<i>Huanlian</i>, or changing faces: Deepfakes on Chinese digital media platforms

In China, deepfakes are commonly known as huanlian, which literally means “changing faces.” Huanlian content, including face-swapped images and video reenactments, has been circulating in China since at least 2018, first through amateur users experimenting with machine learning models then the popularization of audiovisual synthesis technologies offered by digital platforms. Informed a wealth interdisciplinary research on media manipulation, this article aims historicizing, contextualizing, disaggregating huanlian order to understand how synthetic is domesticated China. After briefly summarizing global emergence local history I discuss three specific aspects their development: launch ZAO app 2019 its societal backlash regulatory response; commercialization across formal informal markets; communities practice emerging around platforms like Bilibili. Drawing these cases, conclusion argues for importance situating applications deep contexts.