Online safety & content laws in China (2026)

The first revision since 2017 (adopted by the NPC Standing Committee on 2025-10-28) raises maximum fines to RMB 10 million, expands extraterritorial reach to any activity endangering China's cybersecurity, and adds an article on safe AI development. It signals tighter integration of content, data, and AI governance.

CAC's Measures for Labeling AI-Generated Synthetic Content (released 2025-03-14) and national standard GB 45438-2025 require both explicit on-screen labels and implicit watermarks/metadata on AI text, images, audio, and video distributed on Chinese platforms. It is one of the world's first comprehensive AI-labeling mandates.

CAC issued guidelines for a unified 'minor mode' across devices, app stores, and apps, automatically filtering content and limiting screen time by age. It operationalizes the 2024 minors regulation across the mobile ecosystem.

The State Council regulation (released 2023-10-16), comprising 60 articles, requires platforms to curb addiction, restrict harmful content, and protect minors' personal data, with CAC coordinating enforcement. It is China's first dedicated administrative regulation on children's online safety.

Issued 2023-07-10 by CAC and six other departments, these rules require generative AI providers to ensure content aligns with 'core socialist values,' label synthetic output, and conduct security assessments. They were the first national rules specifically governing generative AI services.

Released by CAC and others on 2021-12-31, the rules require recommendation-algorithm providers to register algorithms, offer opt-outs, avoid price discrimination, and promote 'positive energy' content. They marked China's move to directly regulate platform algorithms shaping what users see.

Adopted 2021-08-20, the PIPL is China's first comprehensive data-privacy law, governing consent, cross-border transfers, and platform handling of personal information, with GDPR-like extraterritorial reach. It completes the CSL–DSL–PIPL data governance triad underpinning online regulation.

Adopted by the NPC on 2021-06-10, the DSL establishes a national data-classification and security framework treating data as a national-security concern and restricting cross-border data transfers. It expanded state control over data flowing through online services.

Adopted 2016-11-07, the CSL is the foundational statute for China's internet governance, mandating real-name registration, data localization for critical infrastructure, and platform responsibility to police prohibited content. It centralized CAC's authority over the online sphere.

The NPC Standing Committee required network service providers to collect users' real identities and to delete, record, and report prohibited content to authorities. It cemented real-name registration and intermediary-liability principles later codified in the Cybersecurity Law.

State Council Order No. 292 created the licensing/filing regime for internet information services, dividing them into commercial and non-commercial categories and prohibiting publication of broad categories of content. It established the basic legal scaffolding for content regulation online.

The Ministry of Public Security began building a national content-filtering and surveillance system that blocks foreign sites and politically sensitive material at China's internet gateways. It remains the technical backbone of China's online content control.