In trying to reach a common prosperity, China has moved powerfully to rein in its huge tech giants, for not complying with anti-monopoly laws and not protecting personal data of millions of people. The aim is to protect smaller businesses, and avoid huge differences in living standards between the ultra-rich and the very poor.
But China has also launched another very important move: The war to protect the minds of its population and of young people in particular. On Aug. 30, Beijing announced it was limiting the amount of time minors could be online with video games to one hour a day and only on three specific days a week: Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. As the Statistical Global Consumer Survey for 2021 showed: 50% of young Chinese declare that they play more than six hours a week, which means they can easily become addicts.
On Sept. 8, the Chinese government went further and attacked the contents of the games. Since video games are not only “pure entertainment,” but also have an artistic function, they must be appreciated according to the values they transmit. Video game giants Tencent, Netease and others, were told that the games giving primacy to money or those which transform “well-established historical figures,” are forbidden, as well as those that indulge in “malign activities” such “as assassins, murderers, pirates, muscle-men, and characters [leading dissolute lives] who smoke, drink alcohol, go to pubs or wear tattoos.”
