For one generation, the digital world is the fabric of their childhood.
But on March 1st, 2026, that world faces a state-mandated redesign.
China is enforcing a new national red line, a unified digital ecosystem that will fundamentally alter every app and platform for anyone under 18.
It's about protection, redefined from the top down.
We'll tell you all about that.
And then your toothpaste is making some pretty wild promises these days.
Claims about filling cavities and gum band-aids are flooding the market.
Are we brushing with a medical miracle or just expensive mint foam?
We'll unpack the science and the hype so you know what's really in your next brush.
Coming to you live from our studios in Beijing, this is Roundtable.
I'm Steve.
Thank you very much for being with us today.
And for the show, I'm with Yushan and Yushan.
First up.
For the younger generation of us humans, the digital world is in fact everything in their world.
It's the very fabric of their being.
They've never lived in a planet without it.
It's the way things have always been, until now.
On March 1st, 2026, China is enforcing a new national red line, a unified digital ecosystem.
It's a new nationwide minor protection mode, a sweeping attempt to draw clear digital borders and govern that frontier with a unified set of rules for every platform.
But can a state mandated system create a safer online childhood for the kids?
And what are the trade-offs when you put something like that into place.
It's a very tricky world with a lot of gray area, that's for sure.
Yusheng and Yusheng, good afternoon.
But we're going to try to sort it out as best we can.
I think we should start with this.
Why now?
Why did China feel the need to kind of redraw the boundaries of online content for younger people?
I think, first of all, we need to consider the relationship between nowadays children and the Internet.
They are the generation of the truly or literally the digital natives right.
They were born into this environment and also grew up in it.
And there's a really telling example I always think about.
When adults pretend to make a phone call, we usually use the old gesture, the shaka or hand lose sign.
Oh, yeah.
Like a thumb and a pinky.
Stick your thumb out and stick your pinky out and hold it next to your ear.
It represented the old school giant telephones.
Yes, which also looks like the number six in Chinese.
But if you ask elementary school kids to pretend to make a phone call, they hold their hand like they're gripping a smartphone.
Like a C. Yes.
Kind of.
So for today's kids, the internet is the default environment.
They do homework, happens online, friendships from online, entertainment lives online.
As screen time rises, online content grows.
Inevitably shapes their values, also behaviors and also mental health.
So what regulators are responding to isn't a short-term trend, but a structural shift in how minors grow up.
Yeah, I mean, there's so much to discuss already.
You brought up the great point.
For young people and I mentioned it in the opening as well their whole life is connected to the internet.
Their entire existence is connected to the internet.
And you said homework and yeah, that was one of the arguments about having apps in schools and doing homework on your apps is that these kids are.
We're already saying you're connected to your phones too much and now we're saying be connected to it more.
That's another topic for another day, I suppose.
Yeah, previously I think that was back in last year I interviewed a parent and who owns her own bakery.
But in the meantime she has little, if not no time throughout the majority of the day with her kids.
Who is a teenage girl.
And she spent the majority of her time after school just using phones.
And the parent.
The mom told me that There are things that the girl can do with her phone that she doesn't even understand how that happens.
And that case is just among the millions of children in China that is so much into phones and online world these days.
So this is based on the fifth national survey on phones miners' internet use by the Chinese officials.
So there are 193 million underage internet users in China as of 2022, and that's a 972 internet penetration rate among miners, with over 80 of miners going online every week.
That's how widely spread it is that screen life means for for kids nowadays.
Yeah, and those numbers aren't surprising.
I mean video platforms now and and we've talked about this with the older generation as well online streaming platforms.
They've become the primary channel for minors to get news or information, and this has really surpassed traditional media.
Over 50 percent of minors acquire internet use skills through their peer interactions, through classes and friends.
So when they're not online on their phones, they're offline with their friends talking about online material that they've seen.
So there's nothing, yeah, like I said, there's nothing surprising there.
Young people using digital devices and high penetration rates and things like this using the internet.
But that's not what we're talking about here.
That's not the issue.
The issue here is about the type of content that has started to appear.
And that's why these regulations are being put into place.
Yeah.
A March survey.
A survey conducted in March in 2025 showed that on certain short video and social platforms, some of the content featuring minors, like dropping out of school or taking long term leave to produce vlogs, has become visible.
