In countries outside of the U.S., governments have a lot more control over their citizens. Specifically, in China, the government is trying to control the time spent by minors on their gaming consoles or laptops. The estimated time the government is choosing to enforce is only 3 hours of gaming per week. This intense restriction set by the government would be absurd in any other country. People believe that they should have the freedom to play video games in the comfort of their home and for as long as they would like.
The technology used to enforce the 3-hour per week gaming limit is facial recognition. Users have to upload an image of their face to their gaming console or laptop and link it to their account. The facial recognition software makes the user sign in and then records the amount of time spent gaming. Tencent, a Chinese gaming company, took security measures even further. “Tencent actually makes you scan your face if you’re playing late at night for more than a set period of time. So even if your ID says you’re an adult, if you’re playing late at night, they’ll assume that you’re a minor unless you scan your face” (Cellan-Jones). This is an infringement of privacy and data rights on many levels. To make things even worse, China does not allow imports of foreign gaming consoles so users can’t even switch to a different platform.
Among the given violation of many freedoms, this regulation poses a threat to the gaming world. Having only 3 hours to play video games per week puts Chinese gamers at a large disadvantage to the rest of the world. If Chinese gamers want to participate in global gaming competitions, they are only allowed to practice for 3 hours per week. There isn’t any news or clauses for exceptions made for e-sports gamers or famous Twitch and YouTube streamers. Today the government is controlling the time spent gaming, but tomorrow it could be something much worse.
Reference:
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-58433644
Citation:
Cellan-Jones, Rory. “Tech Tent – China’s Crackdown on Young Gamers.” BBC News, BBC, 3 Sept. 2021, www.bbc.com/news/technology-58433644.
This article is interesting, however, not surprising since the Chinese government has a history of controlling its citizens. Several years ago, China imposed a law that prevented each household from having more than one child to control its population. Although banning Chinese citizens from spending more than 3 hours on video games cannot be compared to the one child per household law. Requiring gamers to take pictures of themselves to monitor and track the hours they spend playing video games is a violation of privacy rights. Each parent should ultimately decide on the mechanisms used to track their child’s online activities, such as gaming. I understand the importance of limiting the amount of time that should be spent playing video games; however, there are many benefits from being a gamer. According to an article titled, “Benefits of Video Games For Kids & Adults,”; the ability to think quickly in a fast-paced environment and make strategic decisions are valuable skills that can be translated into an individual’s everyday life. Overall, I believe the Chinese government is invading their citizens’ privacy rights and should consider the advantages of gaming; therefore, it should allow parents to monitor the amount of time their children spend online.
Reference:
Editor. “Benefits of Video Games For Kids & Adults.” GEICO Living, GEICO Living, 6 Aug. 2021, http://www.geico.com/living/home/technology/9-reasons-to-give-video-games-a-try/.
I think limiting the amount of time minors can play is actually good for their learning and physical and mental health. But I think such restrictions are too arbitrary. In addition, many e-sports players show incredible talent and skill as early as underage. This rule would undoubtedly waste years of their talent and greatly hinder these minors’ access to great console and single-player games. The flow of many games is now quite long, and three hours a week means it will take them years to fully play a game.
I’m sure that soon these minors will find other ways to get out of these restrictions, and if their parents are okay with these kids spending more time on video games, they will go along with their kids to remove the restrictions. So in this way, these rules will soon lose their effect and become ineffective.
In addition, frequent facial recognition may violate the player’s opponent and data rights. Other apps may steal or buy this user information to target ads.
In fact, although China does not allow imports of foreign gaming consoles, there are many convenient ways for users to switch to other platforms, and no one in China would buy a console officially licensed by the state or government and distributed by a domestic company, and no one would buy the “legal” Nintendo Switch distributed by Tencent.
