Taiyuan Lao Ge was fined ¥5.6M for false advertising — with 90M followers

Taiyuan Lao Ge, whose real name is Ge Liang, was one of China's biggest livestreamers with over 90 million followers. Through his company Shanxi Lao Ge Commerce, he sold more than 30 product categories in his livestreams, including collagen ultrasound guns, cell-activation freeze-dried factor drinks, freshwater pearl pendants, and bear bile powder.

In August 2025, the Taiyuan Market Supervision Administration concluded an investigation into Ge Liang's livestream operations, finding systematic false advertising and price fraud. He had used unverifiable promotional claims and compared his prices to fabricated reference prices to induce purchases. The regulator fined him ¥5.6 million — one of the largest individual fines against a livestreamer to date.

The case was published by the State Administration for Market Regulation as a typical case in November 2025 and was later selected as one of the ten major cases in the 2025 anti-vicious-competition campaign. The scale of the penalty reflected both the severity of the violations and the enormous reach of a streamer with 90 million followers.