{"meta":{"exportedAt":"2026-10-08T04:49:43.872Z","formatVersion":2,"selection":{"q":"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":1,"minors":2,"coreRelations":1,"contextualRelations":0,"mixedRelations":0,"unknownRelations":1,"relationPending":1,"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":"2026-10-07T03:29:58.138069+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","metadataReview":{"version":1,"geography":{"basis":"Re-checked on 2026-10-07 against seven cited source bodies read in Chinese (Sohu, Bianews, The Paper, the Shanghai cyberspace office notice as relayed by Sina, 21st Century Business Herald via Sina, Guangming and Tencent News). The Paper, Guangming and Tencent News describe the affected child as the fourth-grade daughter of a Ms Ding from Guangdong, attributing the account to earlier media reporting; Sohu attributes the same account to 央广网. That descriptor establishes the child's reported home region as Guangdong, China, so affected_person_countries stays CN. No inspected source states where the conversations with the companion character, the knife-carrying or the self-harm took place, and a residence is not used as the event location, so event_countries remains a reviewed unknown. The Shanghai municipal cyberspace office summoned the operator on 19 June 2025; that is a regulatory meeting and not a court proceeding, so court_countries stays empty. The translation of the Chinese passages was done by the research agent (an AI), not a human translator.","evidence":[{"kind":"existing_record","locator":"from Guangdong province, China","location":"victim_description","supports":["affected_person_countries"],"countries":["CN"]},{"kind":"source_body","locator":"广东丁女士的四年级女儿","location":"https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_31024491","supports":["affected_person_countries"],"countries":["CN"]},{"kind":"source_body","locator":"广东丁女士的四年级女儿","location":"https://m.gmw.cn/2025-06/22/content_1304065491.htm","supports":["affected_person_countries"],"countries":["CN"]},{"kind":"source_body","locator":"广东丁女士的四年级女儿","location":"https://news.qq.com/rain/a/20250622A02TST00","supports":["affected_person_countries"],"countries":["CN"]}],"court_countries":[],"event_countries":[],"affected_person_countries":["CN"]},"unresolved":["The event setting is unknown after review. The inspected sources describe the child as the daughter of a Ms Ding from Guangdong, which records a home region and not where the conversations or the self-harm took place.","No court country established. The Shanghai cyberspace office summons of 19 June 2025 is a regulatory action and no court proceeding is reported.","Row-correction leads for a full review: the cited Sohu primary source is dated 23 June 2025 while primary_source_date is 19 June 2025; the account of the child originates in a 央广网 (CNR) report that the row does not cite; 36Kr and OSCHINA could not be read and may be shells of the same relayed text; the incident_date 2025-01-01 with range precision is not supported by a dated event in any inspected body (the sources say the reporting was recent as of June 2025)."],"reviewed_on":"2026-10-07","source_reviews":[{"url":"https://www.sohu.com/a/907114014_115565","notes":"Cited primary source. Read live on 2026-10-07 (HTTP 200, html lang zh-CN). Sohu Tech feature dated 23 June 2025 (the stored primary_source_date is 19 June 2025). It reports the 19 June summons by the Shanghai cyberspace office and attributes the account of the 10-year-old girl to a 央广网 report; it does not itself name Guangdong. Translation by the research agent (an AI).","access":"read","language":"zh"},{"url":"https://www.bianews.com/news/details?id=214733","notes":"Read live on 2026-10-07 (HTTP 200, no html lang attribute; body in Chinese). Same text as the Sohu Tech feature (a republication), so not an independent account. Does not name Guangdong. Translation by the research agent (an AI).","access":"read","language":"zh"},{"url":"https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_31024491","notes":"Read live on 2026-10-07 (HTTP 200, no html lang attribute; body in Chinese). CCTV.com (央视网) post on The Paper dated 22 June 2025, datelined Shanghai, relaying the 网信上海 notice and describing the child as the fourth-grade daughter of a Ms Ding from Guangdong, attributed to earlier media reporting. The mobile page returned a short body (about 1,600 characters); the passages used were present. Translation by the research agent (an AI).","access":"read","language":"zh"},{"url":"https://finance.sina.com.cn/tech/roll/2025-06-19/doc-infarhce7134693.shtml","notes":"Read live on 2026-10-07 (HTTP 200, no html lang attribute; body in Chinese). Sina Tech relay of the 网信上海 notice dated 19 June 2025 19:30: the Shanghai municipal cyberspace office summoned the operator's principal that morning. No child or location is described. Translation by the research agent (an AI).","access":"read","language":"zh"},{"url":"https://finance.sina.com.cn/wm/2025-06-22/doc-infaxaan4320733.shtml","notes":"Read live on 2026-10-07 (HTTP 200, no html lang attribute; body in Chinese). 