And some underage influencers reportedly miss school regularly in order to maintain online activity, rising concerns about academic disruption.
So when they do these videos, have you seen these videos?
What are they saying in the videos that they're posting about this specific topic?
Some of them can be very, very explicit and also extreme, showing that okay, I am, let's say, making a lot of money right now, at the age of maybe 12 or 14.
And I think it is really unnecessary to go to school anymore.
And that could be some of the influence to their peers.
And the examples that I read about.
I didn't see the video because I believe it was put down, which is sort of nice, in my personal opinion, that
12 years old, even 6th graders, meaning like yeah 12, 13 years old elementary school, elementary school students girls, they're doing makeup tutorial or makeup live stream during the time when they're supposed to be at school and when they're questioned Like shouldn't you be at school by you know the viewers.
Some of them respond, oh, I want my freedom.
I've already asked for 300 days of leave from the school.
And that I like the feeling of just have mastery of my own life and maybe even earn money.
Like Yushan said, this is where it becomes gray.
I mean, I mentioned it already.
There's a huge gray area and this potentially harmful content.
It depends on how you view it.
And it depends on each individual video.
I think it doesn't always look illegal.
And this is what makes governance rather difficult.
Kid influencers.
It's a thing now, whether we think it's appropriate or not.
Uh, Young students, sixth grade, fifth grade with makeup tutorials appropriate or not.
And this is where it's unclear.
And when the criteria are unclear, then the responsibility gets blurred.
Platforms can say, well, we didn't break any of our own platform rules.
We didn't make we didn't break any of the government's rules.
But yet still over time, they shape how children see the world when they see content like this.
So when you don't have clear categories or clear regulations platforms, it gives the platforms the leeway or the room the space to look in the other direction.
And sometimes it's not even for the platform users themselves.
For example, the parents of these kids.
They do not know if they're crossing a line that should not be crossed in the first place.
I saw a report about and this is just not too long ago of the kind of live stream that you see people eating.
Is it called mukbang?
In Korean, it's called mukbang.
Okay.
But this time it's a five-year-old girl doing mukbang.
And she was eating lightly, then gradually a bit more one more plate, one more plate and shouting out things like let's eat bro, and things like that to attract viewing.
So things like that, it makes you feel, oh, I feel uncomfortable, but is it illegal?
Right, and that's why these regulations are being put into place.
There are a number of challenges here.
I mean, you can almost feel it, right?
You talk about one type of video like oh, middle school girl makeup tutorial.
Okay, all right, yeah seems fine.
Five-year-old doing an eating live stream, encouraged to eat more and more and more.
Even the reaction to that, saying it out loud and imagining that it makes you're right, it makes you feel uncomfortable, right?
So there's the challenges.
So what types of new regulations are being put in place to try to tackle these difficulties?
First of all, it categorizes what exactly counts as potentially harmful contents into four main categories.
The first one is the content that may induce minors to imitate harmful or unsafe behavior.
Let's say the information that could prompt minors to copy that risky or immoral, inappropriate action.
Well, the five-year-old live stream of eating and eating and eating and eating that would be in this category probably, right.
Risky, yeah, certainly.
Inducing minors to imitate harmful or unsafe behavior.
Yeah.
And also there are cases like such as one video on Douyin, which is the Chinese TikTok, titling minors of different ages entering bars.
So this is an adult shooting videos of how different minors of different ages in the city of Shenzhen attempt to evade age checks to enter the bars.
Oh, well, I mean, and then there are the category of videos that are clearly inappropriate.
Yeah, and this is definitely highlighting something that shouldn't be copied.
Okay, so that's the first one, content that may induce minors to imitate harmful or unsafe behavior.
What's the next one?
The other one is information that distorts value systems, such as promoting disregard for life, materialism and violence.
Flaunting wealth.
There's one really funny video that I found it funny because yeah again, it's found on Douyin that a miner claiming that a monthly income of 40000 yuan, which is roughly 5600 US dollars, makes no difference to 400000 yuan, which is 56000 US dollars.
You see my hesitation when I'm trying to read this.
As someone who earns salary, this feels difficult to say, but for miners, they do not necessarily have the experience of earning salary, but they're portraying themselves as if there's no difference.
