Beijing has launched its most ambitious censorship campaign yet: this time, the target is not just politics or pornography, it’s sadness itself.
On November 8, 2025, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) issued new guidelines ordering all major platforms (Weibo, Douyin/TikTok, Xiaohongshu, Bilibili, WeChat, etc.) to immediately detect and remove content that “deliberately amplifies pessimistic, depressed, or anxious moods.”
The directive explicitly lists posts that:
- “Exaggerate social problems” around marriage, employment, education, housing, or medical care
- “Spread rumors or panic” about the economy, social welfare, or government policy
- “Inciting confrontation” between genders, generations, or social classes
- “Promoting a culture of lying flat (tangping), slacking off, or giving up”
Platforms must now deploy both AI filters and human reviewers 24/7 to catch “negative energy” in real time.
First-time violators face account suspensions; repeat offenders can be permanently banned or fined up to 100,000 yuan ($14,000). The CAC claims the goal is to “build a healthy, positive, and upward online ecosystem.”
The timing is impossible to ignore.
China’s youth unemployment rate hit 18.8 % in August 2025 (the highest since records began), with some independent estimates placing the real figure above 25 %. The property sector, once 25–30 % of GDP, remains in free fall: Country Garden defaulted on offshore bonds in October, and new-home prices fell 6.9 % year-over-year in September. Consumer confidence sits at its lowest level since 1990, according to ANZ Research.
On Xiaohongshu and Douyin, posts with hashtags like #MarriageIsAGrave (婚姻是坟墓), #CantAffordToHaveKids (生不起), or #LyingFlat (躺平) racked up billions of views in 2025 before disappearing overnight.
Viral complaints about 996 work culture, bride-price inflation (average now ¥130,000 nationwide, higher than annual income in many provinces), or the gaokao-to-unemployment pipeline have been systematically scrubbed.
Even seemingly harmless memes are collateral damage. A popular cartoon of a tired office worker with the caption “I just want to lie flat and rot” was removed from Weibo within hours of the new rules, along with thousands of reposts. Users report that phrases like “the economy is bad,” “I can’t find a job,” or even “I’m tired” now trigger shadow-bans or auto-deletion.
The crackdown is backed by cutting-edge tech. ByteDance and Tencent have rolled out upgraded “positive energy” algorithms that demote or hide content containing 4,000+ newly blacklisted keywords and sentiment patterns. According to a leaked Tencent internal document (circulated on GitHub before being taken down), the system now scores every post on a “mood index” from –100 (extremely negative) to +100 (extremely positive). Anything below –30 is automatically suppressed.
Netizens are already adapting with the dark humor that has become a hallmark of Chinese internet survival:
- “I’m not pessimistic, I’m just objectively observing that everything is great :)”
- “Today my mood index successfully reached +87 by praising the weather 47 times”
- “Marriage? Education? Housing? Never heard of them. Everything is fine, comrades!”
Meanwhile, state media has flooded platforms with approved content: videos of smiling graduates landing dream jobs at state-owned enterprises, newlyweds receiving government housing subsidies, and young couples proudly welcoming their third child under the new three-child policy.
The contrast is jarring. While official accounts celebrate “high-quality development,” real discussion of the country’s deepest economic slowdown in decades has effectively been outlawed.
This isn’t China’s first attempt to police emotions online, but it is by far the broadest. Past campaigns targeted “vulgar” content or “historical nihilism.” Now the state has declared open war on despair itself, at the exact moment when millions of young Chinese have very real reasons to feel it.
In a country where the internet was once the last remaining pressure valve, the message is clear: even your feelings are no longer your own.
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