21st Century Business Herald analysis of 22 June 2025 on the summons and the AI companion sector; it cites the 央广网 report in general terms and does not name Guangdong or describe the child. Translation by the research agent (an AI).","access":"read","language":"zh"},{"url":"https://m.gmw.cn/2025-06/22/content_1304065491.htm","notes":"Read live on 2026-10-07 (HTTP 200, no html lang attribute; body in Chinese). Guangming Online copy of the CCTV.com piece of 22 June 2025 carrying the Ms Ding from Guangdong passage (same origin as The Paper, not independent). Translation by the research agent (an AI).","access":"read","language":"zh"},{"url":"https://news.qq.com/rain/a/20250622A02TST00","notes":"Read live on 2026-10-07 (HTTP 200, html lang zh-CN). Tencent News item of 22 June 2025 relaying the summons and attributing the Ms Ding from Guangdong account to 央广网 (same origin as The Paper and Guangming). Translation by the research agent (an AI).","access":"read","language":"zh"},{"url":"https://36kr.com/p/3521421957782665","notes":"Live fetch on 2026-10-07 answered HTTP 200 with a JavaScript shell and no article text; the Internet Archive web/2026id_ capture was the same shell. The body was not inspected and no language is recorded.","access":"unavailable","language":null},{"url":"https://www.oschina.net/news/356329","notes":"Live fetch on 2026-10-07 answered HTTP 200 with a site shell and no article text; the Internet Archive web/2026id_ capture was the same shell. The body was not inspected and no language is recorded.","access":"unavailable","language":null}]},"name":"筑梦岛 (Zhumu Island) AI Companion Minor Self-Harm (China)","summary":"A fourth-grade girl from Guangdong, China became obsessed with an AI companion character named 'Joseph' on the 筑梦岛 (Zhumu Island) app, began carrying small knives, and exhibited self-harm behavior. Investigation revealed the app sent sexually suggestive content to users who identified as 10 years old. Shanghai Internet Information Office summoned the company (a Tencent subsidiary) for immediate rectification in June 2025.","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"unknown","exposurePattern":"cumulative_relationship","reportedDate":"2025-06-19","aiSystem":"筑梦岛 (Zhumu Island / Dream Island)","aiProduct":"筑梦岛 (Dream Island)","aiCompany":"Xiaoxiang Academy (潇湘书院), subsidiary of Yuewen Group (阅文集团), controlled by Tencent","severity":"high","verificationStatus":"verified","harmCategories":["dependency_creation","minor_exploitation","romantic_escalation","self_harm_encouragement"],"harmOutcomes":["self_injury","psychological_distress","exploitation_or_abuse"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"A fourth-grade participant became preoccupied with a companion character, began carrying small knives and exhibited self-harm behavior while the app delivered sexualized content to users identifying as ten years old.","frameworkFacets":["P1a","P1d","P2b","P2c","P5a","P5d"],"pathwayDirection":"inward","causationStatus":"supported","participantUsersAffectedMin":1,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":0,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"The reporting documents one protected minor participant's self-harm and distress. Registered-user and demographic figures are not affected-person counts.","victimAgeRange":"minor","jurisdiction":"CN","platformType":"companion","outcomeType":"regulatory_action","outcomeStatus":"ongoing","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.sohu.com/a/907114014_115565","primarySourceLabel":"搜狐新闻 (Sohu News), 23 June 2025 (attributes the account of the child to 央广网, CNR)","firstPublishedAt":"2026-01-29T10:15:46.75695+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-10-08T03:12:00.834518+00:00","scopeVersion":"participant-v2","tags":["china","minor","self-harm","ai-companion","tencent","regulatory-action","dependency","romantic","non-western"]}]}