In a meeting room in Changning District, Shanghai, discussion was heated. One suggestion was to set clear, specific standards to address large differences in needs across age groups and mismatched content. Another was to ban design features that easily foster addiction among minors, including infinite scrolling and automatic continuous play.
The State Council’s Provisions on Ensuring the Healthy and Safe Use of the Internet by Minors (draft for public comment) had been opened for comment some time earlier. Hongqiao Subdistrict (Gubei Civic Center) in Changning — one of eight online-legislation liaison points set up nationwide by the Cyberspace Administration of China — held a consultation on the draft. Platform representatives, experts and grassroots residents took part. From 2025 to the time of the report, the administration had collected more than 4,000 opinions and suggestions on key online legislation through the liaison points.
The report cites General Secretary Xi Jinping’s emphasis on advancing online legislation, enforcement, justice and public legal education in a coordinated way. It also notes that the outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan calls for improving rules on internet content management and online platform governance, severely cracking down on online illegal and criminal conduct, and addressing disorder such as online rumors and cyber violence, in order to foster a clean and upright online environment.
The report presents the gathering of views, the practice of whole-process people’s democracy and the improvement of online laws and regulations as a concrete expression of the continuing development of China’s online rule of law. It says that in the opening year of the 15th Five-Year Plan, cyberspace authorities and other relevant departments have continued to improve the system of online legal norms, strengthen enforcement in priority areas, increase judicial protection of internet users’ lawful rights and interests, coordinate a system of “broad online public legal education,” and raise the level of rule of law in cyberspace. It sums up the approach as legal safeguards following wherever the internet develops.
In recent years, the report says, legislation has focused on new tensions and risks in digital development, filling gaps, building frameworks and setting rules. Provisions drafted for public comment state that network service providers should “establish and improve functions to guard against cyber violence,” and that users harmed by cyber violence “have the right to notify network service providers to take measures such as deletion, blocking and disconnection of links.” On 29 July, a draft anti-cyber-violence law prepared by the Cyberspace Administration of China with relevant departments was released for public comment. The report says this would be China’s first specialized anti-cyber-violence legislation proposed in the form of a law.
Departmental rules and normative documents have also been issued. In April, five departments published the Interim Measures for the Administration of Anthropomorphic Interactive Artificial Intelligence Services. In June, three departments published the Measures for Network Data Security Risk Assessment. In July, the Cyberspace Administration of China and the Ministry of Public Security published the Provisions on Simplified Personal Information Protection Measures for Small Personal Information Processors. The report says the rules are aimed at artificial intelligence governance, livestream e-commerce and personal information protection.
On enforcement, the report describes a short video that recently spread online and drew public attention with the claim: “Days of heavy rain in a certain city flooded a toll station and a blueberry base.” Checks found that the creator had fabricated the “disaster” with artificial intelligence to chase traffic and attract followers, and that the false information seriously disrupted local flood-control and disaster-relief work. Cyberspace authorities ordered the site and platform to deal with the violating account according to law and their agreements, and public security organs imposed an administrative penalty on the video’s maker.
The report says enforcement has continued against online disorder. Regular “Qinglang” (Clear and Bright) special campaigns have covered disorder in artificial intelligence applications, malicious hype of enterprise-related information, disorder in online entertainment group livestreaming, and online protection of minors. Joint rectification has also been carried out in priority settings: the central cyberspace administration and two other departments launched a 2026 series of special actions on personal information protection, and two departments concentrated on online information linked to financial “black and gray” industries.
Judicial work is described as extending the chain of governance. The report notes questions over how to define liability in quality disputes involving goods sold by livestream, and over whether a host’s “praising one and disparaging another” is a reasonable comment or commercial defamation. On 3 August, the Supreme People’s Court released a batch of typical cases on new digital-economy disputes, covering livestream e-commerce, compliant platform operation and the maintenance of market competition, in order to mark boundaries for businesses and steady expectations. It says that since the beginning of this year, judicial rules involving artificial intelligence have continued to be refined and “digital-intelligent adjudication” has been improved, in an effort to uphold fairness and justice online.
The report argues that a clean network is a shared responsibility and that public legal education is needed to consolidate the online rule of law. In March this year in Chengdu, Sichuan, clapper talk and short plays turned rules on telecom and online fraud and on personal information protection into plain language, including the lines “Order-brushing rebates hide traps; a pie from the sky is a knife” and “AI face-swapping makes it easier to cheat people out of money; verify identity before transferring funds.”
That scene was at the launch of the 2026 “E-Law Together” national themed publicity campaign on the online rule of law. The campaign runs from March to November and is jointly guided by the Central Cyberspace Administration, the Ministry of Justice and the National Office for Public Legal Education. It has been held in Sichuan, Jiangxi, Ningxia and Liaoning, and related publicity reports have drawn more than 8 billion clicks across the internet. The report also notes youth activities under the “Rule of Law Button” and the continued release of selected national works and excellent cases on online rule-of-law publicity. It says cyberspace and judicial-administration departments have combined “using the internet to popularize the law” with “popularizing internet law.”
A relevant official of the Central Cyberspace Administration said: “Safeguarding high-quality economic and social development requires online rule-of-law construction to seize the initiative and plan ahead. Meeting the public’s expectations for a sound online ecosystem requires online rule-of-law construction to respond to concerns and act on its own initiative.” The official said that during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, overall coordination should be further strengthened, together with organizational leadership, guidance through planning and the building of mechanisms, so as to keep improving the overall effectiveness of online rule-of-law work.
