TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Ministry of the Interior has ordered China's RedNote blocked for one year after authorities linked it to 1,706 fraud cases, with the Taiwan Network Information Center (TWNIC) activating legal DNS measures to enforce the shutdown.
The Criminal Investigation Bureau said Thursday that the app, known in Chinese as Xiaohongshu (小紅書), was involved in 950 fraud cases in Taiwan last year, resulting in total losses of over NT$132.9 million (US$4.24 million), per CNA. From January to November this year, 756 cases have already been reported, with total losses exceeding NT$114.77 million, showing a continuing upward trend.
Ma Shih-yuan (馬士元), head of the Cabinet's Anti-Fraud Command Center, said under Article 42 of the Fraud Crime Hazard Prevention Act, which governs “fraud crime prevention emergencies,” the MOI has issued an order immediately suspending domain name resolution and restricting access to RedNote for a provisional period of one year.
Deputy Secretary Lai Cheng-yung (賴正庸) said the order involves hundreds of IP addresses and will be implemented gradually over several hours. Users attempting to access RedNote pages or buttons should see either a loading spinner or an error message indicating the page cannot be reached.
TWNIC said it received the administrative order on Thursday from the CIB under Article 42, requiring the blocking of specific domain names. The organization immediately activated technical measures using DNS RPZ (Response Policy Zone) in accordance with the law.
TWNIC explained that DNS RPZ is a legal technical mechanism applied to domain names deemed illegal, posing public safety risks, or causing significant public harm. The system is enforced only under court rulings or administrative orders and does not grant TWNIC discretion to block domains on its own.
According to TWNIC, the DNS RPZ framework operates under a self-regulatory cooperative model, built and maintained by voluntary domestic Internet Access Service Providers. Its operation follows legal regulations, and domain blocking is triggered only when a court or competent authority issues a lawful administrative order.