I don't I don't care about money.
And in other ways, this is. reflecting a show off of wealth, that's a distorted value.
And yeah, that's the distortion of the values, right?
Spreading the wrong messages.
Okay, what's the third one?
The third one is using a kid's image in the wrong way.
This category targets the staged content.
We see so much of now.
It's about using kids as props in scripted dramas that involve bad behavior, creating controversial personas for a child just to get more views.
And essentially, it's about just treating a kid like a character in a show that isn't good for them.
That popped up in the story that we covered on Roundtable about young people performing character roles in mini dramas such as the angry CEO or something like that.
Yeah.
And in some cases this is reported by guizhougovernmentcn that some people have minors pose for videos simulating school bullying just to sell items, like they call this type of shoes, the little hooligan shoes.
So it shows in a funny if not.
I don't know what people are looking for by watching these videos, but maybe that promote the aggressive or unsafe behavior in the meantime which is prohibited, like it's banned, like officially.
Okay.
And then the final one is improper.
The final category, you should mention there are four.
Pardon me.
Improper disclosure or use of minors' personal information or data.
Right.
That one includes, for example, broadcasting daily school or home routines that make it easy for strangers to identify or track the child.
See, this is something that might not be done intentionally, but it still happens.
Okay, so those are the four categories.
Now the new regulations are asking for heavier responsibility requirements for the content creators, for the platforms and for the service providers.
Let's start with the platforms.
Yeah, it's a.
It's something that we need to consider through different perspectives.
One thing is, from the platform right it specifically bans content that could harm minors from appearing highly visible places like the home page, the banners, the pop-ups, trending lists or rankings or recommendation feeds, and aim to reduce situations where minors are exposed without actively searching for it.
Meaning that, first of all, they cannot recommend or we know that a lot of these streaming platforms they use algorithm to recommend you videos that you like.
So, even though you're searching something related to it, And then algorithm, like usually, they will just give you a pop-up window.
Yeah, they just push it to you, right?
But now it's not allowed.
Okay, so they can't use the excuse of, well, we didn't mean for the kids to see it.
They're expected, the platforms are expected to take precautions in advance to reduce harm.
Okay.
Would that be very complicated?
I wonder.
Maybe we can get to this a little bit later, but it just popped into my head.
Would this involve the retraining of algorithms to recognize or flag content that would now be inappropriate, that wasn't deemed inappropriate before?
I think so.
Definitely.
Because algorithm is absolutely one of the things that you need to consider when it's about pushing you the recommendation.
And also the people or the staff or the personnel who is doing the screening things or scanning the content.
When you are uploading content, the videos they will also be responsible for maybe categorize different videos or giving different keywords.
And a lot of the times, the platforms, or rather the, the algorithms.
They push things to your attention based on their quote-unquote assumption.
It's not even something you particularly were actively searching for.
It might not be in your quote-unquote interests.
That's why this could be dangerous for kids, for minors, because they could be searching for homework stuff and turn out to be presumed to be interested in something else.
I see.
And for the online content in general.
The platforms and creators are also required to actively prevent and limit its spread and also mark with a clear line and just say a warning that this is for adults, this content is not for minors.
And I checked specifically.
There are all over the platforms on Red Note on Douyin especially.
Douyin has a very high bar for this, so I heard that they need to label out that this is not for minors and minors are not allowed to imitate for content such as couple daily life or adults doing extreme sports or playing, for example, playing next to a creek, playing next to a river, something like that.
It can be really funny.
Videos of you know.
I was playing and all of a sudden I fell like in a hilarious way.
That can be funny for adults, but it's dangerous for kids because they might play next to a river.
And so then these creators now this isn't on the platform, This is on the creators.
They're going to have to label these videos.
Yeah.
With text, including visible notice and audio needs.
Spoken or sound based warnings and images and videos must display clear visual prompts.
Livestreams and virtual environments must also show warnings at the start and, when necessary, throughout the video or throughout the live stream.
Yeah.
So put all together then these measures serve a couple of different purposes, I suppose.
One is that it's, well, it's not exactly blocking, it's not blocking everything, right?
It's not a full shutdown of content.
