China turns on ‘minors mode’ to keep kids safe online

But don't worry, folks in the free world, this won't apply to you! Douyin (Tiktok in China) may restrict what kids see, but Tiktok abroad will still serve up to your tween daughter videos that tell her if she isn't pretty enough, she might as well kill herself.

They probably saw the Russian culture war brain rot play out with American youth and decided to have a circuit breaker.
Behind the Bastards has an episode about how YouTube went right wing to create site engagement and an anger economy, and an episode about Facebook doing thr same for boomers.
Some governments are looking into limiting those influences.
EDIT: oh yeah, China might also be protecting children from hearing about the periodic stabbing attacks that happen at schools over there. Forgot about those.
- The rest of the world needs to learn from the US's failure like this ASAP. I think Europe might already be doomed judging by the way the UK and Germany are going, but others might be able to swerve to avoid a fascist future with the right moves.
- It's not only the US that got hit by that russian campaign to mess with youths and even younger children. Europe for its fair share as well. It also plays into their "oh look at the degenerate west" playbook perfectly.
  They're responsible for so much damage that I have no idea how it'll end. Not even children with tech savvy parents are immune, as I can attest to myself.
  It's important as fuck to have discussions about bad content to children ass soon as they get any kind of screen available to them, and it should never ever be a babysitter unless it's under controlled circumstances.
  It's also a good idea to start teaching your children how any tech they use works and what happens under the hood if they're interested. They're certainly less likely to get influenced by any bad actors if they know what's what.
- They already have the GFW and state control of the media.

Parents can invoke minors mode with a single click and set usage time limits. Devices set to minors mode will even remind users to take breaks, and collect stats so parents can make sure their offspring are surfing the web in an age-appropriate and socialist fashion.
This sounds awesome. This isn't the weird shit like some states in the US have for determining if you can log into porn, or South Koreas weird government-login-page-in-everything scheme, it's part of the parent's family plan for their kid they can turn on/off.
I realize there's worrying undertones (that already exist on the Chinese internet regardless) but the actual feature as-is seems like the ideal for this sort of thing.
- Sounds like screentime.
  
  What's a screentime?
  
  Is that an app or what?
- But who is collecting the stats?
  Here are my issues with this:
  The service needs to know if it's a minor or adult
  Service needs to put that data somewhere, and I highly doubt it's on the user's machine
  There's no way this isn't tied to the user's identity
  There are internet filters you can buy already that the user controls. Why not just use that?
  
  there are internet filters you can buy
  Seems like that's exactly what this is, it's a mode that you turn on on the phone and it uses a government supplied list of vetted websites for the kid to visit.
  Interestingly the way this feature set reads out is exactly the same way that Nintendo's parental controls work.
  I realize that this being the Chinese government, them keeping usage stats has connotations that go beyond the data itself... But in a country with a more liberal government I'd rather have them keep records of my kids' internet usage than a private company. The idea being that you can pass protections around that data. (Not that that seems to be stopping the current US government so maybe that's a pipe dream).
  Ideal is, of course, completely on your own hardware (the device or your server at home), but between this and a system where Apple/Google/Nintendo does all this instead I'd prefer the government method.
- Looking up more information about this I found a much less sensationalized analysis on this from the UofC:
  https://cjil.uchicago.edu/print-archive/kids-no-phones-dinner-table-analyzing-peoples-republic-chinas-proposed-minor-mode
- I could have sworn that a few months ago it was on the news that the government restricted all online stuff like video games, to only a few hours a week or something for minors?
  
  I think that was the draft proposal for this.
  
  They can't log on after 8pm or something like that?
- US can't even pass a federal data privacy law
- This isn't the weird shit like some states in the US have for determining if you can log into porn
  Age gating porn doesn't sound very weird to me. Methods can be pretty shit though
  so parents can make sure their offspring are surfing the web in an age-appropriate and socialist fashion
  Imagine if the US did this lmao

I see a lot of well-meaning support for this. I can't help but think there has to be a way to implement these kinds of controls without taking power away from the user.
Like the Fediverse implementing better mod tools rather than expecting Twitter to effectively moderate the internet.
- Yeah but CCP wouldn't like this because it faces uncomfortable truths like a controlling dictatorship is the only reason for the firewall.

