The democratizing possibilities of such services have not gone unnoticed by China’s censors.

As they have taken a harder line on online discourse, media regulators have made targets of celebrity gossip blogs, ranting rappers and more. Updates to several sections on Toutiao, Bytedance’s news app, were halted for 24 hours recently after regulators accused it of spreading “vulgar information.” Sina Weibo, a Twitter-like forum, had to take several features offline for a week after it was scolded for similar transgressions.

Adolescent motherhood is a subject that arouses special alarm in China. Even as economists warn of a demographic emergency caused by the “one child” policy, which was ended in 2015, unwed mothers — even those of legal age — are stigmatized and face legal bias. What is more, sex education has struggled to keep up with changing mores, increasing the likelihood of unwanted pregnancies.

Last week’s CCTV segment begins with a young man and woman sitting together on a bed, their faces digitally blurred, as bouncy pop music plays in the background. “What do you think of when you see this video?” a narrator says. “Someone showing off their family’s cute children? Wrong. These two children already have their own children. This mother is not even 16.”

Over images of another young woman with strawberries digitally superimposed on her cheeks, the segment continues: “Perhaps this sweet young girl is obediently helping her parents take care of her little brother. You’re wrong again. This is another 16-year-old young mother.”

China does not allow men to marry before the age of 22, and women not until 20, the segment says. The young mothers on these apps, according to the segment, mostly live in rural areas and have dropped out of school. “Their lives are dull, and they crave attention,” the narration says.

The segment says that several such women had been vying, on the video apps, to be crowned the internet’s youngest mother. One went by the username “14 years old and already have my little cutie.”