28 October 2026 Weibo

Ethical Contexts : Xinhua News Agency (新华社) released a “Xinhua Video Commentary” column that criticized AI virtual personas abusing sympathy-inducing sales tactics in livestream shopping, with the commentary focusing on a virtual character known as “Xiaohai,” which is actually an AI-generated digital human that fabricates false stories such as “father hospitalized” and “campus bullying” across the screen to gain sympathy for selling merchandise. Xinhua pointed out that the phenomenon of “not just one ‘Xiaohai’” reflects chaos in which certain entities package AI digital humans as authentic narratives to seek commercial gains. In related developments, a forwarded report mentioned a news story about a “79-year-old taking a train to find AI,” describing how an elderly person was moved by the tearful plea of the AI persona “Xiaohai” and made a special trip to find them. The account “辽源西安检察” (the Xi’an District Procuratorate of Liaoyuan) reposted CCTV’s reporting on “AI persona crying while selling merchandise,” reflecting that such virtual persona fraud-style marketing has already attracted the attention of enforcement agencies and media.

Marketing : China Unicom disclosed in its official Weibo post that the company, leveraging its self-developed edge-network intelligent collaboration system, enables China Unicom’s network to precisely identify emerging services such as AI large models, digital humans, and industrial intelligent agents, realizing a paradigm shift in communication services from “people finding networks” to “networks following people,” and stated that this technological breakthrough will establish a solid communication foundation for future applications such as holographic communication and edge-side large models at scale. Unicom particularly noted that this system will play a supporting role in the integrated “space-air-ground-sea” network construction in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area, serving emerging industrial scenarios including low-altitude economy, smart ocean, and embodied intelligence. VIRDYN (广州虚拟动力) (a real-time motion capture technology provider) provided detailed introductions on Weibo of multiple technical solutions combining facial capture (facecap) and motion capture (mocap), including pure facecap helmets, inertial mocap plus facecap helmets, and AI vision mocap plus facecap helmets, stating that these solutions can precisely map actors’ expressions onto digital character faces and are applicable to virtual live streaming and animation production scenarios, while explaining the differences among various solutions in wearing comfort, motion naturalness, and data precision. Larxu (蓝速科技) released multiple posts introducing its product portfolio in the showcase holographic equipment sector, stating that scenarios with high visitor traffic and standardized presentation content such as enterprise headquarters showrooms and brand achievement halls are suitable for deploying 3D holographic chambers or digital human exhibits, with digital humans handling repetitive presentations of fixed exhibits to reduce manual workload and enhance technological appeal, while also recommending that scenarios with low visitor traffic or frequently changing exhibition themes need not follow the trend in deploying such equipment. The company also launched desktop AI dual-screen translation machines and rugged industrial tablets targeting scenarios such as visa consultation and foreign trade sample rooms. User “北京王立新世说新语” commented while reposting news about multiple brands terminating cooperation with Kylian Mbappé (姆巴佩), stating “real-person endorsement carries major risks, switching to digital humans is safer,” linking the brand contract terminations triggered by Mbappé’s inappropriate remarks regarding China to the commercial considerations of digital human endorsements.

Entertainment and Fandom Culture : Multiple Weibo users have engaged in discussions centered on concepts like “virtual personas,” “virtual streamers,” and “virtual idols” within fan culture and online communities. User “用户猪压抑” posted that the object of their fandom “should be a cyber character, a virtual persona.” User “我团室呢-_-” criticized certain fan behaviors as essentially pursuing “virtual personas created by major fans,” expressing concern over this phenomenon. Virtual streamer “绊爱KizunaAICN” (Kizuna AI China) published content with the topic hashtag “Virtual Personas Taking Over Weibo.” User “珍珠白玉翡翠粥” mentioned in their post that a friend is following an “animal virtual idol.” User “Princemagic-” used hashtags including “virtual streamer” and “voice hall” when commenting on disputes related to virtual streamers, reflecting ongoing controversies within relevant communities regarding virtual streamer donations and fan identity affiliation issues.