Fuck this
- Yeah seriously, China making a smart decision for once? What the fuck? Broken clocks, I suppose.
  This needs to be a worldwide thing. We're raising a generation of idiots because of engagement algorithms. Something needs to be done about it, or we're going to be in serious trouble once Gen Alpha gets old enough to vote.
  
  You don't want kids to research, let's say controversial, content of CCP wrongs and critism of policies ofc. Totally a smart move
  
  This isn't for the kid's benefit you know

I completely agree Internet should be regulated especially for children. Should be done in Europe as well. But of course this regulation should not be misused for propaganda.
- Look I will be clear to you. You can not have a free and open internet and governments unable to misuse their power to shutdown websites, information whenever they please. And at the same time regulate the internet "to protect the children". You can't have both at the same time.
  
  The internet is firmly in the grasp of mega corporations. There is no free internet anymore. This shit needs to be regulated.
  
  Well this kind of regulation needs to be democratically. So there need to be independent institutions who regulate. The Same way like the law, police and politics is independent from each other.
  If we keep the Internet "free" this means the Internet will be controlled by corporations like meta, Google and tiktok and thus by undemocratic billionaires. And also networks like these Russian fake news propaganda will control the narrative and so indirectly control our society.
  I agree with you that regulating the Internet and thus the media need to be balanced against freedom. But if we do not regulate the internet than democracy is doomed.
  
  It's not the 90s; we don't have a free and open internet anymore.
  The vast majority of the web is run by a handful of corporations. Something needs to be done, and I think that preventing children from getting access to websites owned by evil companies like Google/Alphabet, Elon Musk, and Meta/Facebook is a good start.
- Parents need to do their fucking jobs and keep their shithead kids out of my business.
  
  Not to mention parents staying the fuck out of other parent's business.
  Don't bring state violence down on other people because you don't want to watch your own damn kids.
  
  There we go... This is the only correct answer here!
  
  Internet is controlled by corporates like meta, Google, tiktok right now. In other words the undemocratic billionaires control the power. And also networks like the Russian bot farms spread fake news and destabilize our society. Parents can not do much about it.
  Democracy is doomed if the Internet is not regulated in a way.

I can't take seriously articles about the Internet that don't even capitalize "Internet" correctly.
- I've been on the internet since like 1992 and I've never once capitalized it, and I don't think I've ever seen it capitalized. shrug
- Why would it be capitalized? There's only a few words in the English language, that are capitalized. And "internet" isn't one of them, as it's just a normal noun.
  
  I suspect it could be seen as a proper noun.
  If Acme and FooCorp create a bridge between their private network spaces, it's an internet (common noun) but not the Internet (proper noun, referring to the one with Goatse).
  Let's find an English teacher. And yell at them for forcing us to read the same terrible novel in both 10th and 12th grades. Maybe after that, return to this subject.
  
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalization_of_Internet
  The direction of travel is towards "internet" (lowercase), but pedants gonna pedant.
  
  You and I are posting on the Fediverse right now (capital F). If I create two of my own personal Lemmy instances that only federate with each other, they're not a part of the Fediverse. I've now created my own fediverse (lower-case F). The Fediverse is a fediverse, but not all fediverses are the Fediverse.
  Same with internet and Internet. There is the main, collective Internet that we all know and use daily, but it's one of many internets.
  
  an internet is a descriptor of two or more interconnected networks. The Internet is a proper noun which should actually be capital ‘T’ he capital ‘I’ nternet. You have “an internet” like ‘a universe’ and ‘The Internet’ like ‘The Universe.’
- 'The Internet.' You are almost correct, an internet is a descriptor of two or more interconnected networks. The Internet is a proper noun which should actually be capital 'T' he capital 'I' nternet. You have "an internet" like 'a universe' and 'The Internet' like 'The Universe.'