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China Digital

Alipay Says Sorry After App Turns Into ‘Girls Gone Wild’ Platform

Online payment app Alipay triggered controversy in China this week when it launched a new group chat feature that soon turned into a soft porn place. CEO Peng Lei now apologizes

Manya Koetse

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Online payment app Alipay triggered controversy in China this week when it launched a new group chat feature that soon turned into a ‘soft porn’ place. CEO Peng Lei now apologizes and says the past 48 hours have been “the most difficult two days” of her Alipay career.

It was not long after Alipay (also referred to as ‘China’s Paypal’) launched its new group chat feature “Circles” on November 27 that the function…

Manya Koetse is a sinologist, writer, and public speaker specializing in China’s social trends, digital culture, and online media ecosystems. She founded What’s on Weibo in 2013 and now runs the Eye on Digital China newsletter. Learn more at manyakoetse.com or follow her on X, Instagram, or LinkedIn.

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China AI

AI Actress Ad Pulled, Baihaitun Disrupts Shanghai and Cicada Meme Bugs Huawei

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Welcome to China Trend Watch (Week 32–33 | 2026), where I bring you the latest trends, memes, and debates driving conversation across Chinese social media. I’m Manya Koetse, a sinologist specializing in Chinese digital culture.

 


 

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📈 Is China’s AI price war over?After a period of offering as much as possible to users at relatively low prices, Chinese AI (LLM) companies are now raising their prices. Last week,…

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China Digital

How Chinese AI Videos Turned Foreigners into Villains

How viral AI videos turn racialized outsiders into threats and violent Chinese heroes into defenders of social order, China’s first nationally broadcast AI drama, and why a newspaper is being sold for 50 times its original price.

Manya Koetse

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Welcome to China Trend Watch (Week 30–33 | 2026), where I bring you the latest trends, memes, and debates driving conversation across Chinese social media. Subscribe here to receive future editions.

 

Over the past few weeks, a noteworthy amount of AI-related news has been trending on Chinese social media, which is reflected in this week’s edition.

Now that AI has entered every corner of media consumption and online life, related discussions seem…

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