwan, Thailand, and Indonesia. Besides messaging, it offers other features such as timeline, stickers, payments (through LINE Pay), and official accounts.
In Japan alone, it counted ~97 million monthly active users in early 2025 (the equivalent of ~78.6% of Japan’s population). In Japan and other Asian regions, Line is often the primary social communication network.
Zalo
Zalo is a Vietnamese messaging and social media platform produced by VNG Corporation. It’s used in business, including governmental contexts. Indeed, it offers the feature of official accounts. Zalo has high penetration in Vietnam among the local population, so much so that it’s the main platform in use besides apps like Facebook and Instagram.
It counted ~77.8 million monthly active users as of the end of 2024, increasing to ~78.3 million in 2025.
VK (formerly VKontakte)
Telegram
The Telegram messaging app was created by Russian entrepreneurs Pavel Durov and his brother Nikolai Durov in 2013. Pavel Durov, who is the founder and owner of the app, previously co-founded the Russian social network VKontakte (VK) in 2006. Telegram is an app that is now used internationally, even in the Western world.
Telegram is a messaging and community platform with an emphasis on privacy (often replacing the activities carried on the dark web), featuring channels, groups, and bots. It has an estimated ~900 million monthly active users.
KakaoTalk
KakaoTalk is South Korea’s dominant messenger and social app produced by Kakao Corporation. Launched in 2010, it has since become the most popular instant messaging app in South Korea, capturing around 90 percent of the domestic market. However, KakaoTalk is offered in 15 languages and is used in over 130 countries.
Originally designed as a messaging application, KakaoTalk has evolved into a super-app providing a wide range of services such as mobile payments and banking through KakaoPay, taxi hailing, games via Kakaogames, and a gifting platform.
Other platforms
Other non-US platforms with significant usage around the world are:
- TikTok, the Chinese short-video platform gone global with an estimated 1.5 billion monthly active users;
- Douyin, the Chinese domestic equivalent of TikTok, with over 1 billion users in China;
- QQ, an older Tencent platform with an estimated 600 million users;
- Xiaohongshu (“RED"), a social and e-commerce blend platform from China, with an estimated 300-500 million users;
- Kuaishou, another Chinese short-video and social media platform from China with 466 million+ users;
- Bilibili, a video and community hub in China with around 348 million users.
Censorship and local data regulations
Many of these platforms reside in regions where local regulations are strict when it comes to data residency. Local regulation regimes are strong in regions like China and Russia, and that strongly affects user data collection methodologies.
Censorship rules also affect users and the topics they can see on these apps. For example, WeChat (and the domestic version Weixin) employs keyword filtering and server-side censorship. Where the account is registered often affects policies and censorship rules.
The risks of joining from the West
When users from Western countries (Canada, EU, U.S., etc.) join non-Western social media platforms, they face a unique mix of technical, legal, and psychological risks that differ sharply from Western-based apps:
- Privacy and surveillance risks
Apps from China, such as WeChat, Weibo, Douyin, and Xiaohongshu, store indefinitely and monitor conversations, metadata, and shared files. Chinese data-protection law protects “state interests” before individual privacy. Western users have no effective mechanism to demand data deletion or transparency.
Russian platforms must comply with a legal regime requiring data localization: since 2015, databases must be formed, updated, and kept on servers located in the Russian Federation. The law further requires rapid cooperation with law enforcement. In 2019, Russia adopted laws that criminalize “blatant disrespect” for the state, fake news, and give the regulator Roskomnadzor broad powers to block or throttle platforms.
Platforms in Vietnam and Japan span multiple jurisdictions, meaning that your data might be shared and exposed across different legislations.
- Legal and compliance risks
The usage of these apps carries data sovereignty conflicts: the data is stored under laws that conflict with GDPR, PIPEDA, or other privacy frameworks. This means that Governments can order account suspension without appeal or trigger “Disrespecting the state” or “fake news” laws.
- Cybersecurity and technical risks
Many non-Western apps request excessive access (microphone, contacts, files, and even the clipboard or contacts). On the server side, there is often no transparency on how encryption is implemented: messages may be encrypted in transit, but are fully visible to the provider. Another problem is malware embedding: some versions (especially side-loaded APKs of Douyin or WeChat) have been found carrying telemetry code.
Finally, Western users stand out in smaller regional platforms, becoming easier targets.
A reversed trust model
Joining these non-Western platforms is not inherently unsafe, but the trust model is reversed:
- In Western platforms, data misuse is commercial.
- In these econsystems, data misuse can be political, legal, or surveillance driven.
A Western user should approach them as semi-hostile digital environments, suitable for observation and analysis under controlled conditions, but not for personal communication or sensitive work.