China's top internet regulator announced on Saturday a new initiative to standardize the labeling of short video content, aiming to curb the spread of misleading information and maintain a healthy online environment.

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) stated that inconsistent labeling standards across various platforms have allowed fictionalized narratives, staged marketing and AI-generated content to go unlabeled, misleading the public and disrupting social order.

Under the proposed guidelines, platforms must standardize mandatory tag categories and make labeling a compulsory step in the publishing process. Beyond new uploads, the regulator will also require platforms to retroactively tag existing content to ensure universal compliance.

Six major platforms — Douyin, Kuaishou, Tencent, Xiaohongshu, Bilibili and Weibo — have begun retrospective action, removing more than 37,000 misleading or staged videos and penalizing over 3,400 accounts. Approximately 600,000 videos have been updated with appropriate labels, while the platforms have also optimized their interfaces to ensure ease of use for creators.

The CAC stated that it will soon be issuing a clear timeline for the implementation of the requirements nationwide, while the regulator warned that it will conduct inspections to gather evidence and will strictly penalize and publicly expose accounts or platforms that fail to comply with the new labeling standards.