HONG KONG — China’s growing child modeling industry is under scrutiny after footage of a 3-year-old being kicked by her mother was widely circulated online.

According to China Daily, a state-run newspaper, the video was filmed Monday in the eastern city of Hangzhou, where the girl was modeling outfits for online retailers. It drew outrage on Weibo, a Chinese social media site, where one of the topic pages about the incident had been viewed more than 610 million times by Thursday evening.

“This mother could arguably be suspected of using her child as a cash cow,” Yang Wenzhan, a lawyer, wrote on Weibo to his nearly two million followers. “It’s not right to kick children; the psychological impact of the kick is greater than its physical injury.”

A woman who identified herself as the mother in the video, withholding her own name, issued an online apology on Wednesday. She said that she loved her daughter, Niuniu, and did not mean to abuse her.