The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP's) national internet censor just announced that all AI-generated content will be required to have labels that are explicitly seen or heard by its audience and embedded in metadata. The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) just released the transcript for the media questions and answers (akin to an FAQ) on its Measures for the Identification of Artificial Intelligence Generated and Synthetic Content [machine translated]. We saw the first signs of this policy move last September when the CAC's draft plans emerged.
This regulation takes effect on September 1, 2025, and will compel all service providers (i.e., AI LLMs) to “add explicit labels to generated and synthesized content.” The directive includes all types of data: text, images, videos, audio, and even virtual scenes. Aside from that, it also orders app stores to verify whether the apps they host follow the regulations.
Users will still be able to ask for unlabeled AI-generated content for “social concerns and industrial needs.” However, the generating app must reiterate this requirement to the user and also log the information to make it easier to trace. The responsibility of adding the AI-generated label and metadata falls on the shoulders of this end-user person or entity.
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The CAC also outlaws the malicious removal, tampering, forgery, or concealment of these AI labels, including the provision of tools that will help carry out these acts. Although this obviously means that you’re prohibited from deleting the AI label and metadata on AI-generated content, it also prohibits the addition of this identifier for human-created data.
The CCP, through the CAC, aims to control the spread of disinformation and prevent internet users from being confused by AI-generated content via the application of this law. At the moment, we haven’t seen any prescribed punishments for violators, but there is always the threat of legal action from the Chinese government.
This isn’t the first law that attempts to control the development and use of AI technologies, and the EU enacted its Artificial Intelligence Act in 2024. Many may react negatively to this move by the CAC, especially as it’s known for administering the Great Firewall of China to limit and control the internet within China’s borders. Nevertheless, this move will help reduce misinformation from anyone and everyone, especially as AI LLMs become more advanced. By ensuring that artificially generated content is marked clearly, people could more easily determine if they’re looking at or listening to a real event or something conjured by a machine on some server farm.
