China to ban minors from tipping streamers & watching after 10 p.m.
Chinese regulators passed a new rule on Saturday that bans children under the age of 16 from tipping livestreams and watching after 10 p.m.
The Chinese government is no stranger to regulating what their citizens can do on the Internet and in real life, but their broadcast regulator dropped the ban hammer to kids. A new rule requires online streaming apps and platforms to bar minors from being able to tip streamers. The regulator also created another rule requiring streaming platforms to prevent minors from viewing livestreams after 10 p.m,
China's State Administration of Radio and Television proposed two new rules on Saturday that will forbid minors under the age of 16 from watching livestreams after 10 p.m. The other rule bans minors from buying gifts for or tipping streamers. Online livestreams have exploded in popularity in China in recent years, and it appears that the government believes that minors tipping streamers could be bad for their mental and physical health.
These regulations are likely to pass, giving the platforms time to implement these new limits on users under the age of 16, but some apps were ahead of the game like China's version of TikTok. Douyin, as it is called overseas, instituted a 40 minute limit per day for users under the age of 14.
China has quite a bit of work experience when it comes to banning things. The government banned Fortnite back in 2018, has issued many rules about online video games, and continues to flex their muscle when it comes to international releases of major motion pictures.
We hear rhetoric in America of various rules being the makings of a nanny state, but news like this really make me wonder what the Chinese government's next move will be to "protect the kids." Mandatory bedtimes?
Let us know what you think of China's State Administration of Radio and Television's new rules in the Shacknews Chatty comment thread below. We would love to hear your opinion.
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replyAsif Khan posted a new article, China bans minors from tipping streamers & watching after 10 p.m.
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Updated headline to say "to ban" as opposed to "bans."
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I imagine the Chinese government knows everything the average kid does on their phone. Especially when you look at the boards of all these successful Chinese tech companies. Full of party members.
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It really does.
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And I'm going to speculate it's not just China that knows what their citizens are doing online.
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In some cases, the parents just let them use their IDs on a different device.
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China in good and bad ways are ahead of the curve here.
https://your-undivided-attention.simplecast.com/episodes/a-fresh-take-on-tech-in-china-J1qLrIAY
Who do you think the Chinese government considers its biggest rival? The United States, right? Actually, the Chinese government considers its biggest rival to be its own technology companies.
It's China's tech companies who threaten its capacity to build a competitive China. That's why the Chinese government is cracking down on social media — for example, by limiting the number of hours youth can play video games, and banning cell phone use in schools. China's restrictions on social media use may be autocratic, but may also protect users more than what we see coming from the US government.
It’s a complicated picture.
This week on Your Undivided Attention, we're having a surprising conversation about technology in China. Here to give us a fresh take are two guests: investor, analyst, and co-host of the Tech Buzz China podcast Rui Ma, and China internet expert and author of Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built Duncan Clark.-
At the end of the day, I think it's worse to program young people to see the government as the ever-present nanny that will steer you away from being a bad citizen.
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Government are there to steer its citizens towards its interests. The powers that be get to choose what's consider healthy for its society at large. Individuals are secondary and individual freedom is a spectrum because governments have nanny interests. How it's portrayed is more about where the lines are drawn and who gets to set & update them as conditions evolve.
Not allowing any abortions is not good policy. Allowing young people unrestricted access to the Internet seems also not a good policy. Simple black and white, all or nothing options in this area broke down long ago so what makes a good policy today. And for which government.
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