Anatomy of a Fake Story

A new Chinese law to curb online misinformation has caused quite a stir around the globe. A Kenyan lawmaker said that he wants similar legislation in his own country. The Indonesian government is discussing whether they should adopt such policies. A business school in Switzerland expounded the new law’s potential impact. Polymarket, a popular betting platform, shared news of the law on X, which has been viewed over 13 million times. A podcast hosted by media personality and former rapper Joe Budden brought up the law and debated it. On social media, posts about the new Chinese law, written in different languages, were going viral all the same across major platforms.

According to media reports, the new Chinese regulation, which came out in October and was aimed at preventing misinformation, bans content creators from commenting on issues of finance, medicine, education and law unless they have professional training or academic credentials in those areas. Violations would result in a steep fine of up to 100,000 RMB, or a little over 14,000 U.S. dollars. Media outlets such as Yahoo, CNET and Daily Mail all reported on the new law. So did dozens of other news websites from the United States, Spain, Morocco, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina, Malaysia and Singapore. In India, Bangladesh, Thailand and Sri Lanka, opinion pieces implored their governments to follow China’s example and rein in influencers who spread falsehoods with impunity.

But aside from media clamor and internet virality, traces of the new Chinese influencer law have been barely visible. If there was such a law, the Chinese government didn’t announce it. Chinese state media never mentioned it. Not in October, not in September, not in August, July, June, or May or at any time during the entirety of 2025 nor the year before.

Throughout mid-October to early November, the erroneous claim that China issued sweeping new rules to limit what influencers can say online originated as viral social media content and snowballed into a global story whose credibility was steadily strengthened by the growing number of news outlets around the world that repeated the claim and perpetuated the misinformation.

Enséñame de Ciencia

At 9:56 AM Eastern Time on October 11, Facebook page “Enséñame de Ciencia” posted a picture of an Asian woman in a red dress holding a cellphone in a pose indicating she was either taking a selfie or hosting a live stream. Under the woman, there were a few lines of words in Spanish announcing that China now required influencers to prove qualification before speaking on “professional” topics.

In the accompanying text, the account explained that “from now on”, influencers had to possess credentials, either professional or academic, in order to comment on topics such as finance, medicine, education and law. Chinese social media platforms would be responsible for verifying the credentials. The post went on to add that the new law had already sparked debates about internet freedom. The post received over 47,000 likes. “Enséñame de Ciencia” also posted it on Instagram and X on the same day around the same time, both receiving over 67,000 likes. “Enséñame de Ciencia” provided no source for the information it alleged. The photo of the Asian woman was a stock picture from 2021.

“Enséñame de Ciencia” has well over 1 million followers on each of the three platforms mentioned above in addition to a website that publishes mostly articles about science and health. The name “Enséñame de Ciencia” translates to “Teach me about Science”. The Facebook page isn’t exactly a news distributor. It posts, according to the page’s explanatory banner picture, “science, curiosities, interesting facts, memes, humor…and more”. “Enséñame de Ciencia” posts everything in Spanish and its Facebook managers are from Mexico and Peru.

Throughout the entire day of October 11, particularly in the afternoon, multiple Spanish-language pages on Facebook posted similar content. The wording varied, but all the key points remained consistent. All of them claimed that influencers in China now needed credentials to opine on matters of finance, medicine, education and law; that social media platforms were required to verify the credentials; that the new law had ignited discussions over misinformation versus speech freedom.

“Enséñame de Ciencia” wasn’t the only account posting the alleged new Chinese law that day. But it was the first and I was unable to find anyone posting anything about it earlier than that in either Spanish or English. I reached out to the managers of the account but did not get a response.

Eye-catching as the claim might have been, it was far from becoming a global story. And it would have never become one had it not received the kind of legitimacy that viral posts alone could not provide; the kind of legitimacy that could only be gained by, for instance, getting amplified by news publications around the world. And that’s exactly what it got next.

