The new rules ban online gaming outside of certain hours and limit online gaming time for minors to one hour in the evening on Fridays, weekends, and holidays. Responsibility for ensuring that children play only three hours a week falls largely on Chinese game companies such as NetEase and Tencent. The rules do not include penalties for individual players.
The side of the debate that favored such a solution was represented by Chinese government officials, concerned parents and, while representatives of the gaming community, companies and internet providers represented the party against such regulations.
Arguments were presented in favor of a form of reducing time spent online: over 110 million children in China regularly spend many hours on the Internet every day, which causes addiction, health problems and psychological complications. The destructive impact of online video games on the psyche of young people has been compared to the opium effect and has been heavily criticized. Parental control of children's behavior is very limited and does not fulfil its social role in the present reality and the dominant role of social media. It was found that the situation would worsen if not regulated by law.
The arguments against this form of control were presented as a kind of censorship and surveillance by the Chinese government, otherwise known for its totalitarian tendencies. The role of control over the upbringing of children was postulated to be left in the hands of the parents, and the effectiveness of the implementation of the control was questioned. It has been suggested that the restrictions would be counterproductive and provoke actions to circumvent the law. It was postulated that trying to control access to the Internet was utopian, and that the profits made by the video game industry were too large and too important for the development of the economy of new technologies to try to limit them.
The audience present during the debate had the opportunity to participate in the assessment of the Chinese government’s decision to control the access time to online games by voting for and against the arguments presented. It was the public's decision that this form of control was not desirable and should not be introduced in other countries. It was concluded that the arguments for leaving the decision on children's development to the government were not rational, and the bizarre decision of the Chinese government organization had no basis in the world outside China.
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