Residents of China sometimes say things online that may have been okay with the censors yesterday but are deemed terribly wrong today, for the government line has changed.
The state that once sought to limit China’s population has in recent years decided that people have become too few. More babies are necessary. So the regime is cracking down on “anti-marriage social media content.” A special campaign is being launched to enforce the kind of positive social atmosphere that the censors assert is so appropriate for the Chinese New Year (AFP, February 13, 2026).
China’s top internet regulator said on Thursday it would launch a crackdown during the Lunar New Year holiday period to curb social media content it deemed problematic, including any that fanned fears about getting married or having children….
The Cyberspace Administration of China…listed “inciting gender antagonism and exaggerating ‘fear of marriage’ and ‘anxiety about childbirth’ ” as primary examples of content “maliciously inciting negative emotions” that should be taken down by social media platforms.
Aimed at creating a “festive, peaceful, and positive online atmosphere for Chinese New Year”, the month-long crackdown will target a range of topics, including what the CAC called “digital slop”….
The regulator also singled out mass-produced AI content that “exaggerates family conflicts and intergenerational clashes, such as ‘parental favouritism’, ‘mother-in-law and daughter-in-law conflicts’, and ‘sibling fights’ ” to generate traffic.
Social media platforms are now expected to even more diligently manage users’ speech, all part of the joy of the season. Slacker platforms will not be let off easy. Weibo, Kuaishu and Xiaohongshu are three that have been punished of late for neglecting to enforce CCP standards of speech with sufficient rigor.
