Overview
- Apple said China’s cybersecurity watchdog ordered the removal of Moonscape Technologies’ app from the China App Store for failing to adhere to public order and good morals, while the app remains available on other storefronts.
- The service, renamed Demumu after state media criticized its original title, let users press a daily check-in button and emailed an emergency contact if no response came within 48 hours, costing about 8 yuan per month.
- The app topped Apple’s China App Store charts in early January before disappearing, underscoring swift regulatory sensitivity to content seen as socially inappropriate.
- A factory error that flipped a horse plushie’s smile upside down created the viral “crying horse,” which Chinese media and retailers say now logs roughly 15,000 daily orders and has drawn more than 190 million Douyin mentions.
- Sellers and customers describe both phenomena as reflections of rising loneliness and anxiety as more people live alone and the marriage rate falls to a 45-year low, signaling softer consumer confidence.