A visit to a Chinese "detox" center for video game addicts

[xizhimen]

A visit to a Chinese "detox" center for video game addicts
A "concentration camp‘’ for teen video game addicts

 

[xizhimen]

What's behind China's new online gaming restrictions for kids?

BY RAMY INOCENCIO

SEPTEMBER 2, 2021 / 8:47 AM / CBS NEWS

"No industry can be allowed to destroy a generation"



Hong Kong — China's crackdown on online video gaming was in effect Thursday. Everyone in the country under the age of 18 — more than 268 million people, according to Chinese census data — is now restricted to just three hours of play per week.



Children can game only on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and national holidays — and only between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. on those days. Access to online games now requires real-name verification and log-in systems, and gaming companies can only allow youth players their three hours of service within those small time windows.



Reaction to the new rules has been mixed. Some Beijing parents told CBS News they agreed that their children's time was better spent exercising or studying, while others criticized the move as government overreach into family life.



"It seems to be part of a major push to really bring the government front and center into all elements of people's lives," Hong Kong-based technology and online media expert Paul Haswell told CBS News.



But the policy is part of a bigger push by Beijing to control not only personal habits, but to rein-in the overwhelming influence that technology has suddenly claimed in Chinese society, and the government's motivations go beyond just protecting kids.



"Electronic drugs," and digital detox

Chinese state media had telegraphed the government's frustration in the weeks leading up to the new policy by comparing video games to "electronic drugs" and "spiritual opium," eliciting memories of the 1800's, when millions of Chinese became addicted to smoking opium during the country's Opium Wars with the United Kingdom.



"No industry can be allowed to destroy a generation," wrote China's Economic Information Daily on August 3.



More than six in 10 Chinese minors play videogames online frequently, according to Chinese state media, while more than one in 10 play games on their mobile devices for more than two hours each day during the school week.





For some parents, the new gaming policy didn't come into effect soon enough. Many had already taken drastic action, forcing their internet-addict children into rehabilitation at digital "detox" centers in China.



"I've been advocating for this for years," said Tao Ran, director of the Adolescent Psychological Development Base. "The Chinese government's strong measure this time is the most successful attempt in our fight against addiction."



CBS News visited Tao's facility about 20 miles outside of Beijing, where no technology is allowed.



Right now, about 30 boys and girls are there, living out structured, boot-camp style days full of exercise and counseling. They share simple dorm rooms with other young patients and eat communally. Their parents often live there, too, as part of the holistic program to reintegrate children with their families and society.



Tao, a former colonel in the People's Liberation Army with an expertise in psychology, said 85% of China's minors have some kind of internet addiction, which he called "enemy number-one for [personal] growth."





His program costs about $1,850 per month, and most patients opt to stay for between three and six months, though he did have one family stay for 11 months. At its busiest, the center has more than 130 patients. Boys make up the majority, but Tao said he's seen more and more girls being checked in by loved ones.




"The ratio of girls went from 10% to 30% in the past two years - a big jump," he said, which he attributed to a wider variety of online games becoming available, with broader appeal.



One man at the detox center told CBS News that he'd been there with his son every day for about a month, since the 17-year-old was suspended from school for three months.



"He spent eight to nine hours each day online. Occasionally he'd be online all day and night, 24 hours. It's not just his problem. Our family didn't create enough love, so he had to look for replacement in games," said the father, who didn't want to be identified. "He initially wouldn't recognize he had a problem. After a few weeks he started to accept the fact that he has issues. He had a chance to self-reflect. My child is very social, and he schemed about escaping with other trainees when he first got in, but they didn't take any action."



A high school student who had already been at the facility for five months, with both of his parents joining him for the past month, told CBS News he had also been suspended from school after falling in with a group of friends "who could be considered bad influences."



"We spent whole nights at internet cafes, sometimes we drink alcohol, sometimes I don't go home for three or four days. I spent more than 10 hours a day online. At my worst I went to sleep every two days," the boy said. "Here, I have something to do. I wake up at 5:50 a.m. and do morning exercises and jogging. After lunch we have group therapy and lectures. I think it's hard for trainees to recognize the improvements… it's progressive. Every time you take a small step you won't realize how far you've climbed until you're already on the mountain top. When you've returned to real life people around you might see you in a different way."



