Transnational community empowerment and empathy transfer during the LA wildfires: How Xiaohongshu (RedNote) global users enacted environmental justice across the smoke

During the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires and amid uncertainty over a TikTok ban, Xiaohongshu (RedNote) unexpectedly emerged as a site of transnational environmental discussion. This study examines how transnational conversations unfolded and their implications for community empowerment and environmental justice during a crisis. Drawing on qualitative content analysis and social network analysis of 505 wildfire-related posts, we find that user engagement centered on participatory practices (44.45%), including reporting and the circulation of practical information. Another substantial share of posts focused on building social ties through emotional support (16.33%), while critically questioning the causes of the fires (11.02%). Social network analysis further shows that grassroots users occupied central positions in the discourse. Together, these findings suggest that Xiaohongshu enabled communicative agency and empathetic transfer across borders, facilitating emergent forms of collective resilience. However, such potentials remain contingent, as algorithmic visibility and geopolitical conditions unevenly shape participation and recognition in digital spaces.