China’s Cyberspace Administration yesterday announced a two-month campaign to quash netizens who “maliciously incite negative emotions”.

The administration’s [1]announcement of the campaign explains it will target social media platforms, short video services, the livestreaming platforms used by Chinese e-commerce sites to host infomercials and even delve into comments left across the internet.

Some of the material Beijing wants to root out – such as content that incites violence – would likely fall foul of content moderators in many nations.

[2]

However, China also wants to stop “excessively exaggerating negative and pessimistic sentiment” through content that includes themes such as “"hard work is useless" and "studying is useless."

[3]

[4]

Those sentiments are typical of “Sang culture,” a years-long trend that sees some Chinese youth express defeatism and dissatisfaction because they feel it’s hard to get ahead. Such sentiments stem from the high cost of living in some Chinese cities, and the tepid state of the economy, which means even well-educated young people sometimes struggle to find stimulating work.

China’s social networks, like those elsewhere, feed users more of what they like. It’s therefore easy to go down a Sang rabbit hole.

[5]

The administration’s crackdown therefore targets those who “promote negative outlooks on life such as world-weariness” or “excessively belittle themselves or exaggerate depressed and negative emotions, causing people to follow suit.”

AI-generated content also makes the do-not-post list when used to depict violence.

[6]China slaps 1-hour deadline on reporting serious cyber incidents

[7]China turns on ‘minors mode’ that ensures kids only see wholesome socialist content online

[8]China wants mobile devices to limit usage time for minors, ensure they only see nice content

[9]China calls for realtime censorship of satellite broadband

Beijing also wants trolls to go back under their bridges and stay there, especially if they incite online mobs to harass rivals. Or as machine translation of the Cyberspace Administration’s diktat puts it: “Leveraging topics from film and television productions, talk shows, and sporting events to encourage fan groups to engage in malicious denigrating attacks, verbal abuse, or organize mass reports and complaints.”

Spreading conspiracy theories or fake news are other activities China will root out.

Platforms and individuals that create or host types of content mentioned above face punishment, and authorities will require them to perform “rectification” – a more serious version of the “We’re very sorry, and built tools to make sure we can do better” not-quite apologies that Western social networks make when they infringe privacy or allow horrid content to spread.

[10]

China regularly announces crackdowns of this sort – past Reg [11]reporting suggests this one is at least the fifth since 2021 – which rather suggests such campaigns aren’t very effective.

Or maybe that’s too pessimistic a view for Beijing’s liking. ®

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[1] https://www.cac.gov.cn/2025-09/22/c_1760258688713582.htm

[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aNJvtkKZSqlqcxxs6x_UhAAAAkg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0

[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aNJvtkKZSqlqcxxs6x_UhAAAAkg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aNJvtkKZSqlqcxxs6x_UhAAAAkg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aNJvtkKZSqlqcxxs6x_UhAAAAkg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/16/china_1hour_cyber_reporting/

[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/02/china_minors_mode_enabled/

[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/20/china_minor_mode/

[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/30/china_satellite_censorship/

[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aNJvtkKZSqlqcxxs6x_UhAAAAkg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[11] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/13/chinas_another_social_media_crackdown/

[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/