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Minxiao Chang

China’s top internet watchdog has drafted new rules to regulate how social platforms and game developers should protect minors, including a ban on offering “virtual intimacy services” to those under 18 as artificial intelligence-powered companions gain traction.
The rules, titled “Ensuring minors’ safe and healthy use of the internet”, would ban online platforms from providing “virtual relatives or companions”, and prohibit them from offering services that “induce minors to become addicted or otherwise harm or may seriously affect their physical and mental health”.
The regulations would also ban online social networking services among strangers, except for those aged above 16 who rely on their own wages, according to the document published last Friday by the Cyberspace Administration of China.
The document requires platforms to activate minors’ mode when operating online games, social sites and offering AI services that “could affect the cognition of” users under 16.
Operators were also required to more accurately identify underage users and ban them from using algorithms that “induce emotional dependence, addiction or excessive spending”.

Violations could carry fines of up to 10 times the income earned by the platform if it exceeded 1 million yuan (US$149,000), and punishment would include having all the income confiscated.
The proposals, now soliciting public comment through October 17, represent the latest restriction on screen time by teenagers. Those aged between six and 19 accounted for 18 per cent of all Chinese internet users, or 112.5 million people, as of the end of 2025, according to data from the state-run China Internet Network Information Centre.
“The key question in defining a ‘virtual intimate relationship’ is whether a service is designed to simulate or substitute for real family or partner relationships and build sustained emotional bonds through character settings and emotional guidance,” said He Qianggao, a lawyer and director at Geason Law Offices.
He added that ordinary AI chats or functional role-playing would generally fall outside the scope, but services that effectively encouraged emotional dependence or replaced real-world relationships could still come under scrutiny even without being labelled as an AI companion.
He said the bigger compliance challenge for AI companies would go beyond verifying how old users were to determining what services they could access once identified as minors. Platforms may consequently see rising costs across product design, technical infrastructure and compliance reviews.
The latest proposals come two months after China introduced its first dedicated rules governing humanlike AI interaction, which took effect in July and targeted AI systems that excessively cater to users or encourage emotional dependence in ways that damage real-world relationships.
To comply, ByteDance’s Doubao and Alibaba Group Holding’s Qwen disabled customised agent functions that had allowed users to create characters with fixed names, personalities and speaking styles. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.


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Chinese regulator drafts rules to protect teenagers from ‘intimate’ AI companions

The new rules would ban online platforms from providing ‘virtual relatives or companions’. Photo: dpa

A Razer AI desk companion is displayed at the Razer booth during CES in Las Vegas, January 6, 2026. Photo: AP 

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The latest proposals come two months after China introduced its first dedicated rules governing humanlike AI interaction


The latest proposals come two months after China introduced its first dedicated rules governing humanlike AI interaction.


Chinese regulator drafts rules to protect teenagers from ‘intimate’ AI companions

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The latest proposals come two months after China introduced its first dedicated rules governing humanlike AI interaction

The latest proposals come two months after China introduced its first dedicated rules governing humanlike AI interaction