China child influencers slammed for ‘distorting values’ in staged online videos

A three-year-old girl is fed extensively by her parents leading her to weigh as much as 35kg from eating hearty meals in front of a camera as a live-streamer. A young boy and a girl of his age are presented as a couple and perform intimate exchanges onscreen. Another young boy is filmed eating live worms and snails.
These unsettling scenes are from viral videos featuring so-called online celebrity children, a group which emerged years ago but has triggered controversy in the meantime.
In early...