Won't someone think of the kids? China's Cyberspace Admin steps up, orders massive cleanup to make the net safe for minors

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) today announced a "Summer Youth Network Environment Improvement" – a massive cleanse of the Chinese internet to make it safe for kids aged 16 and under. The announcement of the crackdown means more strife for China's web giants, because the last of seven actions the Administration …

[Pete 2]

The internet as we know it

So basically China is going to completely rebuild the internet!

Without any ...

> Live-streamed kids

There goes children's TV

> commenting facilities that turn toxic;

and all of social media.

> Animated video nasties featuring crime, bloody violence, or other negative stereotypes

and virtually all video games (or at least the popular western ones)

> sexting

and pr0n

> encourages conspicuous consumption;

and online shopping

> permit or foster bullying or trolling

plus any other social media that the earlier diktat missed.

But on the bright side:

> the CAC has encouraged local web operators to create a healthy, civilized online space that leaves Chinese youth less likely to experience mental health problems.

Which might make losing all the rest not so bad.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: The internet as we know it

Classic communism. If you don't live by the party imposed standards, here are the gulags for you.

[vtcodger]

Re: The internet as we know it

"No rudeness. No cute kids spruiking tat. No violence. No fan frenzies. And no smutty emoticons"

Jezum ... Everything that makes the Web a success. Take all that away, and what's the point of opening up a browser? You might as well just read a book. I wouldn't know from personal experience, but I'm pretty sure they still print those.

(... and books rarely try to steal your personal data or encrypt all your files).

[TechHeadToo]

Re: The internet as we know it

I think that's the point.

The internet as a source of information (facts, that is) and a resource for learning,

Instead of 'free speech' ruling and any nutter is able to propagate any idiot, anti - social ideas.

I'm all for free speech - and reasoned debate and criticism, but the www as currently encouraged by The West is removing all hope of an intelligent society.

Sad but true.

[Plest]

Just pull the plug once and for all

I'm no fan of the "red menace" but a lot of this makes sense, there's a ton of absolute shite on the internet for people to waste their time on. Sadly while I think these are good ideas, you just know they will not be enough and they will keep expanding the definitions and what started out as relatively sensible will end up making it hard to find any entertainment on the internet withou being branded a degenerate in the eyes of the Chinese gov.

Given that you know the grandkids of Mao will abuse these extra rules probably best they just go all out and just use the "Great Firewall" to finally cut China off from the rest of the world's internet once and for all and have their own internal network with gov approved content. They're pretty much there already so might as well just go back to being a closed kingdom state once more.

[prismatics]

I wish we had something like that here as well. We have come as far as having children sell products to other children in TikTok.

We seem to only use children as a pretext to enforce laws unrelated to issues with internet use and children.

[John70]

And yet TikTok is a Chinese product

[Anonymous Coward]

I object to calling children "kids"

(shakes stick) back in my day, your schoolteacher would mark you down for writing "kid" because a kid is a baby goat.

It somehow seems disrespectful to children to call them "kids".

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: I object to calling children "kids"

Or perhaps to goats.

[Anonymous Coward]

East versus West

I can't say much good about China but I also can't criticize what they're trying to do here.

When Google tried this with YouTube Kids the primary criticism was that they didn't go far enough.

[Intractable Potsherd]

Re: East versus West

I sort of agree with you, but nothing else in society revolves entirely around children. Adults should be allowed to to do adult things - the alternative is continuous infantilisation. Rites of passage are important, and we certainly need more if those in Western society, but keeping everything at a "think of the children" level prevents people becoming adult.

[genghis_uk]

Re: East versus West

I have to agree here - dumbing down the whole of the Internet because a child may see something is not the way to go.

In the real world there are adult spaces where children can be tolerated but it is the parent's responsibility - being asked to moderate my language in a pub after 9pm* 'because there are children present' did not go down well! There has to be a balance.

Wrapping the little darlings in cotton wool is wrong, exposing them to 4chan/8kun and their lookalikes is also pretty wrong - they will eventually come across people like that in real life but pre-teens don't need that.

Moderating what a child sees and interacts with always used to be called Parenting - I am not trying to blame parents who have a difficult time trying to keep their kids away from this stuff but, with 20:20 hindsight maybe giving smart phones with unlimited internet access to 10 year olds wasn't such a bright idea after all? The problem is it only takes 1 ignorant parent who can't see the harm and they all want one!

Pandoras box has been opened. I cannot see any amount of regulation closing it again unless it cripples the adult version of the internet - or at least makes it difficult to navigate through ID / Age Verification etc. that most kids will learn to bypass anyway.

*in my defence it was nearer 10pm