If you spend any time online, you鈥檝e probably noticed that the internet has a bit of a misinformation problem. Scroll long enough and you鈥檒l encounter an influencer with a ring light, discount code, and unwavering confidence explaining how coffee enemas cure cancer, broccoli ruins your hormones, and modern healthcare is a conspiracy. It鈥檚 chaotic, occasionally absurd, and when it comes to health advice, sometimes deadly.
China has decided it鈥檚 had enough.
In late October, the country passed a sweeping law requiring influencers to prove they鈥檙e qualified before speaking on 鈥渟erious鈥� topics like health, education, finance, medicine, or law. If you want to tell people what supplements to buy or how cancer patients should treat their disease, you now need a degree, a license, or accredited training. Platforms like Douyin, Weibo, and Bilibili are required to verify these credentials. The Cyberspace Administration also banned advertising for medical products, supplements, and health foods disguised as 鈥渆ducational content鈥�.
On paper, it sounds like a step in the right direction. After all, the harms of unqualified online health gurus aren鈥檛 theoretical, they鈥檙e documented. Just ask the survivors left behind by wellness influencer Belle Gibson鈥檚 fake cancer narrative. Or consider families misled by creators promoting 鈥渇reebirth鈥� (solo childbirth without medical supervision) despite evidence that timely intervention in the case of emergency can save lives.
It鈥檚 not hard to imagine how this regulation would land in North America. Somewhere, a U.S. senator is undoubtedly already polishing off a speech about the First Amendment. In Canada, Section 2(b) protections would ignite similar outrage. And the backlash wouldn鈥檛 be entirely unreasonable. Because while the law targets clear harms, it also opens the door to a much thornier question: Who gets to decide who is qualified enough to speak?
There鈥檚 a real risk that once governments begin defining whose knowledge counts, they also begin defining whose doesn鈥檛. The internet鈥攎essy, contradictory, brilliant, and terrible鈥攈as democratized expertise. People who were once excluded from traditional institutions now have an audience. Survivors educating other survivors. Disabled creators teaching accessibility better than medical schools ever did. Marginalized communities documenting lived experience that academia never bothered to study.
Rules like China鈥檚 may silence not only charlatans, but also voices historically shut out of institutional power.
And, let鈥檚 not pretend credentials guarantee accuracy. People with MDs and PhDs have promoted expensive pseudoscientific treatments, pushed supplements, or blurred ethical lines with suspicious affiliate links. The law鈥檚 focus on qualification over intention leaves a loophole big enough for a wellness empire to march through.
There鈥檚 another unintended consequence: trust. At a moment when public faith in science and government wobbles precariously, heavy-handed enforcement risks pushing people further toward fringe communities where distrust thrives, and conspiracy monetizes.
So where does this leave us?
Somewhere uncomfortable.
Because the truth is: misinformation does kill. And the influencer economy has blurred the lines between expertise, storytelling, and salesmanship beyond recognition. There are already rules about practicing medicine without a license, but the influencer鈥揻ollower relationship is uniquely murky; part entertainment, part mentorship, part parasocial therapy session.
China鈥檚 law is attempting to solve a real problem, but in doing so, it forces us to confront a harder question: if we don鈥檛 want regulation, then what鈥檚 our alternative? Blind faith in platform self-policing is鈥� optimistic at best. Hoping audiences suddenly become media-literate skeptics is equally na茂ve.
Until we figure it out, the burden falls reluctantly on us: the scrollers.
When consuming online advice, ask the simplest but most revealing question: Does this person profit if I believe them? If the answer is yes, take a breath and a step back.
Degrees aren鈥檛 everything, but neither is charisma confidently dispensing health advice between sponsorships.
Somewhere between authoritarian regulation and chaotic misinformation is a solution. We just haven鈥檛 built it yet.
