The differance between this and the De Jong challenge is that Nige's trailing leg was in the air and cutting through Ben Arfa's knee, the old "scissor challenge". Although both were hard lunges and both were fairly needles under the circumstances, Tiote's trailing leg was always pretty much grounded.
Can fully understand why a referee would give a red card though to be honest as it's a tough one to call live, but after viewing the replays it certainly wasn't worthy of a red.