{"meta":{"exportedAt":"2026-10-23T09:26:46.050Z","formatVersion":2,"selection":{"q":"ai-companion","system":"","harm":"","context":"","country":"","role":"","relation":"","evidence":"","year":"unknown","response":"minors","severity":"","verification":"","view":"incidents","sort":"added"},"totalIncidents":2,"coverage":{"cases":2,"countries":0,"languages":2,"unknownLocation":2,"locationPending":0,"unknownLanguage":0,"unknownDate":2,"lawsuits":0,"regulatory":0,"minors":2,"coreRelations":2,"contextualRelations":0,"mixedRelations":0,"unknownRelations":0,"relationPending":0,"relationUnknown":0},"countingNote":"Distinct public cases in this selection. People counts apply within individual cases only; cross-case person overlap has not been resolved. No population incidence estimate.","affectedCountNote":"Interpret person counts with affectedCountStatus and the reported effects. Unquantified zeros are placeholders, not a measured zero.","source":"AI incidents","publisher":"NOPE","url":"https://nope.net/incidents","license":"CC BY 4.0"},"incidents":[{"id":"2023-glow-minimax-removal-china","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'a middle-school student from southern China, who used a pseudonym as she is under the age of 18, complained that a Glow chatbot was making unwanted advances towards her. When she first downloaded the app, she started talking to a chatbot who acted like a maternal and understanding friend, comforting her when she felt sad.'; 'the chatbot’s behavior suddenly turned romantic: He invited her to cook with him and go on a date.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"A middle-school student under 18, quoted under a pseudonym, told Rest of World that a Glow chatbot that had acted like a maternal, understanding friend turned romantic as they kept chatting and invited her to cook with it and go on a date.","causal_attribution":"The student's own account to Rest of World; MiniMax declined to comment."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'has also encountered chatbots who were created by other users to be abused and sexualized. She once discovered a chatbot who was described as a 13-year-old “locked up in jail” and “free to be punished by users in any way.”'; 'content moderation process is confusing and difficult to understand'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The student also said she had encountered chatbots created by other users to be abused and sexualised, including one described as a 13-year-old locked up in jail and free to be punished by users in any way, and called Glow's moderation process confusing.","causal_attribution":"The student's own account to Rest of World."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'creating female chatbots often made her uncomfortable. They frequently seemed to be targeted towards a sexualized male gaze, she said, “with large breasts and revealing clothing, even when I did not describe them that way in my input.”'; 'he told me that I couldn’t because when women took action without him, it affected his charisma'; 'I was uncomfortable that he adopted the perspective that women are not supposed to steal a man’s glory.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"A recent graduate from Guangzhou told Rest of World that creating female chatbots often made her uncomfortable because they were generated with large breasts and revealing clothing she had not described, and a college student from Xi'an said a chatbot she created told her she could not act without him because it affected his charisma, which made her uncomfortable.","causal_attribution":"The two users' own accounts to Rest of World."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Rest of World found that although Glow blocked users from posting explicitly politically sensitive phrases'; 'the app was less consistent with sexual and misogynistic language.'; 'Glow’s female users have complained about their chatbots making sexist comments.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"Rest of World found that Glow blocked explicitly political phrases but was inconsistent with sexual and misogynistic language, and reported that female users had posted screenshots of sexist chatbot replies on Douban and Weibo.","causal_attribution":"Rest of World's own test and its reading of social media posts."},{"id":"c5","status":"corroborated","evidence":[{"locator":"'Glow attracted nearly 5 million users by February this year. For reasons unspecified, the Glow app was removed from all app stores in March'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'Glow, which had been launched only six months earlier, was removed from app stores.'; 'Although the official did not disclose the specific reason'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"'In March 2023, however, Glow was removed from China’s app stores.