China wants its youth to stop giving livestreamers money China's internet regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), has published guidelines that aim to stop minors from giving tips or other forms of payment to livestreamers, watching after 10pm, or livestreaming themselves. "Website platforms must not develop functional applications that attract minors to tip or …
It's amazing how many comments always seem like little more than grumpy old people shouting at the kids to get off their lawn. Internet videos are nothing more than TV with a slightly lower cost of entry. There's no meaningful difference between a Twitch streamer and a talk show host or an all-day shopping channel. Most of the content is shit, a relatively small portion is potentially harmful, and a fair bit of it is actually quite good. And it generally seems that a lot of the complaints boil down to little more than not understanding why people would want to watch something that the complainer doesn't personally enjoy. Why would anyone want to watch someone else playing a video game? Why not do something sensible like watch someone else kick a ball?
There is an issue with regulation. But that's nothing to do with a lack of laws, it's simply a lack of enforcement. Streamers are already not allowed to advertise without saying up front that a video is sponsored*, it's just that no-one bothers actually prosecuting them when they break the law. So it may well be a good idea to a bit more on that front. But it's bizarre seeing people applauding China when they do the equivalent of banning all TV because one program broke the law once.
Twitch and others are not inherently harmful to anyone. Actually paying TV performers for their time is not inherently a bad thing. Being awake after 2200 is not inherently a bad thing. Better regulations, and better enforcement of existing ones, would probably be good. China is not doing that because they have no interest in actually making media safe, they just want to eliminate all media that is not under state control.
* Which is itself a bit odd, given that there's absolutely no requirement to do the same for product placement in films, for example.
I find I have to catch myself when my nephew (15) starts to talk about watching Youtube streamers... How many hours did I spend looking over someone's shoulder at arcades? There is not a lot of difference except most arcades in the 80's were a lot more dodgy places to be.
TV will rot your brain, go outside and kick a ball - as I was told in the 70's. Ok, I did spend a lot more time outside than the current generation but that has as much to do with a more permissive time when going out was actively encouraged - now kids are not allowed out due to (in my opinion, overblown) parental fear but when they spend all day on phones/tables/PC's it is a bad thing. They can't really win.
More worrying is what China does now 'for the children' Mad Nad from the Ministry of Fun*, will probably try next citing exactly the same reasoning!
*Should probably be MiniFun as she seems to be intent on stopping us having any!
Most of the things they or similar authoritarian governments like Russia's do are terrible in multiple ways.
But about 10% of the things China does I can't help thinking to myself "boy we'd be better off if enforcing a law like that was possible here".
There is zero reason to suppose that any given engineer would make any better a ruler than Boris. The one sphere of politics where we know engineers are significantly over-represented is among Islamic terrorists.
On the whole, I'm still in favour of a broadly democratic system to choose our leaders. Granted this is, literally, a popularity contest, and the chances of it being won by the person who'll do the best job in government is slight - but what that analysis overlooks is that the key to the job is simply to be recognised as the leader. If a lawyer or a journalist or a preacher or a crook can convincingly win an election, they've already done the most important part of their job.
I think the last couple of decades have proven beyond any doubt that the UK political system is crap. All they are really interested in is getting re-elected. Make it like jury service, you get appointed for 4 years...couldn't be any worse than what we now have.
Like all articles about a good Chinese initiative, there's a group here that refuses to accept it because of the source. It reminds me of articles on M$.
I don't agree with most of China's initiatives but this one seems like a good idea.
That's what the question should be - would my country be better off with such a law?
The scary thing with the CCP is their fondness and efficiency to take everything to 11.
So, the basic idea to limit the power of "influencers" is not bad, but one can only wonder in what creepingly dystopian way it will be enforced.
See the handling of covid lockdowns, to put but one example
Would my country be better if the government could easily create and enforce such a law? It certainly wouldn't be a country I would want to live in.
There are lots of things that I would prefer that people not do, but when I put on my J.S. Mill hat I come down on not wanting laws for most of them. One person's personal freedom is another person's unacceptable behavior. Personally, I want to live in a country that errs on the side of allowing people to do things. The alternative very easily turns into tyranny.
I am opposed to tyranny, even in cases where I agree with the tyrant.
"That's what the question should be - would my country be better off with such a law?"
I'll analyze that, probably too much, in the next paragraph. Before I do, I must first state that you have to ask one additional question: "would my country be better off with the ability to create and enforce such a law?". There are things we'd all like done, but some of those that haven't been done have been left without legislation because there is too much risk of abuse should the required powers be granted. That also needs to be asked.
Let's turn our attention to this specific law, though. I have a dim view of "influencers", and I don't particularly care when they don't have success at influencing. If they all decided tomorrow to quit and do something else, I would consider it a positive. Let's see what this law does to restrict them. The first thing is that it tries to stop them asking for money, one of the more annoying things they do. Yet why should this be a problem? I know, for example, various projects where the creators ask for donations, from podcasts to open source software. If I don't like them enough, I don't give them money. Why should it be illegal to ask for or receive money for something any user can avoid at will?
Next up is making the services liable for refunds when a child uses an adult's credit card to pay. This makes perfect sense, except it's in the wrong place. It's always an issue when a child uses money that isn't theirs to buy something, no matter what they bought. Parents can deal with this themselves by not giving their children access to payment methods or by having rules about their use. For instance, they could do what my parents did: I knew how to spend their money, but if I did it, I would have to explain what, why, and how, so I only did so when it was necessary. I don't have a problem creating a regulation that clarifies what happens when a child spends the parents' money without permission, but the important thing is the payment, not the payee. If a child takes the parents' credit card and pays a streamer, it's the same problem as if they chose to buy a ticket or donate to the Linux foundation; it still wasn't their money to spend. As such, putting this regulation in a law that's targeted only at streamers is doing this the wrong way.
One more aspect to discuss is the curfew on watching this stuff. They're right that children can stay up too late and have negative results, but that's not really a thing they should legislate to fix (and also not something they can). Children can stay up late doing any number of things. In my childhood, it would be reading books. If the government had tried to pass a law banning me from reading books at night, even if it would have made me more alert, it would have been a bad idea. The right approach is for parents to decide what restrictions to place on their children or to let the children make some of these decisions. In my case, I simply noticed how I felt when I had read too late and decided I'd have to change my schedule to not have that happen next time. I also noticed that, sometimes, my teachers would assign homework all at once and I'd have to stay up late to complete it all, but somehow I'm guessing China doesn't consider that cause of late nights to be a problem.
So to answer your question, I do not think my country would be better off with such a law. It has one useful element that's misused to target one group when it should be generic and it has two aspects that give the government power over something it has nothing to do with. I can say this without liking the targeted group. I can say this while agreeing that, if I had children, I would prefer them not to pay streamers, stay up late to watch them, or use my money for it. I can even say this knowing that, if I had children, I'd set rules to prevent them from doing some of that. That's a decision for parents to make, not government leaders.
The source is important because democratic countries would allow such a law to be debated by the public, argued in the courts, publicized by a free press and considered by its merits.
In China such a law would often be the decision of one man and it doesn't matter if it's good for the people, only if it's good for the politburo.
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