Rise of Child Influencers in China
This week, state media in China brought attention to the emergence of “child influencers” on government-controlled social media platforms. These young content creators are making short videos where they often appear to be subjected to various disturbing scenarios, including being force-fed and engaging in fights with other children.
A report from the Global Times noted that the Communist Party intends to enhance its crackdown on harmful content. However, it mainly reiterated existing restrictions on what the government considers “harmful.” While censors swiftly eliminate politically sensitive content, the focus on dissent allows other exploitative material to thrive.
The article followed reports from state broadcaster CCTV, highlighting a range of disturbing interactions involving children on these platforms. The posts reportedly include challenges where minors are encouraged to eat insects, snails, and weeds, as well as carefully staged sibling fights that create a narrative of family conflict. Additionally, serious allegations suggest some videos portray child models mimicking romantic scenarios or using inappropriate language aimed at promoting live streams.
A particularly alarming case featured a girl known as Pei Qi, named after a popular British cartoon character. Her parents uploaded a shocking video of her being force-fed excessive amounts of unhealthy food. According to Pei Qi’s now-removed account, the 3-year-old was noted to weigh around 77 pounds. Reports from Taiwanese media indicated that in one video, she seems to beg her parents to stop feeding her, but they ignore her pleas. Although her official social media accounts appear to have been taken down, some of her content continues to circulate in discussions about child exploitation.
The Global Times emphasized that recent regulations implemented by the party are designed to limit abusive content that doesn’t necessarily break existing laws, such as those against child pornography. The aim is to safeguard the physical and mental well-being of minors from negative influences that might encourage harmful behavior.
According to Xinhua News Agency, the categories targeted by these regulations include content that might incite minors to engage in harmful actions, influence their values negatively, misuse their images, or inappropriately expose their personal information. The responsibility for adhering to these regulations falls on content creators and online service providers, although the consequences for violations remain ambiguous.
The Chinese government is quick to punish any overtly political dissent, often imprisoning individuals such as journalists and human rights advocates for vague charges like “creating disturbances.” In a notable case, more than 10,000 social media accounts were deleted in late 2018 due to alleged political violations, as stated by the Cyberspace Administration of China.
China’s internet faces significant challenges with abusive child content, largely due to a governmental focus on stifling genuine political critiques. In 2021, major platforms like Alibaba and Tencent were criticized for allowing sexually suggestive content featuring minors to persist. At the time, the administration vowed a “zero tolerance” policy to eradicate online threats to children’s safety.
However, incidents like Pei Qi’s show that this content isn’t always sexual. In some instances, the children may not even reside in China. Around a year after the controversies surrounding Alibaba and Tencent, a BBC investigation unveiled a network exploiting underprivileged children in Africa, forcing them to participate in racially charged videos for a Chinese audience. This network was discovered when a journalist found a man misleadingly posing as a humanitarian, coercing children into creating these videos while they couldn’t truly comprehend the offensive phrases they were instructed to say.