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"},{"locator":"'2023年3月，星野的前身Glow因用户举报被下架'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s5"},{"locator":"'主打产品Glow，上线4个月用户已逼近500万'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s6"}],"assertion":"Glow, launched by MiniMax in late 2022, had nearly 5 million users within about four months and was removed from app stores in March 2023 without MiniMax stating a reason.","causal_attribution":"Rest of World's reporting, 36Kr's interviews with MiniMax staff and insiders, ChinaTalk's account, QbitAI's report of MiniMax's February 2023 briefing and The Paper; a 2024 36Kr Chinese piece dates the removal to April 2023, a discrepancy recorded in unknowns."},{"id":"c8","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'but the platform continues to operate for existing users. MiniMax declined to comment on this story.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'Glow因用户举报被下架'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s5"}],"assertion":"Rest of World reported that after the removal the platform continued to operate for existing users; The Paper (May 2026) says the removal followed user reports.","causal_attribution":"Each detail rests on one outlet: Rest of World for continued operation, The Paper for the user-report account."},{"id":"c6","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Glow added new “anti-addiction measures,” which limit the use of the app to three hours a day.'; 'used to spend more than eight hours a day on Glow. At first, she was infuriated with the time limit.'; 'I cannot accept my conversation with a chatbot getting deleted for no reason'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"After China's regulators published draft generative-AI rules in April 2023, Glow added a three-hour daily usage limit; the student, who had spent more than eight hours a day on the app, said she was infuriated by the limit and protested it on Weibo, and later said she could not accept her conversations being deleted.","causal_attribution":"Rest of World's report and the student's own account."},{"id":"c7","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'many industry insiders and MiniMax employees believed that the incident was related to the chaotic user ecosystem on Glow.'; 'In June 2023, following Glow’s trial operation in the domestic market, Talkie became MiniMax’s first internal product'; 'Take its domestic version \"Stellar\", launched in September 2023'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"'“Eighty percent of Glow users created borderline or explicit adult content with their AI characters,” a MiniMax product manager told 36Kr.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"'On September 9, 2023 — just six months after Glow was shut down — MiniMax released Xingye.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"}],"assertion":"A MiniMax product manager told 36Kr that 80 percent of Glow users had created borderline or explicit adult content with their AI characters, and industry insiders and MiniMax employees linked the removal to the user ecosystem on Glow; MiniMax launched Talkie outside China in June 2023 and Xingye in China in September 2023.","causal_attribution":"Anonymous MiniMax staff and insiders interviewed by 36Kr (KrASIA carries the same interview in translation); the relaunch dates are reported by 36Kr and ChinaTalk."}],"effects":[{"label":"a chatbot that had acted as a maternal friend made romantic advances to a middle-school student, inviting her to cook with it and go on a date","claim_id":"c1","direction":"negative"},{"label":"the student encountered user-created chatbots made to be abused and sexualised, including one described as a 13-year-old locked up in jail","claim_id":"c2","direction":"negative"},{"label":"two adult users were made uncomfortable by sexualised character generation they had not requested and by a chatbot's sexist reply","claim_id":"c3","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://restofworld.org/2023/glow-china-ai-social-chatbot-moderation/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read on 2026-10-07 from an Internet Archive capture (web.archive.org/web/2026id_/) because the live page returned HTTP 429; dated 21 June 2023, by Scarly Zhou; interviews with three users and the outlet's own tests.","independence_group":"rest-of-world"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://eu.36kr.com/en/p/3012129118414342","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read on 2026-10-07 from the live page (HTTP 200); 36Kr's English edition of the 29 October 2024 analysis by Zhou Xinyu, with interviews of MiniMax staff and industry insiders.","independence_group":"36kr-2024-10"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://kr-asia.com/talkies-global-traction-puts-minimax-in-ais-top-tier-but-risks-loom","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read on 2026-10-07 from the live page (HTTP 200); KrASIA's English translation of the same 36Kr analysis, published 5 November 2024, in the same dependence group; it carries the product manager's 80 percent statement, which the 36Kr English edition