Chinese Authorities Shut Down Live Stream App Huahua, Arrest Founders

Chinese authorities recently arrested suspects who were running a live stream app specializing in adult content.

Eighteen suspects were arrested in the city of Macheng, which is located in China’s Hubei province, and two others were arrested in the Philippines — all for creating the platform, Huahua. According to TheDrum, Huahua had more than 900,000 registered users and had helped the group earn RMB 16 million — roughly US $2.3 million.

The Macheng police had been investigating the group for over a year after receiving a tip that users were being asked to download Huahua in chat groups on the messaging app QQ via QR codes.

After joining the app, users were able to watch performances and make requests by paying up to almost RMB 2,000 (US $290). Some of the more popular streams got upwards of 2,000 viewers at a time.

According to Gizmodo, erotic and sensate content is becoming increasingly difficult to come by in China as the country’s anti-porn task force continues to push for a more sanitized internet, free even from relatively non-sexual ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response) content.

Huahua users had only one point of contact and did not seem to know each other off site. This was part of the group’s efforts to avoid detection from the police. According to TheDrum, the app’s appearance and servers were also changed several times. Obviously, these tactics ultimately failed to shake investigators’ efforts.

China: Not a place for an internet-based porn startup. Or, any sort of porn-related business for that matter.