China to cut internet access to minors: New rules to limit children's smartphone time to 2 hours a day
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Transcript
00:00 Yenna Li, our correspondent in Beijing, explains the implications.
00:08 The CAC, China's online regulator, wants to curb internet addiction and foster socialist
00:13 values among young citizens. Clamping down on screen time is how they intend to do this.
00:18 The idea is to make tech giants create a minor mode, a mode for underage users to limit their
00:24 access to smartphones, all the while giving parents the possibility to opt out of this
00:28 feature. When you speak with Chinese parents, most of them on the whole seem to agree with
00:33 the idea in general, although some do wonder about the minute details, especially the appropriateness,
00:39 for example, of giving the same rules to a child who's just 8 and a teen who might be
00:43 14 or 15 years old. For years now, though, Beijing has been trying to tear kids away
00:49 from screens. Back in 2019, authorities asked video streaming apps to embed anti-addiction
00:55 systems. Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, already limits the use to children to just
00:59 40 minutes a day. There have also been stricter and stricter rules for online gaming, once
01:04 dubbed by state media here as "spiritual opium." Currently, children can only access this one
01:10 hour a day on Friday, Saturday, Sundays, and on public holidays. Tencent, which is the
01:15 world's leader in gaming, said that these rules led to a 92% drop in time minors spent
01:22 on their products. Unsurprisingly, news that there's going to be more restrictions on screen
01:28 time had an immediate effect on Chinese tech giants. Shares in Alibaba and in Bilibili
01:33 dropped to 3 and 7% on the day the internet regulator first published its draft guidelines.