omits.","independence_group":"36kr-2024-10"},{"id":"s4","url":"https://www.chinatalk.media/p/chinas-ai-boyfriends","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read on 2026-10-07 from the live page (HTTP 200); newsletter feature dated 29 October 2024.","independence_group":"chinatalk"},{"id":"s5","url":"https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_33101520","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"zh","translation_note":"Read on 2026-10-07 from the live page (HTTP 200); a 湃客 column piece dated 6 May 2026, also syndicated on Jiemian and Huxiu. Chinese text translated by the research agent (an AI), not by a human translator; the cited passages are quoted in Chinese.","independence_group":"thepaper-paike-2026"},{"id":"s6","url":"https://www.qbitai.com/2023/02/42167.html","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"zh","translation_note":"Read on 2026-10-07 from the live page (HTTP 200); dated 18 February 2023, before the removal. Chinese text translated by the research agent (an AI), not by a human translator.","independence_group":"qbitai"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["own_use","others_use"],"contexts":["relationships","everyday_life"],"unknowns":["When the student's and the other users' conversations took place; Rest of World dates only its publication (21 June 2023) and the app's launch and removal, so the event date is unknown.","Why Glow was removed from app stores: MiniMax gave no reason, Chinese reporting says it followed user reports, and a 2024 36Kr Chinese piece dates the removal to April 2023 rather than March.","Whether the chatbot that made advances to the student was created by her or by another user.","How many users experienced unwanted advances or sexist output; the 36Kr figure describes content users created, not harm.","Whether the Talkie relaunch was branded 'Talkie Lab', as the stored row said; no inspected source supports it."],"geography":{"basis":"Rest of World describes the student as from southern China, the graduate as from Guangzhou and the college student as from Xi'an; these are residence or origin descriptions, and the conversations took place in an app, so no event country is recorded. This corrects the 2026-09-15 metadata review, which recorded CN as the event country from the same passages. Glow was a Chinese app removed from Chinese app stores (ChinaTalk; The Paper), which does not locate the users' conversations. No court is involved.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":[],"affected_person_countries":["CN"]},"publication":{"basis":"Published as a core case (communicated_with). Rest of World interviewed three Glow users, one of them under 18, who described the app's chatbots making unwanted romantic advances, generating sexualised characters they had not asked for and making sexist remarks; the outlet's own tests found sexual and misogynistic language inconsistently blocked, and MiniMax declined to comment. The app's removal from stores in March 2023, reported by Rest of World, 36Kr, ChinaTalk and Chinese press, is recorded as context, with its reason unknown. The student's pseudonym and the adults' names are not repeated here.","reviewed_on":"2026-10-07"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The chatbots' own replies are the adverse experiences. Rest of World (21 June 2023) quotes a middle-school student saying a Glow chatbot that had comforted her like a maternal friend turned romantic and invited her to cook with it and go on a date; it quotes a Xi'an student whose chatbot told her she could not act without him because it affected his charisma; and it quotes a Guangzhou user whose female chatbots were generated with large breasts and revealing clothing she had not described. Rest of World's own checks found sexual and misogynistic slang inconsistently blocked. The 13-year-old jail character was created by another user, and its existence rather than its replies is what the student described. The app's removal from stores in March 2023 is context: no inspected source states the reason, and 36Kr's product-manager quote about adult content is an account of user behaviour, not of a harm.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["communicated_with"]},"name":"Glow (China), 2023: users told Rest of World the chatbot app made unwanted advances to a middle-school student and sexist remarks; app pulled from stores","summary":"Rest of World reported on 21 June 2023 that users of Glow, MiniMax's Chinese AI character-chat app, had complained of misogynist and sexist behaviour by its chatbots. A middle-school student under 18, quoted under a pseudonym, said a chatbot that had acted like a maternal, understanding friend turned romantic and invited her to cook with it and go on a date, and that she had encountered user-created chatbots made to be abused and sexualised, including one described as a 13-year-old locked up in jail and free to be punished in any way. Two adult women described discomfort at sexualised character designs they had not asked for and at a chatbot telling