But while the new rules may help keep more children out of centers like Tao's, it's not good news for the companies behind the games.



What else is behind it?

"I think it's quite bad news for some of the homegrown tech companies" Haswell told CBS News of the new gaming limits. "I think Tencent is going to struggle the most."



Tencent is the creator of the massively popular "Honor of Kings," the world's top-grossing video game for much of this year. On August 3, the same day the criticisms were published by Chinese state media outlets, Tencent's stock plunged 10%, shedding $60 billion in market capitalization. Its shares have managed to rebound since then.



"I think it's an attempt to try and bring more equality," said Haswell, a technology partner at Pinsent Masons. "At the same time, maybe it's a bit heavy handed, maybe the crackdown is now punishing those who have succeeded."





The new online gaming limits are part of a wide crackdown that goes well beyond videogames, and the motivation likely goes well beyond just protecting children. This year Beijing has targeted other massive firms in the technology sector, including Alibaba, often referred to as the Amazon of China, and Didi, known to many as the Uber of China, allegedly over personal data concerns.



Authorities have also changed the rules for popular online tutoring companies, long accused of giving people who can afford such services a competitive advantage over less wealthy families who cannot. They can no longer charge for their core academic services.



Some of China's biggest celebrities have also seen their online profiles wiped from China's internet over the past few months, for reasons that haven't exactly been made clear.



Haswell says the overall crackdown on the digital space likely stems from a combination of factors, including how much data large technology companies have stored, how much influence individuals wield in Chinese society, and concerns over people gaining new, harder to monitor spaces to communicate.



"Remember, online games are, by their very nature, social. And it's another social space that would have to be regulated. Think of how much censorship is going on in terms of the internet in China," said Haswell. "The online chat rooms related to a game might be harder to moderate."




With this latest set of new rules, Beijing has made it clear that protecting — many would say policing — the country's next generations is more important than any corporate interest. It's also a clear message to those next generations, and the biggest companies in China, that there is no power greater than the ruling Communist Party.

What's behind China's new online gaming restrictions for kids?

Under-18s in China can now only game online for 3 hours per week, and while internet addiction is clearly a massive problem for many families, there's more to the crackdown than protecting kids.

www.cbsnews.com

 

[Saithan]

China goes full nanny state with move to limit game time for kids​

BY EMRE BAŞARAN​

ISTANBUL LIFE
SEP 06, 2021 7:37 AM GMT+3

People's Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers pose with a Chinese flag on a TYPE 96B tank during the Tank Biathlon Contest at the 2021 International Army Games at a military training ground in Alabino, Moscow Region. (Sergei Fadeichev / TASS via Reuters)

China is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council with a right to veto anything they deem unacceptable; they have the third-largest military in the world, they have nukes and a deeply capitalist system that calls itself socialist for some reason. And now the country is the world’s strictest nanny, with unprecedented power in her hands​

It was a couple of years ago that I saw a creepy little video clip on Twitter. The video, taken secretly by British journalist James O’Malley on a Chinese train, gave me serious goosebumps.

“Dear passengers. People who travel without a ticket, or behave disorderly, or smoke in public areas, will be punished according to regulations,” the announcement says in the video. It is perfectly normal – if you don’t take into consideration what that punishment would be under Chinese law, of course – until here.

“And the behavior will be recorded in the individual credit information system. To avoid a negative record of personal credit, please follow the relevant regulations.”
This is precisely where I got the goosebumps. I know it is obvious, but still, let me explain.

Stereotypically dystopian​

I hate the divisive nature of politics, and I am very strict in my stance to keep politics out of my life; plus, I am not too keen at all to get into politics in my work either. I am a tech journalist and I want to remain this way. I don’t belong to any political party or ideology, but this does not necessarily mean I don’t favor one system of governance over another. Besides, no matter how hard try, when the subject is China, it immediately becomes a must to explain the political side of things.

