“Shehuiren literally means ‘society person,’ but in the online context, it refers to people who run counter to mainstream values, and are usually poorly educated, with no stable job,” said the article. “They are unruly slackers roaming around and the antithesis of the young generation the Party tries to cultivate.”

The decision to take down the Peppa Pig videos comes as Bytedance, one of the world’s most highly-valued technology start-ups, has been tightening operations amid growing government scrutiny.

Just last month, the company saw several of its video-sharing apps either shut down or pulled from app stores. In response to the setbacks, Zhang Yiming, the founder and chief executive of Bytedance, announced that the company would be expanding the team that monitors content to 10,000 people from 6,000.

“Content had appeared that did not accord with core socialist values and was not a good guide for public opinion,” Mr. Zhang wrote in a statement. “Over the past few years, we put more effort and resources toward expanding the business, and did not take enough measures to supervise our platform.”

On the surface, Peppa Pig seems like an ideal fit for the Chinese government’s vision of an orderly, harmonious online environment aligned with “core socialist values.” The show, which was first introduced in China in 2015, is centered on the themes of “friendship, coordination, and feelings,” according to Nick Jr., the children’s television channel. Each five-minute episode is humorous and lively, the family is close and loving, and there are no villains.

Outside of China, perhaps the biggest controversy surrounding the show so far has been that in some of the show’s earlier episodes, Peppa and her brother George were seen sitting in the car without seatbelts.

It is that wholesomeness that has made Peppa Pig’s reincarnation as an edgy symbol of counterculture and youth in China all the more surprising. As one person on Sina Weibo, China’s microblogging service, wrote: “Peppa Pig probably never imagined she would become this popular on Douyin.”