China’s live-streaming platforms are all under investigation for sex, violence, and crime

China’s live streamers, it seems, have been getting a little bit too bawdy. On Thursday, China’s state-run television network CCTV announced that all of the major streaming platforms – Douyu, Panda.tv, Huya, YY, Zhanqi TV, etc. – are under investigation by China’s Ministry of Culture. These platforms stand accused of hosting content that was too vulgar/sexual, too violent, and even content that incites users to commit crimes.

The Ministry of Culture says that it has already dispatched investigators, and will publicly announce punishments once it has concluded investigations.

Live streaming is a fast-growing industry on China’s web. The most popular streamers tend to be professional gamers – a top Dota 2 or League of Legends pro can attract hundreds of thousands of viewers to a stream to watch them practice the game – but there are all kinds of other streams, too. Also popular are “lifestyle” streams, which tend to feature attractive women who talk and interact with their followers while wearing revealing outfits.

A popular Panda.TV streamer shows off her drawing abilities, making it pretty clear that nobody is watching this stream for her drawing abilities. When this screenshot was taken, her stream had over 200,000 live viewers.

Still, cleavage isn’t a crime, and the games that are popularly streamed are all legal to play in China, so it’s not clear exactly what the Ministry of Culture is planning to crack down on here.

Opinion about the Ministry of Culture’s impending crackdown seems to be mixed.

It’s worth pointing out that China’s major streaming video providers like iQiyi, Letv, and Youku – who also sometimes offer live streams – recently published a group promise to abide by certain standards when live streaming, including watermarking content, saving all livestreamed content for at least 15 days, confirming the real names of streamers, blacklisting streamers who violate the content rules, and having staffers watching live-streamed content at all hours of the day and night.

If the Ministry of Culture punishes live streaming platforms, it wouldn’t be at all surprising to see those platforms also adopt a set of similar measures. And punishment is essentially a guarantee; although technically the Ministry of Culture is still “investigating,” it would be a massive loss of face for the Ministry to allege wrongdoing on state TV and then ultimately find nothing. In all likelihood most of the investigation has already happened, and what remains now is figuring out how these sites should be punished.

Online, opinion about the Ministry of Culture’s impending crackdown seems to be mixed. Fans of these sites aren’t overjoyed, unsurprisingly, and there are more of them than you might think. A recent Sina Tech report pegs China’s streaming video viewers at 200 million strong – not exactly an insignificant demographic to annoy.

But many others – like the slightly older crowd that browses China’s tech news sites – find female streamers’ use of cleavage to attract viewers distasteful, and are cheering on the crackdown at full volume.