Media as super-spreader

In the days after October 11, the viral claim appeared on several Spanish-language news sites, including, for example, Economis in Argentina. On October 12, the site published an article essentially repeating the core points of the claim that China was issuing a new law to limit what influencers could say. The article never connected itself to the viral social media posts. And it offered many details that weren’t in those posts. For example, the article said that the new rules came from the Cyberspace Administration of China, the country’s top internet regulator, and quoted the agency in saying that the goal of the new rules was to “protect the public from false or misleading information”. The article named three major Chinese social media apps—Weibo, Douyin and Bilibili—when explaining that platforms would have two months to complete the verification process. The new rules, according to the article, also request that influencers label the use of AI in and provide sources for their educational and scientific content. Advertising related to medical and health products would now be banned.

Three days later, on October 15, Marketing4eCommerce, a Spain-based marketing and e-commerce publication, posted what appeared to be the first news article in English on the alleged Chinese influencer law. The publication told me that Economis was one of its sources.

In the meantime, what “Enséñame de Ciencia” first posted on October 11 continued to spread in the form of viral content. On October 16, “Humanetica”, an Italian-language account, reposted the claim on Instagram and added that those who violate the new rules would be fined up to 100,000 RMB. On October 19, Facebook page “Hallelujah” posted the same claim and added that the measure had been “driven” by, in addition to the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The post was in English, but the page’s managers were in Chile, Mexico, Argentina and Italy. On October 23, English-language Instagram account “themotivehq” shared the claim. The post was much shorter than its predecessors, but it received over 158,000 likes nonetheless. On October 25, Instagram account “The Business Magnets” posted the claim. Over 588,000 users liked it.

October 27 was the first day the claim was embraced by scores of English news outlets and publications around the world. An article published by Independent Online, or IOL, in South Africa, for example, cited the piece from Marketing4eCommerce as a source and reported on the alleged new regulation on influencers. It claimed that the law had taken effect on October 25. The article also embedded the viral post from “The Business Magnets”, which included the detail that those who fail to follow the new rules would be fined up to 100,000 RMB. In the article, the author revealed her own conflicting feelings about the alleged new law. “When an influencer blurs the line between opinion and expertise, the consequences can be serious,” she wrote. “But does regulation have to come at the expense of creative freedom? China’s law, for all its good intentions, raises uncomfortable questions.”

Multiple news articles reporting on the alleged new Chinese law over the next couple of days took their information from the IOL piece. One of them was Net Influencer, an online publication focused on influencer marketing. The Net Influencer article then became a source for another article about the Chinese law published on MoneyWise, a financial news site. The MoneyWise piece also cited WebProNews, a business and technology publication. The WebProNews piece referenced Indian news outlets CNBCTV-18, Mint and MoneyControl, all of which had cited Morocco World News as a source. And MoneyWise also directly cited the Morocco World News. The Morocco World News article, however, attributed its information to the IOL article. In total, of the four sources MoneyWise listed to prove the existence of a new Chinese influencer law, none were primary sources, such as government announcements or the law itself. They were all news articles based on other news articles based on other news articles. Eventually, Yahoo Finance reposted the MoneyWise piece, putting a final touch of legitimacy on an unfounded claim.

Other more influential publications reporting on the alleged new Chinese law included the British tabloid Daily Mail, tech media CNET and RADII, a publication covering Asian youth culture. The RADII article argued at the end that China’s alleged new law could “serve as a compelling blueprint” and inspire “similar measures and discussions about online authenticity and accountability across the globe”.

The non-existent new law indeed inspired “discussions about online authenticity and accountability across the globe”. An opinion piece on Daily Star supporting similar measures to be taken in Bangladesh wrote that in “an age when misinformation can be deadly, such a move would not constitute censorship; it would represent responsible governance in the public interest”. A Kashmir Observer article opined that “China’s decision may seem strict, but its logic is sound: power demands responsibility”. Siding with the alleged new Chinese rules, a Thai author said that the “escalating problem” of misinformation posed “a genuine threat to public welfare” and made “China’s recent regulatory crackdown so relevant”. The Morning editorialized that “Sri Lanka does not necessarily have to follow China. However, it can take inspiration from the underlying principle of China’s decision”. On 7News, one of Australia’s most-watched channels, guests were invited to weigh in on the pros and cons of alleged new Chinese law. Zaheer Jhanda, a Kenyan lawmaker from the country’s ruling party United Democratic Alliance, posted on Facebook that he would introduce a bill requiring influencers to have a degree if they want to talk about “Professional Topics”. “I am borrowing a Leaf From one of The Most Advanced Nations- China With a Huge Population Than Ours,” his post wrote. “Misinformation and Disinformation Will Become a Crisis Soon in Kenya.”

