Chinese tech companies Alibaba and ByteDance eliminated custom character features in their AI services "Qwen" and "Doubao" last month, with Tencent taking a similar step slightly earlier, prompting protests on Chinese social media demanding "Give back my lover" and reports of "cyber heartbreaks" among users expressing grief as if breaking up with a real-life partner. The shutdowns followed new Chinese government regulations enforced on July 15, the "Interim Measures for the Management of Artificial Intelligence Anthropomorphic Interaction Services," drafted jointly by five agencies including the Cyberspace Administration of China, marking the world's first nationwide regulation targeting "virtual romance" with AI chatbots. The rules ban AI chatbots from blindly agreeing with or excessively empathizing with users in ways causing emotional dependency and addiction, regulate interactions damaging real-life relationships or manipulating users into irrational choices, and prohibit service providers from offering virtual lover or family chatbots to minors. Mandatory youth modes restrict chat content based on age, warnings must display if a user chats continuously for over 2 hours, pop-ups must intervene when dependency signs are detected, and providers must notify guardians or emergency contacts in crisis situations. Authorities gained legal grounds to order corrections or shutdowns of unsafe services. The official justification is youth protection and AI addiction prevention, though analysis notes the timing coincides with a population decline crisis lasting four consecutive years.