But it's also not pretending that the internet can be, you know, fully cleaned out to make sure that everything is okay.
So this is about teaching discernment, I suppose.
That's what this shift is about.
But it's also an alert for parents and guardians too, I guess.
Yeah, for parents, they need to really understand what's safe for the kids, what's not.
And also... how to operate the kids' online profile in a wise way.
This just triggers my memory of several child influencer I follow on Red Note.
Some are really good at dancing and they're dressed up very properly for just sharing and demonstrating their good skill in dancing or singing.
Some others like girls, 12 years old, really good with rugby.
They were playing football and and sports like like a guy and these are healthy images that their parents are trying to build for their kids online and other than that.
We'll really need to be careful.
We haven't yet discussed well.
We touched upon the algorithms a little bit, but we haven't talked about ai.
But ai has to be included in this too.
Right, generative ai.
Hard to distinguish between what's real and what's not real these days, particularly with online video platforms.
Anything related here?
Yeah, these things are also included.
Platforms that use algorithmic recommendations or generative AI are also required to put stronger safety systems in place to prevent abuse.
And for products designed specifically for minors.
Algorithm based content is also strictly prohibited, ensuring these spaces stay clean and also age appropriate.
I think this is the discussion that we kind of do occasionally, because there has been new regulations will come up occasionally.
We used to have also the discussion about the, the youth mode for these social media platforms mostly now all of the social media platforms that we can use or have that kind of uh, pop-up window.
When you open this app, there is a recommendation telling you there is a youth mode.
Do you want to open it?
So um it, they.
They have like designed content for that, designed um way to recommend and designed algorithm in this mode.
So it's a thing I think the government and also the policies are trying to solve for a long time.
And it's just because we have just so much content and there are so many like different boundaries and some blurry boundaries that we are getting into and we may need to update some of these new regulations.
What about?
Okay, so yeah again, but that's about the recommendations from the algorithm, but AI content it's a little bit differently, isn't it?
I mean the risk would have to be considered similar.
But AI content it's not about pushing existing videos.
This is new content based on user prompts like AI chatbots and things like that, or AI generated images or voices or scripts or things like that.
And for miners.
The concern here is that these systems can generate inappropriate or misleading or emotionally manipulative content in real time, even if no such content existed before, particularly with the chatbots.
I mean, this is just an ocean of information, isn't it?
And it's an ocean of overlapping issues.
Because that's real-time generated content when a miner is chatting with a chatbot.
So how can an algorithm deal with that?
I mean, it's just almost impossible.
It sounds impossible, isn't it?
But after all, these systems, they are designed, tuned, and adjusted all by humans.
So...
It is doable to change the algorithm or generative AI behind the scene, and companies regularly change how content is distributed, for example, to promote new features, comply with local laws, reduce spam or avoid public backlash.
So changing algorithm is not impossible to protect miners, and it's technically very doable.
I mean, they can.
Fine tune it, to use your words, to stop certain content from being recommended.
They can downgrade or maybe de-boost, if that's a word, so that it doesn't spread widely.
They can prevent it from appearing in high visibility spaces, like we mentioned before, like a trending list or a homepage or something like that.
What about the Gen AI platforms?
Can they do anything that can help solve these types of problems?
It needs to be regulated, right?
Filter user prompts before they reach the AI and also block or rewrite risky outputs and restrict certain topics entirely for minors and also require stronger human oversight or pre-approved content in youth modes, as I mentioned before.
So these kind of information?
Of course they are getting information from.
Of course your input and the output can be controlled by the platform.
I guess they kind of do this already.
A lot of platforms.
They'll have these tools in place for advertising rules or maybe copyright protection or political content moderation, things of that nature.
And we've seen this internationally, haven't we?
We've talked about it.
December, was it December 2025?
Early December 2025?
Yeah.
That's when Australia became the first country in the world to legally ban children under the age of 16 from having social media accounts.
Yeah, it was such a big news back then.
Particularly for Australian teenagers.
Teens were angry.
Can you imagine?
Their platforms like Facebook Instagram TikTok, YouTube and X.
They're all required to block underage accounts or face massive fines, up to about 495 million Australian dollars.
So that's a lot.
And also, in Europe, it's also moving fast.
