China Mandates Parental Controls For Online Games

eldavojohn writes "The quintessential nanny state is tightening its grip on online gaming a little further today, as it announced that starting March 1st, 'online game companies must set up a web page, enquiry hotline and other special channels for parental supervision of their children. Besides, these companies shall authorize parents, who want to monitor and control their children playing online games, to take measures to limit or ban the playing. Also, the online game companies shall provide help to parents in supervising their children's online game accounts and preventing them from playing improper games, as part of the project.' If you're a parent, the new effort by the Ministry of Culture has surprisingly specific recommendations for how to regulate your child's gaming: 'The document suggested a school student play online games for less than two hours every week and spend no more than 10 yuan ($1.5) on playing online games every month.' The article (from the state media) ends with amusing speculation that the youth will simply acquire a fake adult ID to get back online. Stay tuned for more rules and regulations from China's new 'Parental Watch Project.'"

Comments

nanny state

[BradleyUffner]

Is it really a "nanny state" kind of action if it is giving power and control to the parents?

Re:nanny state

[orphiuchus]

Its much more literally a "nanny state". They're giving more power to nannies!

Re:nanny state

[EdIII]

Is it really a "nanny state" kind of action if it is giving power and control to the parents?

No it isn't. Children have no rights of any kind and they are not citizens. Your parents have your rights on your behalf. Used to piss me off something awful when I was a kid, but I am a little more understanding of the situation now.

There are plenty of regulations that make perfect sense regarding children and toys. I sincerely doubt the requirements for child safety and stuff, like you know, no toxic lead in toys is seen as the government being a "nanny" state.

This is merely an extension of that. The government is not outright banning anything, but simply mandating some features which seem entirely optional on the part of the parents.

Speaking for my family, boy can I tell you the lengths we go with technology to keep some of my little relatives off games when they are being punished or playing too much. Having a helping hand from the online companies is quite welcome and I don't see it as part of a nanny state, but a needed feature of their service to *ME*. After all, I am the one really paying for it, one way or the other, both financially and as a parent.

I wonder...

[orphiuchus]

I wonder if all of those quiet Chinese kids in college were quiet because they didn't speak english, or if it was just because they spent the previous 19 years of their life not allowed to look up from their homework so they had no idea how to interact with people.

Re:I wonder...

[Pentium100]

However, I do not think that this law is bad. The parents are given power to control the gaming of their children, which seems appropriate, just like web content filters (installed by parents) or some program that limits how long the kid can be using the PC. Or video game ratings.

Unlike other countries, like Germany, where some video games are banned so even adults cannot get them.

Re:I wonder...

[rainmouse]

However, I do not think that this law is bad. The parents are given power to control the gaming of their children, which seems appropriate, just like web content filters (installed by parents) or some program that limits how long the kid can be using the PC.

Having previously worked for an online games company with a player-base demographic of mostly kids or young teens, I very strongly support at least the idea of this.

Once you have seen one of the many chat logs where your trained eyes spot an adult in amongst the kids pretending to be another kid and your blood runs cold. The adult then tries to isolate the kid from their friends, then the adult tries to isolate the kid from their parents (are you alone, can we speak private etc.) then the talk turns sexual and a meet up IRL is attempted. When you have read some of the awful things these creeps say, I'm sure you may be more inclined to support this kind of action too, especially when you consider that there are many other similar kids games out there where the developers or publishers save money by not having in game player support and the report things like murder threats, suicide threats, child abuse and grooming.

The chat logs in the game are not continually and permanently stored I might add, they are buffered and if someone reports abusive or suspicious behaviour then that buffer is dumped to disc and sent to staff for analysis who do not really actually read the logs, but train their eye to scan through endless pages of crap for specific key words and phrases.

If you are going to let your children play an online game, please check what support is offered by the developers and if there are no parental controls then your internal alarm bells should be ringing.

Who's the nanny state?

[johnsnails]

Hardly a nanny state, I have family over their and paradoxically its less (in some ways) of a nanny state than Australia, the way they can let fireworks off in the street is only one example, their OHS rules or lack their of is another. So who's the nanny state?

Sensible ideas

[Max Romantschuk]

I do believe that it is a parent's duty to keep a child at sane levels of any activity the child takes part of. Giving parents the tools to determine if a kid has been playing insane amounts makes sense. But IMHO an emailed report with a per-day total time summary and perhaps some trends should do fine.

The rest should be good ol' regular parenting and communication with your offspring. Ultimately any technological block/tool can be circumvented, and they never can replace mutual trust and understanding.