The Cyberspace Administration of China deploys a special campaign to "Clean Up: Rectify the Chaos of Fake Personas in Short Videos"

Title context: The Cyberspace Administration of China deploys a special campaign to "Clean Up: Rectify the Chaos of Fake Personas in Short Videos" Text: To further promote the healthy and orderly development of the short video industry and foster a clean and upright cyberspace, the Cyberspace Administration of China recently issued a notice deploying a two-month special campaign nationwide titled "Qinglang: Rectifying the Chaos of Fake Personas in Short Videos." A responsible official from the Cyberspace Administration of China stated that this special campaign focuses on rectifying the following five prominent issues: (1) Pretending to be disadvantaged groups. First, pretending to be workers in new forms of employment, staging scenes such as "delivering food with a child" or "delivering food with advanced degrees" to garner public sympathy by dramatizing hardship and the struggles of making a living. Second, impersonating farmers, impoverished people in mountainous areas, grassroots rural officials, purchasers from Shenzhen Agricultural Power Group, and other roles to sell products under the guise of helping farmers. Third, impersonating disabled persons or seriously ill individuals, fabricating extremely impoverished personas and tragic life stories. Fourth, impersonating people who have suffered setbacks in love or marriage to attract traffic and profit. (2) Fabricating professional qualifications. First, fabricating resumes, honors, professional titles, and other credentials, impersonating doctors, lawyers, teachers, and other professionals, inventing titles and certificates, and using deceptive rhetoric or vulgar borderline content to profit through paid consultations, course training, and traffic-driven sales. Second, using vague keywords related to professional fields to bypass platform requirements for professional qualification verification, covertly publishing content in relevant professional fields, and spreading false information to mislead the public. (3) Using AI and other means to impersonate individuals. First, using AI-synthesized fake audio and video to impersonate public figures and carry out false endorsements, marketing, and other infringing and illegal activities. Second, impersonating parties involved in or relatives of those involved in trending social events to publish content, or reposting content to create "shadow accounts" to deceive netizens into following or making charitable donations. Third, deliberately associating account names or bios with well-known public figures by adding or removing words, inserting symbols, or reposting videos to imply authorization. (4) Promoting extravagance and superstition. First, renting luxury cars and mansions and luxury goods, staging high-end consumption scenes, packaging themselves as wealthy heirs or socialites, and hyping comparisons and flaunting wealth to attract traffic and profit. Second, creating personas of grassroots entrepreneurship and struggling comebacks, manufacturing illusions of sudden wealth, and attracting traffic and profit through franchise recruitment, selling supply sources, entrepreneurship courses, and paid communities. Third, packaging themselves as feng shui masters, astrologers, or metaphysical mentors, outputting superstitious content, and using rhetoric such as "changing fortune and averting disaster" to sell products, charge for fortune-telling, and divert traffic to private domains for profit. (5) Fabricating conflict-driven plots. First, impersonating public welfare workers or volunteers, self-directing and self-performing "good deed and rescue" plots such as helping others, treating employees well, or making fake donations, or artificially creating coincidences and fabricating stories to attract traffic and amass wealth. Second, fabricating conflicts and public security incidents such as domestic violence, dropping out of school, child abandonment, family separation, and kidnapping to mislead netizens and incite social panic and anger. Third, producing short videos such as "human nature tests" that belittle or vilify specific regions or groups, falsely creating "ugly" or "prank" narratives, provoking group antagonism, and undermining social harmony and the achievements of spiritual civilization development. At the same time, cyberspace authorities will take the following governance measures: First, intensify the investigation and punishment of violating accounts and platforms. Strictly crack down in accordance with the law on malicious marketing and profiteering through fake personas and on misleading netizens, and strictly crack down in accordance with the law on large-scale production of homogeneous fake personas through MCN agencies' batch production, multi-account matrix distribution, and cross-platform reposting and dissemination. Accounts with egregious circumstances will be resolutely banned. Second, strengthen standardized labeling in the short video publishing process. For short videos with fake personas that are not labeled as required, strict punishment will be imposed in accordance with the law; website platforms will be urged to earnestly fulfill their content review obligations and must not use content labels such as fictional performance, AI-generated, marketing, reposted, or personal opinion, or disclaimers of no adverse orientation, to evade requirements related to cyberspace governance, thereby blocking the upload and publication of fake persona short videos at the source. Third, strengthen the management of content presentation in key sections. It is strictly prohibited to push fake persona short videos in rankings, recommendations, and other positions. Qualification review management will be strengthened, and fields that currently lack occupational classification, qualification standards, and certification requirements but have serious space for illegal profiteering will be categorized and included as key areas of routine governance. Fourth, strengthen measures to protect the rights and interests of specific groups. Focusing on key links such as content creation, traffic distribution, and review management, strict handling in accordance with laws and regulations will be applied to short videos that falsely create personas such as "AI domineering CEOs" or "wellness masters" to deceive the elderly, spread or compile rumors that disparage the image of rural farmers, or impersonate professionals to mislead netizens. The responsible official from the Cyberspace Administration of China emphasized that cyberspace authorities in all localities must fully recognize the significance of the special campaign in promoting the healthy and orderly development of the short video industry and safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of netizens, earnestly fulfill territorial management responsibilities, supervise website platforms in conducting in-depth self-examination and self-correction against the key rectification priorities by focusing on key links and sections, comprehensively investigate problems and loopholes, improve long-term governance mechanisms, and ensure the special campaign achieves practical results. This article is reposted from the "Wangxin Zhongguo" WeChat public account. GMTEight editor: Chen Wenfang.