In the towards the same direction, actually.
France has passed a bill to ban social media for under-15s, and that's pending final approval.
And also Greece is close to banning it for under-15s.
And Spain plans to ban it for under-16s.
And Denmark, also New Zealand, Malaysia that's outside of Europe.
But yeah, these countries Brazil and Indonesia they're all considering similar measures.
So, yep, I guess this is the global trend now.
Yeah.
I mean it's, I don't.
I don't know what the right reaction is to this, because teenagers have they are very resourceful.
They will find a way to get right.
And this was the complaint.
I remember when the news from Australia came out and the criticism was you know the support said this is for the betterment of society, for our youth, to protect them from terrible things online.
But the criticism was, how are you going to stop them from getting there anyway?
Because the more you tell a kid not to do something...
The more they want to do the thing that you're telling them not to do.
Again, that's another part of this topic, I suppose.
All right, let's come back to China here.
So what are the challenges of putting this in place?
There are a number of difficulties, I would think.
Yeah, one major challenge is actually the identity verification.
Even with real name registration on these online social media platforms, minors can still use adult accounts.
I've seen news of how minors use adult accounts for gaming platforms.
Something similar.
And they gain access cross-border platforms or share content offline, making it almost impossible to completely verify who you are and prevent misuse once and for all.
What about the content itself?
Because, and this is another example of the giant ocean that is the gray area here.
Yeah, we kind of also mentioned it before, and we all agree on it is quite hard.
And some of the content can be very vague to identify whether they are harmful or not.
For example, if a girl is showing a piece of handicraft that she was making or they're making out of jewelry, does that mean they're just trying to making friends through online by making these handicrafts, or they are showing off their wealth right?
So these kind of concepts, like including harmful values, are still somewhat vague, and it is something maybe the regulation or the platforms need to draw a very, very clear line.
Also, there are a lot of online slangs that kids use.
Oh, the language that gets used.
Yeah, when they use it.
At first, adults even don't understand what that means, because these minors are the only group of people using it.
And then it turns out that some are offensive or some others are not inappropriate.
But there's one that Yushan, you mentioned to me that I found really awkward, but I'm going to say it anyway, called bao de, meaning totally or totally bro.
Absolutely.
That would be considered...
Offensive?
Not really.
It's neutral.
It's just me feeling awkward.
Yeah, it's just because kids or children, they are just using it very, very frequently and not using any other proper language anymore.
The kids aren't regulating what they're saying, and the adults don't understand what it means.
No, I get it.
I get it.
So what's offensive and what's not?
But then it comes down, too, to other questions.
For example...
You mentioned you're a fan of the dancing kid.
Right.
And her moves are amazing.
She is.
Okay.
Now, for example, a question might be well, what is that kid wearing when they are doing their dancing?
What is appropriate to wear?
What is inappropriate to wear?
What about the music that they are dancing to?
Is that appropriate to listen to?
Good question.
Right?
What about the language being used in the songs?
There's just so many things.
So, so, so, so, so many things to deal with here.
So what's going to happen in the future then?
Where are we headed with this?
Because you know, I'm sitting here and I'm criticizing saying oh, this is really tough to regulate.
How are we going to control this?
Teenagers are resourceful.
They're going to figure it out.
But what I'm not trying to say is we shouldn't try or the government shouldn't try.
Australia shouldn't try.
China shouldn't try to put things in place to make sure that that we're not leading kids down the wrong path?
Yeah, and for some Chinese experts they're putting things into different phases the short-term phase, the medium-term phase and, in the long-term, how that's going to be solved.
So in the short-term, strict enforcement can still set good examples like, For example, starting with cracking down on top trending lists were pop-up violations.
And then for a bit longer.
In the medium term, there should be clear standards and technical tools that can guide platforms to really follow all the regulations we mentioned.
Then in the long run, broader digital literacy and international cooperation can also help cultivate a safer online culture for minors.
Multi-tiered protective system.
Which phase do you think we are at right now?
All of them.
Yeah, right.
All of them all the time at the same time.
Everything, everywhere, all at once.
Is that the same name of the movie?
Oh, that's a good one.
Yeah, it is, it is.
Deep, complicated topic that will continue, I'm certain, to be in the news for the years to come.