I just recently heard about this in the news as well. I am mind blown that the government can have that much control over its people. This post makes me appreciate the freedom I have as a United States citizen. There are some pros and cons to enforcing the amount of time people can spend playing video games. It allows the Chinese government to make sure children under 18 are using their time wisely and not wasting the day away playing video games. Additionally, it might allow for kids to get better grades because they have more time. While this is good, it is scary how much control they have. I think it is only a matter of time before they find a way around it. I found an article that says “online gaming was a hugely profitable business in China due to the large number of young gamers across the country. But state media in recent months have been highlighting concerns of “gaming addiction” among parents.” I can see where the parents are coming from, however, I think enacting a law is a little too much. I am interested to see how this pans out in the coming years.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/30/china-cuts-amount-of-time-minors-can-spend-playing-video-games
The last sentence you wrote on this post is key. The government of course is actively trying to control the amount of time its citizens are gaming, but there’s another layer of the Chinese surveillance onion that’s left to be peeled. This is facial recognition technology. As soon as I read how China’s enforcing the ban, my mind immediately went to how China’s notorious for using facial recognition technology. Forbes even states that in 2018, China started a government program called Project Sharp Eyes with the goal to equip 100% of China’s public spaces with cameras. The goal? To address this: “The difficult problem of how to control people.” This quote comes directly from a Chinese government document. With the Chinese government already known to use the technology to discriminate people with this technology (particularly the Uigher population), how ethical really is this technology? With the pictures taken from gamers to track how much time they’re gaming, the Chinese government is getting another data stream for this technology.
Surveillance isn’t the end of the story. With machine learning, it’s quite simple to implement algorithms that can detect patterns in facial structures and characteristics of an individual’s face. This type of analysis could be used to label individuals and control different “populations”. Plus, machines can learn what your face looks like and pull up other information. This quite literally defines the antonym of privacy. With pressure from Chinese citizens themselves, it’ll be interesting to see if the Chinese government will be able to survey every single public area in their country. With a increase of nearly 1,900% in surveillance related technologies in China between 2010 and 2019, the government of China is certainly making a push to do so.
Reference:
https://fortune.com/2020/11/03/china-surveillance-system-backlash-worlds-largest/
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/31/tech/china-ban-video-games-minor-intl-hnk/index.html
source for comment
I agree with your statements on the gaming restrictions in China. I also think it is an infringement on people’s freedoms and the government should not be allowed to tell children in their homes how long they can enjoy gaming. I do acknowledge though, that the culture in China I every different than it is in the United States where we are lucky to have so much freedom to do as we please. The idea behind the ban is not totally crazy with CNN saying, “the restrictions were put in place to help prevent young people becoming addicted to video games.”(pg 1). There is good intent behind the ban but I believe this is the wrong thing to do because it might push kids to want to do it more.
I thought this was a really well formatted post. The impacts of China’s ban will definitely impact their esports scene, as many of the up-and-coming talents in many esports titles, such as League of Legends, start from a young age and have will dedicate multiple hours practicing and climbing the ranked leaderboards. For example, Yu “JackeyLove” Wen-Bo won the 2018 League of Legends World Championship when he was 17 years old; this reality seems like it is going to become much more difficult in the coming years with this ban. However, there are some who think that these enforcements may be hard to implement, as minors may just use logins from their parents instead of their own (Goh). It will be interesting from an economics point of view, seeing the impact that this will have on large Chinese gaming corporations. Shares in groups such as Tencent are already down 1.45% (Goh), so we will need to see how far they will continue to drop as this ban plays out in the future.
Goh, Brenda. “Three hours a week: Play time’s over for China’s young video gamers.” Reuters, https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-rolls-out-new-rules-minors-online-gaming-xinhua-2021-08-30/. Accessed 5 September 2021.
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-rolls-out-new-rules-minors-online-gaming-xinhua-2021-08-30/
I agree that banning citizen use of technology is definitely a slippery slope. While I also agree that this decision will certainly impact the gaming industry in China, I’m not sure I totally agree for the same reasons you listed. I think that current current Chinese gamers over the age of 18 shouldn’t have much issue with scanning their face after that prolonged period of time to continue playing, so I don’t believe their practice times would necessarily be impacted. I do feel that the number of viewers they have and that the engagement they receive might be impacted, and the gaming industry more generally may be impacted economy-wise. A senior analyst at Niko Partners told the Wall Street Journal that “this ruling will essentially wipe out most spending from minors” (Zhai). Without that additional spending, a lot of different companies will be impacted. I feel like we’ll definitely have to wait to see what happens, but control such as this is a slippery slope and raises a lot of ethical questions — even surrounding the accuracy of facial recognition software.
Zhai, Keith. “China Limits Online Videogames to Three Hours a Week for Young People.” The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones & Company, 31 Aug. 2021, http://www.wsj.com/articles/china-sets-new-rules-for-youth-no-more-videogames-during-the-school-week-11630325781.