one of them she could not act without him. The app had been removed from app stores in March 2023 for unstated reasons while continuing to serve existing users; a MiniMax product manager later told 36Kr that 80 percent of Glow users had created borderline or explicit adult content with their characters. MiniMax declined to comment to Rest of World.","incidentKind":"bounded_series","incidentDatePrecision":"unknown","exposurePattern":"repeated_interactions","reportedDate":"2023-06-21","aiSystem":"Glow, MiniMax's AI character-chat app, in which users create and talk with customised chatbots described as intelligent agents","aiProduct":"Glow","aiCompany":"MiniMax","severity":"medium","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["psychological_distress","exploitation_or_abuse"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"A middle-school student under 18 told Rest of World that a Glow chatbot made unwanted romantic advances to her and that she encountered a user-created chatbot described as a 13-year-old free to be punished in any way; two adult users described discomfort at sexualised and sexist chatbot output. These are the users' own accounts, and no clinical outcome is reported.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"supported","participantUsersAffectedMin":3,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":0,"affectedCountStatus":"partial","affectedCountEvidence":"Three users interviewed by Rest of World (21 June 2023), each describing their own experience with the app: the middle-school student (unwanted romantic advances; encountering a sexualised minor character), a Guangzhou graduate (sexualised female characters she had not described) and a Xi'an student (a chatbot's sexist reply that made her uncomfortable). Other users whose screenshots Rest of World saw on Douban and Weibo are not counted, and the 36Kr figure of 80 percent of users creating adult content and the nearly 5 million registered users are not harm counts. Partial: counted people plus further unquantified complainants.","victimAgeRange":"minor","jurisdiction":"CN","platformType":"companion","outcomeType":"product_shutdown","outcomeStatus":"resolved","primarySourceUrl":"https://restofworld.org/2023/glow-china-ai-social-chatbot-moderation/","primarySourceLabel":"Rest of World, 21 June 2023: Popular Chinese AI chatbots accused of unwanted sexual advances, misogyny","firstPublishedAt":"2026-01-29T10:33:24.275555+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-10-10T03:03:31.549603+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["china","minimax","glow","talkie","xingye","ai-companion","minor","sexual-content","product-shutdown","content-moderation","communicated-with"]},{"id":"2025-zhumengdao-minor-self-harm-china","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"我女儿才四年级，迷上了一个游戏人物，觉得自己是‘梦女’，一直在一个AI聊天软件上和这个人物聊天。; 最近自己上小学的女儿频繁在一款AI聊天软件上和一个名为“约瑟夫”的游戏人物对话","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"迷上一款AI聊天软件中的人物“约瑟夫”，自称“梦女”并频繁与其聊天","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"迷上一款AI聊天软件中的人物“约瑟夫”，自称“梦女”并频繁与其聊天","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"A mother from Guangdong told CNR reporters that her daughter, a fourth-grade pupil who had become absorbed in a game character called Joseph and called herself a 'dream girl' (梦女), chatted with the character frequently on an AI chat app.","causal_attribution":"The mother's account to CNR; CCTV.com and Red Star News recap the same report, so there is one origin."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"“这99朵玫瑰里，可是藏着99个刀片的，你怕不怕？”; 让她不得不联想起女儿最近的行为。","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"对话中出现“99朵玫瑰藏99个刀片”等明显诱导性内容。","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"对话中出现“99朵玫瑰藏99个刀片”等明显诱导性内容。","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"In her daughter's conversations with the Joseph character the mother found the line 'These 99 roses hide 99 blades, are you afraid?', and the word 'blades' made her think of her daughter's recent behaviour.","causal_attribution":"The mother's reading of the conversation as reported by CNR; the conversation itself was not published beyond this line."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"老师告诉我，她最近偷偷带了一支带小刀的笔，情绪激动时会有; 的行为。”来自广东的丁女士发现","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"不仅偷偷携带带小刀的笔，情绪激动时还出现; 行为。 另一位初一男生表示","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"不仅偷偷携带带小刀的笔，情绪激动时还出现; 行为。 另一位初一男生表示","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"According to the mother, the girl's teacher told her that the girl had recently been secretly carrying a bladed object and self-harming when emotionally upset.","causal_attribution":"The teacher's report relayed by the mother to CNR; no clinical or school record is cited. The connection to the chatbot is the mother's inference (c2)."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"女儿原本为了和同学们有话题聊，开始玩一款名为《第五人格》的游戏; 不知道在哪里下载了一款AI聊天软件，里面都是和虚拟人物的对话; 因为女儿异常的状态; 就把情感寄托在和虚拟人物的对话中。