China wants mobile devices to limit usage time for minors, ensure they only see nice content

The Cyberspace Administration of China last week released guidelines that suggest mobile devices be equipped with "minors mode" that enforces both censorship and automatic usage time limits. The proposed plan outlines daily usage limits of an hour for children under 16, and up to two hours for those aged 16 to 18. The system …

[Felonmarmer]

Unsurprising

And of course, content should "promote the core socialist values and advanced socialist culture," while it "cultivates minors' patriotism."

As opposed to the capitalist core values which are promoted just by default by connecting to the internet.

So aside from which culture they promote, the rest of the proposals are exactly like everyone else's plan to censor the internet for minors.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Unsurprising

Yep. Until I hit the "socialist values and patriotism" line in the article, I was thinking it might be nice to have this on our devices in the US. As an option, mind, not a "you must use this".

[martinusher]

Re: Unsurprising

The word 'socialist' in this case could be taken as 'traditional Chinese values' -- respect for elders, community and so on. Its a little different because AFAIK the Chinese don't do Apple Pie but the rest of it is familiar territory.

Its always a bit of a surprise to discover that 'they' are actually a lot like 'us'. (For example, if it wasn't for the language you'd be hard put to tell the difference between a Russian and a Republican.)

[Headley_Grange]

Re: Parental Controls

The difference would be that in China the phone company execs and parents would have some serious incentive to close the loopholes and work to the guidelines.

[ChoHag]

Re: Parental Controls

I don't know any 17 year olds who would be seen doing something an authority has told them not to.

[Anonymous Coward]

FTFY

I don't know any Chinese 17 year olds who would be seen again after being caught doing something an authority has told them not to.

[Snowy]

Re: FTFY

They would be seen again, just they would have had a "nice" holiday at some educational camp first.

[Pascal Monett]

A content filter

I am genuinely curious to see how they're going to make that work.

Every attempt made on this side of the Great Firewall has failed miserably. It's mainly a list of authorized sites, not content filtering.

Is YouTube available in China ? Because if it is, there's going to be one hell of a challenge right there. Oh sure, I know that nothing mentioning Tienanmen is going to be available, but that's just a keyword filter, and only concerns the title of the video.

To me, a content filter is an endless game of whack-a-mole, and once you start, you can never stop playing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: A content filter

It's not. They have sites such as Youku and Bilibili whose content's harmoniousness is kept under a much stricter control.

[terry 15]

It would be fantastic if over here, mobile phone manufacturers would actually be held to account on how abysmal stuff like time restrictions on phones are.

Both Apple and Android phones fail very quickly to reliably restrict time usage on children's phones. Too many obvious ways around (including the ridiculous one more minute) that get passed around in the playgrounds.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Nice content

Whilst the national symbol is the Giant Panda, they should set the default background and screen saver on these to the similarly proportioned wholesome cuddly creature known as Winnie The Poo

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: Nice content

Pooh!