It was absurd enough that media around the world took seriously what was, in reality, a piece of viral content and ran with it, editorialized it and asked people to react to it. But even when the truth was discovered, little impact was brought.

“The information appears to be accurate”

Among the batch of stories that came out in late October and early November supporting the false claim, two of them inadvertently offered evidence that the alleged new law might not have actually been new. Malaysia’s Daily Express reported that the alleged new rules were “first outlined in the 2022 Code of Conduct for Online Anchors”. WebProNews noted that the alleged law “isn’t entirely new; precursors date back to 2022, when similar policies targeted live streamers”.

The 2022 law they referred to was the Code of Conduct for Online Presenters drafted by the State Administration of Radio and Television and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. It required online presenters, the equivalent of live streamers in the West, to obtain “the corresponding practice qualifications and report them to the livestream platform”, if they produce content that required “a higher professional level”, such as medical care, finance, law and education. The platforms were responsible for reviewing streamers’ qualifications. These requirements were reiterated in a 2023 notice issued by the Cyberspace Administration of China that applied to all “personal media” accounts, the equivalent of social media influencers and YouTubers in the West. According to the notice, social media platforms were to “display authentication materials such as their service qualifications, professional credentials, and background expertise on the account home page, and add labels indicating the fields to which they belong”. Accounts were given a two-month period to have their credentials verified. Those who failed would not be able to publish content. The notice also required platforms and influencers to label videos and photos “generated through technology”. There was another notice in July 2025 specifically targeting influencers who produce “popular medical science” content, requiring platforms to further distinguish what kinds of medical science and professions their credentials belong to.

The 2022 provisions and particularly the 2023 notice were likely the source material on which the alleged new 2025 influencer law was based, although nowhere in those documents did they mention fines of up to 100,000 RMB. And neither of the two regulations took effect on October 25. When Economis, the Spanish-language news site that reported in detail on the alleged new law, replied to my inquiry, it said that their article was based on “Normas de Conducta para Streamers de Internet”. When I asked if they were aware that that law came out in 2022, there was no response.

A simple Google search should have made it clear that the popular claim was, at worst, a fabrication, and at best, an inaccurate and misleading statement. And instead of scores of media stories confirming the authenticity of the claim, there would have been no stories at all other than perhaps a couple of articles debunking it. In fact, there were a few articles and online posts trying to clarify the rumor. Cybernews pointed out on October 30 that the alleged new law may be referring to the 2022 code of conduct. It even cited a China expert who admitted he wasn’t aware of any new rules requiring influencers to have degrees. European Guanxi, a think tank studying EU-China relations, posted a video on November 5 also pointing to the 2022 regulation as a possible source for the popular claim. On Reddit and LinkedIn, posts debunking the misinformation received far less attention than those promoting it.

People familiar with Chinese law or politics are unlikely to be fooled by the erroneous reporting. But an average Joe typing out, for example, “Chinese influence law” in the search bar on TikTok or Facebook or even Google is now bound to believe that there was indeed such a law that came out recently. The core of the matter isn’t whether or not China has regulations against influencers without credentials, or how much the false claim resembles the real, existing law, or whether those laws were effective, or if they could be used to silence dissent. What’s concerning is that an event that had never happened was allowed to become a global story with help from the media and have an impact on the real world. Unfortunately, I have no insight into why so many publications around the world got it wrong. I sent inquiries to 15 news outlets, article authors and social media accounts that had helped propel the false claim. Thirteen of them never responded.

Perhaps one day this fake story will be loudly and thoroughly debunked. But for now, the internet treats it as an established fact. At least that’s my takeaway from conversing with a couple of major AI chatbots, which the public has increasingly relied on as super search engines. I asked them about the alleged new Chinese influencer regulation. ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Mistral, citing media reports, many of which were mentioned in this article, all told me that it does exist and it took effect on October 25, 2025. When I asked if they were certain of the answers, they told me I overthought.

“The consistency across multiple independent sources, including international news outlets, trade publications, and regional media from different countries, strongly supports the authenticity of this regulation,” Claude, for example, wrote back. “Your skepticism was warranted—it’s always good to verify unusual claims—but in this case, the information appears to be accurate.”