Beijing's internet regulator has imposed a ¥119.1 million fine on Kuaishou Technology after finding the short-video giant failed to prevent and promptly remove a wave of pornographic live streams that flooded the platform in late December. The Beijing Cyberspace Administration concluded that Kuaishou did not discharge its network security obligations, failed to patch system vulnerabilities in time and neglected to stop the transmission or remove illegal content, actions the regulator said had “serious” consequences.
The incident surfaced on the night of December 22, 2025, when many users reported an unusual and sudden proliferation of explicit content across Kuaishou’s live-streaming channels. Some users found the app’s live section empty shortly after midnight as Kuaishou took thousands of streams offline. The company later told investors that an attack disrupted its live service around 22:00 on December 22, and that emergency procedures and system repairs had gradually restored normal service.
The Beijing office, acting under guidance from the national Cyberspace Administration, opened an investigation and applied penalties under China’s Cybersecurity Law and the Administrative Penalty Law. In addition to the monetary punishment — roughly $16–17 million — the regulator issued a formal warning, ordered Kuaishou to correct deficiencies within a deadline, to lawfully handle implicated accounts, and to strictly discipline responsible staff.
Kuaishou accepted the punishment and issued an apology, attributing the lapse to shortcomings in technical management and delayed emergency response. The company said it conducted a comprehensive internal review of risk awareness, security infrastructure, emergency response and internal controls and pledged to “resolutely rectify” the problems and improve safeguards.
Beyond the immediate compliance failure, the episode amplifies deeper strategic and operational challenges that Kuaishou has struggled with since its 2021 IPO. Once a fast-growing short-video community, the company’s user-growth momentum has slowed markedly: its average daily active users (DAU) stood at 416 million in the third quarter of 2025, a year-on-year rise of just 1.7%, while monthly active users (MAU) reached 731 million, up 2.2%.
Competition from ByteDance’s Douyin and Tencent’s Video Accounts has compressed Kuaishou’s room to manoeuvre. Douyin continues to expand overall usage and monetisation, while Video Accounts leverages WeChat’s social graph to pry into Kuaishou’s core lower-tier markets. Industry data show Douyin’s MAU surpassing one billion in the same period, and Video Accounts narrowing the gap in daily time spent, reducing one of Kuaishou’s historical advantages.
Strategic missteps have compounded competitive pressure. After listing, Kuaishou pursued an expansive, multi-pronged strategy into local services, finance and overseas markets, diluting focus. Investment in AI and R&D has been heavy — the company reported R&D spending of ¥3.4 billion in a recent quarter while AI-driven revenues remained relatively small — and returns on those investments are still distant. Overseas expansion has also fallen short: in Brazil, Kuaishou’s content-recommendation and commerce efforts suffered from weak localization and diminishing user engagement.
There are also systemic content and commercial risks. Kuaishou’s platform has frequently been criticised for low-quality, sensational content and recurring moderation lapses. The company has previously faced penalties and warnings for lax protection of minors and delayed response to illegal information. Separately, copyright disputes and false advertising in live commerce have cost the platform money and credibility, with reported legal damages and weak complaint-handling metrics.
The fine and public rebuke signal a broader regulatory posture in China: platforms are being held accountable not only for their moderators’ decisions, but for technical resilience, security hygiene and the speed of emergency responses. For Kuaishou, the immediate cost is financial and reputational; the longer-term task is structural. The company must shore up engineering defences, build faster incident-response processes, reorient content strategy and demonstrate stronger compliance to reassure users, advertisers and regulators.
The episode underscores a broader lesson for social platforms worldwide: the commercial value of live interaction comes with heightened systemic risk. Live formats are attractive to advertisers and commerce but are also vulnerable to coordinated misuse, algorithmic shortcomings and human moderation failures. How Kuaishou responds will test whether it can convert this regulatory reprimand into a turning point for governance and product focus, or whether the platform’s strategic dispersion will keep undermining trust and growth.