It is basically blasphemy not to use George Orwell’s masterpiece "1984" as a reference to dystopian, authoritarian regimes like the one China has. I know it’s a cliche, but it is a cliche that truly lives up to what it means. Big Brother is really at play here, as evidenced by the train video and face recognition cameras all over China.

It’s no wonder that China hates criticism considering its despotic one-party dictatorship. Calling the Chinese system “authoritarian,” within which Xi Jinping now has the right to be “President for life,” would be praise. They draw fire by the West with regards to their horrendous ethnic cleansing (proven time and time again) in East Turkestan – or Xinjiang province, as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) loves to call the Uyghur-dominant region – which has been recognized as “genocide” by many countries now.

Well, this is a country that banned Winnie the Pooh after President Xi was mocked online for his supposed resemblance to the character.

Nevertheless, another domain that China draws fire for is its truly Big Brother-esque surveillance.

Being a pioneer in high-tech nowadays, it would be naive to assume that the CCP wouldn’t want to use it to spy on its own people. People living in East Turkestan are reportedly forced to install a spy app with extensive intrusion capable of identifying personal data in their phones. The app is known as “Jingwang Weishi,” and its name ironically translates to “cleansing the web” – aka cleansing anything deemed inappropriate under Orwellian regulations forced upon more than a billion people by the CCP.

Besides, that train announcement I mentioned earlier basically threatens people and urges them to behave, as the country has implemented a “Social Credit System.” Have you been too naughty lately, maybe a couple of traffic tickets and involvement in a drunken bar fight? Forget that plane ticket to Shanghai. When buying the ticket online, the system will reject you, and you won’t be able to travel until you increase your credit score.

The problem with the Socialist mindset (even though China can be called the second biggest hypocrite as a nation for calling itself “Socialist” despite its highly capitalistic system – after North Korea, of course, which formally calls itself the “Democratic” People’s Republic of Korea) is its tendency to assume that people need to and can be precisely functional and well-behaved human beings.

That’s not how humans work. We behave sometimes and misbehave at other times; we have the intrinsic right to make mistakes and face the consequences as responsible human beings afterward. Nevertheless, taking basic freedoms away for misdemeanors, which would only result in fines in developed democracies, is not the humanistic way. That’s why every single Socialist regime has proved a failure in humanitarian development.

They assumed that providing a house and basic food necessities to people would make them perfectly content and they would not crave more. That’s just gambling with human nature; we are ever-hungry and greedy creatures. Socialism is inherently authoritarian as proven by countless examples such as China, East Germany, Cuba, Soviet Russia, Vietnam, North Korea and many others.

Even Yugoslavia was a dictatorship under Josip Broz Tito, who was called a “benevolent dictator” thanks to his efforts to develop the now-fractured Balkan country. China, which had to convert to capitalism to save itself from bankruptcy after Chairman Mao’s disastrous “Great Leap Forward” – which resulted in the death of millions – kept its “socialist” epithet intact.

Maybe that’s why it remains a one-party dictatorship, even after converting to capitalism. It is not about how you rule your economy anyway; it is about how you rule your people. You can be a highly capitalistic country with no respect to human rights and freedoms; or a utopian Socialist country in which people will supposedly have a greater number of freedoms compared to the likes of North Korea and Cuba. Highly-developed democracies in Scandinavia are also perfectly capitalistic, but just take a look at where they stand today and how their people live. Also, consider how many homeless people there are in the United States, or how many Americans need medical care but can’t afford it due to exorbitant hospital prices. A healthy mix of the social welfare state and a free-market economy has proved to be the best system of governance created by humans so far.

And then, take another look at China: Why do all those cameras, plastered all over the streets of Urumqi, matter so much for the CCP? Because they use them to spy on Muslim Uyghur Turks that live in the region, who are obliged to install espionage apps on their phones, in addition to all other technological or conventional forms of oppression. These people suffer just because the Chinese government wants to keep its people in line so badly. Whenever confronted with criticism regarding China’s surveillance of its citizens, Eurasianists resort to "whataboutism" – a highly useful logical fallacy.

