The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) has removed more than 5.61 million pieces of unlawful or rule-violating content and taken action against over 49,000 accounts in a nationwide campaign targeting misuse of artificial intelligence tools1,2. The campaign also dealt with more than 2,400 websites and apps found in violation of the rules.
The enforcement drive targets the fabrication and spread of false information using AI, the production of violent or vulgar content, AI-enabled impersonation of real people, and content that infringes on the rights of minors. The CAC published examples of penalized accounts and applications, including social media accounts using AI face- and voice-swapping tools to impersonate public figures, and websites hosting AI agents whose cover images, profile descriptions, or generated dialogue contained sexually explicit material or other content harmful to minors.
Major Chinese online platforms, including Douyin, Kuaishou, Weibo, Tencent, Baidu, Bilibili, Xiaohongshu, Zhihu, Douban, and Taobao, have strengthened multimodal detection systems and expanded databases used to identify manipulated faces, cloned voices, and known violation samples. Leading generative AI services, including ByteDance's Doubao, Tencent's Yuanbao, Alibaba's Qwen, and Baidu's Ernie Bot, have tightened review of training and output content and stepped up compliance with AI-labeling requirements.
Smartphone app stores run by Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, and Vivo have introduced stricter vetting standards for app developers, including rechecking apps already listed on their platforms.
Regional authorities have adopted differing enforcement approaches. In Beijing, authorities directed platforms to upgrade content-review systems to better detect new variants of banned material. Shanghai regulators pushed platforms to conduct internal audits and issued public-facing materials explaining AI-related risks.
The campaign builds on an existing regulatory framework. Rules that took effect in August 2023 require providers of generative AI services to fulfill personal information protection obligations. Content-labeling regulations effective from September 2025 require AI-generated text, images, audio, and video to carry visible or embedded identifiers.
The CAC said it would continue to monitor emerging risks tied to AI-generated content and take further steps to curb misuse of the technology, while stating a parallel goal of fostering healthy and orderly development of AI applications in China.
ANALYSIS The breadth of the enforcement action, spanning social platforms, generative AI model providers, and mobile app stores simultaneously, extends compliance pressure across the full distribution chain for AI-generated content in China rather than targeting any single layer.