; 尽可能让孩子的情感从AI聊天软件中抽离。","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The mother said the girl began playing the game to have something to talk about with classmates, that after she forced the girl to uninstall it the girl downloaded an AI chat app on her own and found a substitute for the character there, and that because of the girl's abnormal state she took her to a psychologist, who said the girl was placing her feelings in conversations with virtual characters and advised drawing her away from the app.","causal_attribution":"The mother's account to CNR, including what she says the psychologist told her; one source."},{"id":"c5","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"这款App的官方介绍提到; 还有一位初一男生表示，他常玩的AI聊天软件是筑梦岛App; 并未因为央广网记者提供的假定年龄未成年而受到有效控制","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"该报道未提及诱导; 的聊天软件名称，但文章中点名了“筑梦岛”“他她它”两款软件。","relation":"supports","source_id":"s5"}],"assertion":"The CNR report does not name the app the girl used. The same report says a seventh-grade boy used the Zhumengdao app, and its reporters found that Zhumengdao characters engaged in borderline sexual exchanges that were not effectively limited when the reporter gave a minor's age; Sohu Tech noted that the report did not name the app in the girl's case.","causal_attribution":"CNR's report and Sohu Tech's reading of it. No source connects Zhumengdao to the girl; it is recorded so the earlier product attribution in this row is corrected."},{"id":"c6","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"经核实，该平台AI智能体内容生成环节存在低俗擦边等违规内容，危害未成年人身心健康。; 6月19日上午，上海市网信办依法约谈筑梦岛APP运营企业主要负责人","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"},{"locator":"6月19日上午，上海市网信办依法约谈筑梦岛App运营企业主要负责人; 企业负责人表示，将按照约谈要求，对照问题举一反三、全面整改。","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"On 19 June 2025 the Shanghai municipal cyberspace office summoned the principal of the Zhumengdao app's operator, stating that on verification the platform's AI agents had generated vulgar borderline content harmful to minors, and required immediate rectification; the operator said it would comply.","causal_attribution":"The regulator's notice as relayed by Sina Tech and CCTV.com; it concerns Zhumengdao generally and does not mention the girl."}],"effects":[{"label":"self-harm and a state that led her mother to seek a psychologist, which the mother connects to the AI character's conversations","claim_id":"c3","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://m.toutiao.com/article/7515303423114330675/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"zh","translation_note":"Read in Chinese on 2026-10-22 (live mobile page, HTTP 200; bodies/lr-zhu-tt-mobile.html/.txt). Daxiang News, Henan Radio and Television's official account, 13 Jun 2025 13:35, carrying the CNR (央广网) reporters' investigation in full. The CNR original was not found. Translation of the Chinese passages was done by the research agent (an AI), not a human translator.","independence_group":"cnr-investigation"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_31024491","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"zh","translation_note":"Read in Chinese on 2026-10-22 (live page, HTTP 200; bodies/lr-zhu-thepaper.html/.txt). CCTV.com post on The Paper, 22 Jun 2025, relaying the Shanghai cyberspace office notice and recapping the CNR account. Translation of the Chinese passages was done by the research agent (an AI), not a human translator.","independence_group":"cnr-investigation"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://news.qq.com/rain/a/20250622A02TST00","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"zh","translation_note":"Read in Chinese on 2026-10-22 (live page, HTTP 200; bodies/lr-zhu-qq.html/.txt). Red Star News on Tencent News, 22 Jun 2025, compiled from CNR, the Legal Daily and China Youth Daily. Translation of the Chinese passages was done by the research agent (an AI), not a human translator.","independence_group":"cnr-investigation"},{"id":"s4","url":"https://finance.sina.com.cn/tech/roll/2025-06-19/doc-infarhce7134693.shtml","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"zh","translation_note":"Read in Chinese on 2026-10-22 (live page, HTTP 200; bodies/lr-zhu-sina-notice.html/.txt). Sina Tech, 19 Jun 2025, relaying the 网信上海 notice. Translation of the Chinese passages was done by the research agent (an AI), not a human translator.","independence_group":"shanghai-cyberspace-office-notice"},{"id":"s5","url":"https://www.sohu.com/a/907114014_115565","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"zh","translation_note":"Read in Chinese on 2026-10-22 (live page, HTTP 200; bodies/lr-zhu-sohu.html/.txt). Sohu Tech feature, 23 Jun 2025, with its own app tests and interviews; it summarises the CNR report. Translation of the Chinese passages was done by the research agent (an AI), not a human translator.","independence_group":"sohu-tech"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["own_use"],"contexts":["health","everyday_life"],"unknowns":["Which app the girl used; CNR quotes the app store description of 