China’s cybersecurity authority on Tuesday announced a two-month nationwide “Qinglang” campaign to regulate tipping disorder in online live streaming, targeting entertainment group streams and private-domain streams while cracking down on vulgar group shows luring rewards, fake personas deceiving tips, inducing minors to tip, and activities that incite irrational spending.
During the campaign, authorities will target vulgar group streams that lure tips by exposing private parts, simulating sexually suggestive actions, emitting indecent sounds, or creating a lewd atmosphere by employing specific filming techniques, set designs, and outfits, as well as using lowbrow games and discomforting tactics to solicit votes or induce user interaction through rewards, according to the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) on Tuesday.
Authorities will also crack down on deceptive online personas that trick viewers into tipping, including fabricated stories of poverty, nobility, or elite status, impersonation of soldiers, teachers, or doctors, and staged “hardship” or “abuse” dramas. Other violations include AI-generated fake content, phony interactive perks, false promises of rebates or lotteries that draw users into gambling-like behavior, and scams aimed at the elderly under the guise of companionship, charity, supporting national causes, or high-price buyback of collection pieces.
The campaign will also tackle the exploitation of minors, targeting streamers who lure adolescence with promises of romance, friendship, or gaming mentorship, encourage youngsters to steal parents’ IDs to evade age checks, knowingly allow underage tipping without intervention, or pretend to be minors themselves to solicit rewards.
Authorities will also restrict practices that stimulate irrational tipping, such as failing to cap individual virtual items or single tips, ranking streamers solely based on tipping amount and the absence of daily spending reminders designed to prevent high-value or impulsive tipping.
The campaign aims to impose strict penalties on repeat-offenders, platforms, and MCN agencies that incite or enable illegal tipping, and will publicly expose typical cases to serve as a deterrent.
Platforms are required to refine content review standards, tighten tipping rules, establish dedicated oversight systems, the CAC said. They must also enforce limits and spending alerts, regulate rankings, group broadcasts, and PK features, and improve complaint channels and refund mechanisms for underage users.
This campaign not only addresses the urgent need for cyberspace governance under the new reality, but also represents a strategic step toward the healthy, orderly growth of the live streaming industry, Shen Yi, a professor at Fudan University, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
Each measure targets specific disorders within the live streaming ecosystem, collectively building a governance framework across four dimensions: content formats, interaction mechanisms, user structures, and consumption behaviors, Shen added.
Campaign measures target these four major dimensions will propel the live streaming industry forward. It will help platforms refocus on interactivity and social value rather than pure monetization, encourage rational participation, deter impulsive tipping, and deepen users’ understanding and self-awareness of interaction mechanisms, Shen added.