They immediately mention the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and other intelligence services, which I am sure are spying on everybody they deem a security threat or even ones they don’t. But one mistake does not legitimize another. So be it a Western NATO ally, Russia, China or Cuba – every single government on the globe must have some basic respect toward their people. It is only because I’m writing a column on China that I criticize it for its proven oppression and surveillance. I would use equal if not harsher words if the subject was U.S. or Western crimes in general that forced Edward Snowden to seek refuge in Russia, sent Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning to prison, even though she was later released after former U.S. President Barack Obama commuted her sentence and a favorable court ruling was issued.

Let’s get back to China after responding to pro-CCP folks’ whataboutism.

It turns out all that well-documented oppression is not enough for the CCP. It is now at a whole new level as a control freak government – banning Google, Twitter, YouTube and many U.S.-origin websites with the so-called “Great Firewall of China” is not enough either, it seems – moving to undertake the role of the strictest digital nanny to walk the Earth. Let’s take a look.

Game time’s over, kids​

The CCP has recently ruled that children under the age of 18 should not immerse themselves too much in games. Many parents around the world must have applauded this move, I am sure. Of course, game addiction is a very real phenomena that needs to be dealt with, that’s for sure, but where do we draw the line?
Is an hour of gameplay per day a sign of addiction? I don’t think so. After all that tiring homework, research, essays and academic effort, an hour of gaming might even push up a child’s productivity and success.

Nevertheless, the CCP begs to differ. China’s National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA), which also regulates matters involving video games, introduced the restriction recently.

From now on, every child in billion-strong China will have to limit their game time to one hour each on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Oh, and public holidays will grant another game hour, too; how generous. I hope no public holiday coincides with Friday or weekends from now on; I don’t think the NPPA would be comfortable with its little comrades playing two “long” hours of “harmful” games, many of which China produces itself.

On the technical side of things: I believe that any restriction on the internet and computing is doomed to fail one way or another. U.S.-made social media outlets such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and others have been banned in China for years but ask an average Chinese if they have, say, an Instagram profile. The answer will most probably be a resounding “yes,” as millions of people in China are known to be using Virtual Private Network (VPN) services to bypass any annoying restriction imposed upon by the CCP.

Are you running an authoritarian government and don’t want any issues stemming from the internet “threatening” your rule? Your only shot is to cut off the internet completely, just like North Korea has done. If you continue to make the internet available to the masses, no matter how many restrictions you try to bring on it, you are always doomed to fail. Sure, you will manage to keep a sizable population of your nation (only the ones that are digitally illiterate) from sensitive information; but that won’t last long. As long as humans and technology continue to interact, digital literacy will continue to increase in the population, and your restrictions will become more and more meaningless by the day.

That’s why this restriction is totally meaningless too. It won’t do anything but cause millions of children to see higher ping rates due to the use of a VPN, and that’s about it. When faced with a computer on which a multiplayer game and a VPN client are installed, there is literally nothing the Chinese government can do to deter someone from playing for as many hours as they want. For single-player games, nothing will change, and everything will run just fine.

China has produced some mammoth game developers in recent years. Banning children from playing games will only hurt itself first. Take a look at Tencent. The game giant, headquartered in China’s Shenzhen, is the largest video game vendor in the world and also one of the most extensive video game company investors.
As a matter of fact, what’s problematic about the Chinese move to ban kids from playing games too much is not its apparent intention to keep game addiction away from children. That’s a noble cause, in my opinion. The problem is China’s never-ending intrusion into its people’s lives, going as far as taking the place of a parent as perfectly demonstrated in this example.

If the CCP won’t correct its ways and give its hardworking people the much-needed freedom they all deserve, it will go down in history as a hard-line, strict and never-laughing parent. Or the strictest nanny in existence, if you will.

China goes full nanny state with move to limit game time for kids

China is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council with a right to veto anything it deems unacceptable. Likewise, it has the third-largest military...

www.dailysabah.com

_____________________________
I personally think that China's move might be followed by other countries. I especially imagine Turkey being one of them considering that gaming and wasting time is not looked well upon by conservative muslims. Who think time should be used productive.