China slams esports and gaming as 'electronic drugs'
China has labelled esports and gaming as “opium for the mind” to children, forcing gaming companies like Tencent to scrambling to introduce new measures to protect minors.
The new restrictions will stop children under the ages of 12 from spending money in games
State-owned news outlet Xinhua compared digital games with “electronic drugs” and called for more restrictions on the industry to prevent “widespread” addiction among children, in an article in Economic Information Daily, a publication it owns.
The article called out Tencent’s flagship game Honor of Kings, one of the world’s most popular games.
“No industry, no sport, can be allowed to develop in a way that will destroy a generation. Society has come to recognise the harm caused by online gaming and it is often referred to as ‘opium for the mind’ or ‘electronic drugs’”, wrote the Economic Information Daily.
It quoted parents claiming their children played the game for seven hours a day, skipping breakfast to buy games, which saw their grades dropped.
A separate opinion piece on esports and gaming by the China News Service on its Weibo account was published later and called for “schools, games developers, parents and other parties to work together”.
What are Tencent’s new measures?
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While the Economic Information Daily’s article was later pulled, Tencent announced new measures after noting “relevant authorities” had requested greater protection of minors in gaming and for firms to carry out their “societal responsibility.
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The new restrictions, which will initially apply only to Honor of Kings, will stop children under the ages of 12 from spending money on the game and further reduce the duration they can play each day from 1.5 hours to one hour normally, and from three hours to two hours on holidays.
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Tencent previously proposed for the entire industry to consider including a ban on gaming for children under 12. It has already enacted some protections for younger players, including a facial recognition feature on smartphones, to ensure that a gamer is an adult.
Why does this matter?
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It passed a data security law in June 2020 laying out rules for how customer data is used, collected, developed, and protected, and providing a legal basis for the country to request data from tech companies.
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It has also launched a six-month-long campaign that will address the ‘tough problems’ of the internet industry, including disturbing market order, infringing users’ rights, threatening data security and unauthorized internet connections.
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The campaign will target 22 specific scenarios, including apps that do not allow users to opt-out of personalization, use pop-ups to mislead or deceive consumers, do not encrypt sensitive information when transmitting data and provide data to third parties without user consent.
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Tencent, along with other Chinese big tech firms, was previously fined for the lack of privacy and safety of children using the Internet after being accused of endangering minors' physical and mental health.