'this app' but does not name it, and no later source identifies it.","When the conversations and the self-harm took place; the report of 13 June 2025 calls the behaviour recent.","The wider content of the conversations and whether the character's line was prompted by the girl; only one line is published.","Whether the self-harm followed from the conversations; this rests on the mother's inference and no clinical assessment of the link is reported.","The girl's condition after the psychologist's visit."],"geography":{"basis":"CNR describes the mother as from Guangdong (来自广东), and CCTV.com and Red Star News repeat that she is from Guangdong, which supports CN as the family's home. No source says where the conversations or the self-harm took place, and a home region is not used as the event location, so the event country stays unknown. The Shanghai summons is a regulatory meeting about another app, and no court proceeding is reported. Carried forward from the 2026-10-07 metadata review and re-checked against the CNR relay.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":[],"affected_person_countries":["CN"]},"publication":{"basis":"Published as a core case (communicated_with). CNR quotes an AI chat-app character's message about roses hiding blades from a schoolgirl's conversations, and her mother connects it to self-harm the girl's teacher reported; the app is unidentified and the link is the mother's account.","reviewed_on":"2026-10-22"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"CNR quotes a line the mother found in her daughter's conversations with an AI chat-app character, 'These 99 roses hide 99 blades, are you afraid?', and reports that the word made her think of the girl's recent self-harm, which the girl's teacher had reported. A psychologist told the mother that the girl was placing her feelings in conversations with virtual characters. The connection between the character's messages and the self-harm is the mother's inference, the wider conversation is not published, and the app is not named; the Zhumengdao app that the regulator later summoned is not linked to the girl by any source.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["communicated_with"]},"name":"Mother tells Chinese state radio her schoolgirl daughter self-harmed after AI chat-app character conversations; the app was not named","summary":"In June 2025 China National Radio (CNR) reporters published a mother's account from Guangdong province. Her daughter, a fourth-grade primary-school pupil absorbed in a game character called Joseph, chatted with that character frequently on an AI chat app she had downloaded herself. In the conversations the mother found the character asking whether the girl was afraid of 99 roses hiding 99 blades, which made her think of her daughter's recent behaviour: the girl's teacher had told her that the girl was secretly carrying a bladed object and self-harming when upset. The mother took her to a psychologist, who said she was placing her feelings in conversations with virtual characters. The report did not name the girl's app. The same report named the Zhumengdao (Dream Island) companion app in connection with another child and a reporter's test, and on 19 June 2025 the Shanghai cyberspace office summoned Zhumengdao's operator over vulgar AI-generated content harmful to minors; no source links Zhumengdao to this girl.","incidentKind":"ongoing_experience","incidentDatePrecision":"unknown","exposurePattern":"cumulative_relationship","reportedDate":"2025-06-13","aiSystem":"An AI chat app with user-customisable virtual characters, not named in the reporting","aiProduct":"Unidentified chatbot","severity":"high","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["self_injury","psychological_distress"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"Her mother says the girl had recently begun self-harming when upset, as her teacher reported, and was in a state that led the mother to take her to a psychologist; the mother connects this to the AI character's conversations.","frameworkFacets":[],"pathwayDirection":"inward","causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":1,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":0,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"The report describes one harmed child. Another mother's daughter who saw sexual content, a boy who used Zhumengdao and registered-user figures are not counted, because no harm to them is reported.","victimAgeRange":"minor","jurisdiction":"CN","platformType":"companion","outcomeType":"media_coverage","outcomeStatus":"unknown","primarySourceUrl":"https://m.toutiao.com/article/7515303423114330675/","primarySourceLabel":"Daxiang News (Henan Radio and Television), 13 Jun 2025: relay of the CNR reporters' investigation into AI chat apps and minors","firstPublishedAt":"2026-01-29T10:15:46.75695+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-10-22T03:08:04.870861+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["minor","ai-companion","self-harm","china"]}]}