New Regulations Take Effect Today: Banning 13 Categories of Foods in Live Streaming Rooms, Four Major Changes to Rectify Live Streaming Chaos!

“Once the host opens their mouth, they dare to say anything,” addressing the current chaos in live e-commerce industry regarding food safety responsibilities and shifting blame. Starting March 20, the “Supervision and Management Regulations for Live E-commerce Operators Implementing Food Safety Responsibilities” officially come into effect. The new regulations systematically define regulatory red lines, with “Four Major Changes” ensuring the public’s “safety on the tip of the tongue” and promoting healthy and orderly development of the live e-commerce industry.

Change 1: From “Platform Passing the Buck” to “Both Goods and People Must Be Managed”

In the past, many participants in live e-commerce would shift blame when problems arose. Zhang Qian from the Publicity Department of the Beijing First Intermediate People’s Court believes that, to address these issues, the new regulation for the first time includes live e-commerce platform operators, live room operators, live marketing personnel (hosts), and their service agencies (MCN organizations) under regulatory scope.

The new regulation emphasizes platform responsibility, clarifying that platforms are the “first gatekeepers” for food safety risk prevention and control. They must manage not only the “goods” (food) in the live room but also the “people” (hosts). Platforms are required to establish comprehensive review mechanisms, such as registration, training, and risk management systems, and to appoint food safety management personnel. They must verify hosts’ qualifications and provide food safety training to prevent unqualified live broadcasts.

The regulation clearly distinguishes between “store broadcasts” and “reach broadcasts.” It stipulates that food producers and operators who run their own live streams for food e-commerce (store broadcasts) must prominently display, on their account pages, valid food production and operation licenses, prepackaged food registration information, or links to such information. Non-food producers or operators who run live streams for food sales (reach broadcasts), i.e., influencers solely promoting products, must establish strict product selection procedures, define clear standards and norms, and carefully review the foods they recommend.

Change 2: Clear Prohibition of 13 Types of Foods and 8 “Prohibited” Behaviors in Live Rooms

The new regulation explicitly lists 13 categories of foods that are not allowed in live streams, including foods produced from non-food raw materials, foods containing toxic or harmful substances, foods with pathogenic microorganisms or excessive heavy metals, expired, spoiled, moldy, or worm-infested foods, carcasses or meat from dead or poisoned animals, unlabelled prepackaged foods, and foods explicitly banned by the state.

It also specifies 8 “prohibited” behaviors, including: using technical means to alter the true sensory characteristics of foods; explicitly or implicitly claiming that foods have disease prevention or treatment functions or using medical terminology; claiming health benefits for non-health foods; confusing regular foods, special foods, and medicines; falsely advertising the origin, ingredients, functions, or suitable populations of foods; publishing food inspection data from unqualified testing agencies; releasing food inspection results, reports, or data as food safety information; and jointly promoting foods with food testing agencies through advertisements or other means. Additionally, it mandates prominent warnings about information directly related to consumers’ health and safety, preventing misleading practices.

Change 3: Introduction of “Traffic Regulation”

The new regulation also states that if live e-commerce platform operators discover illegal food safety behaviors by live room operators or marketing personnel, they should promptly take measures such as issuing warnings, restricting functions, limiting traffic, suspending live streams, closing accounts, prohibiting re-registration, or blacklisting offenders, according to platform rules.

This means “traffic” will no longer shield illegal hosts.

Change 4: Building a Full-Chain Protection System to Address “Difficulties in Rights Protection” and “Challenges in Evidence Collection”

Consumers often face difficulties like “going offline after issues” or “lack of evidence” when buying problematic foods in live rooms. To address this, the new regulation constructs a protective network from three aspects: channels, evidence, and penalties.

One-click rights protection: Live e-commerce platform operators are required to set up clearly visible buttons or links on the live page to facilitate convenient food safety complaints and reports, ensuring consumers can supervise in real-time and quickly defend their rights.

Technical monitoring records as evidence: It clarifies that technical monitoring data (such as AI snapshots or screen recordings) collected by market regulators for illegal food safety behaviors in live e-commerce can serve as electronic evidence for administrative penalties and other measures.

Establishing a tiered penalty system: If platforms act as “hands-off managers,” neglect review or reporting duties, penalties should be imposed according to the Food Safety Law; if operators’ training is superficial or product selection is inadequate, they will be given a deadline for rectification, and serious or repeated violations can result in fines ranging from 10,000 to 100,000 yuan; if “store broadcasts” lack proper qualifications or fail to disclose information, accountability will be pursued precisely according to the Food Safety Law and the E-commerce Law.

Source: Beijing Daily Client (All rights reserved by the original author. If there are infringements, please contact for removal.)