‘They only have Fridays and weekends to play’: Video gaming rules begin in China with youngsters only allowed three hours online a week
On a recent Sunday evening in Beijing, a few minutes before 8pm, Huang Chong opened a Harry Potter video game on her smartphone and tried to play.
She couldn’t – by government decree.
A pop up appeared on her screen: “Dear players… Minors can only play online games between 8-9pm on Fridays, weekends and national festivals and holidays. Please arrange your playing time and have a rest.”
New rules in China mean that under 18s are only allowed to play three hours of online games per week, at those time specified.
Huang Chong and her father Huang Wen Shang are pictured together as they discuss the gaming rules in China
Even for a communist state that regulates its citizens lives far more than the West, it is a new extension of control. And that control is now being applied to different parts of society and culture, in a new crackdown.
Huang Chong, who is 15 years old, said she didn’t mind the video game policy too much but said that it’s “like banning smoking, drinking and playing mahjong for adults”.
“My friends send me messages to complain about the ban, that they only have Fridays and weekends to play one hour and they couldn’t socialise with their e-gaming friends,” she told Sky News.
The rules have been introduced to curb video gaming addiction.
Huang Chong said she didn’t have a problem with video gaming. But her father Huang Wen Shang disagreed – and was thankful for the state’s intervention.
“I tried to persuade her to give up the phone, but when’s she already lost in it, she feels happy,” he told Sky News. “She won’t realise she’s playing such a long time that it could affect her eyesight, her health, her studies.
Huang Chong said the policy was “like banning smoking, drinking and playing mahjong for adults”
“As parents, we need help from the outside – from teachers, from government policies.”
Video games are just one part of a new campaign by the Chinese Communist Party to re-assert its values over society.
The perceived hedonism of the last 20 years – you could also call it letting people do what they want – is being replaced by an emphasis on proper socialist values.
Film stars have been berated by the government for promoting what they call “fake, ugly and evil values” and actors have been mysteriously scrubbed from the Chinese internet without explanation.
The government has also introduced measures to curb “chaotic” online fan culture. Karaoke songs that “endanger national unity” or advocate “obscenity” have been blacklisted.
Schools now have bans on foreign textbooks and young students are required to read about “Xi Jinping Thought” – the nebulous official ideology of China’s leader that is enshrined in the constitution of the People’s Republic of China.
Huang Wen Shang agreed with the state’s intervention
And the country’s TV regulator told Chinese media to “resolutely resist showing off wealth and enjoyment” and to consider actors’ political and moral matters when selecting them.
It has also banned what it calls effeminate men from appearing on screens – using the offensive term “niang pao”, roughly translated as “sissy boys”, to describe them in its official announcement.
Activist Lu Ruihai’s group gives information and support to parents whose children have come out.
“Many people use ‘sissy boys’, an aggressive and derogatory word to label people who are not heterosexual, or do not have the typical and traditional sex relations,” he told Sky News.
“The whole LGBTQ community is numb. I think the policy affects negatively the young LGBTQ people who haven’t come out yet.”
Critics and supporters of the new rules have both interpreted them as far reaching – not just ad-hoc policy adjustments.
In an article that was widely republished in official state media, prominent blogger Li Guangman said it was a “profound” political change.
Activist Lu Ruihai is campaigning for information and support to parents whose children have come out
“This is also a return to the original intentions of the Chinese Communist Party… a return to the essence of socialism,” he wrote.
Public opinion would “no longer be a place to worship Western culture,” he wrote.
“Therefore, we need to control all the cultural chaos and build a lively, healthy, masculine, strong and people-oriented culture.”
Back at home, Huang Chong has had her hour of government-sanctioned playtime.
But there are ways around the new rules.
“Many pupils use adults’ phones to log into games,” she told Sky News.
“We’re cleverer. We climb over the firewall. It takes risk to climb over the firewall as it’s illegal. Few people succeed.”
Teenagers – and many other normal Chinese citizens – may now find themselves in such small skirmishes with the state.
World
Ireland pledging emergency legislation to send asylum seekers back to UK in wake of Rwanda bill being passed
Ireland is pledging emergency legislation enabling it to send asylum seekers back to the UK.
More than 80% of recent arrivals in the republic came via the land border with Northern Ireland, Irish justice minister Helen McEntee told a parliamentary committee last week.
Rishi Sunak told Sky News it showed the UK’s Rwanda scheme was already working as a deterrent after it finally became law last week.
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Ireland plans to return migrants to UK
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Ireland’s deputy prime minister has said the threat of deportation to Rwanda is causing migrants to head for Ireland instead of the UK.
Micheal Martin said the policy was already affecting Ireland because people are “fearful” of staying in the UK.
The former taoiseach told The Daily Telegraph: “Maybe that’s the impact it was designed to have.”
Protesters in Dublin. Pic: PA
Simon Harris, Ireland’s latest leader, has asked Ms McEntee to “bring proposals to cabinet to amend existing law regarding the designation of safe ‘third countries’ and allowing the return of inadmissible international protection applicants to the UK”, a spokesman said.
Ms McEntee said she will be meeting UK Home Secretary James Cleverly in London on Monday.
“There are many reasons why we have seen an increase in migration towards Ireland,” she told RTE.
“My focus as minister for justice is making sure that we have an effective immigration structure and system.
“That’s why I’m introducing fast processing, that’s why I’ll have emergency legislation at cabinet this week to make sure that we can effectively return people to the UK, and that’s why I’ll be meeting with the home secretary to raise these issues on Monday.”
People are now “worried” about coming to the UK, Rishi Sunak has said.
He told Sky News: “If people come to our country illegally, but know that they won’t be able to stay here, they are much less likely to come, and that’s why the Rwanda scheme is so important.”
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Mr Sunak said the comments from Irish politicians show that “illegal migration is a global challenge”.
“[That] is why you’re seeing multiple countries talk about doing third country partnerships, looking at novel ways to solve this problem, and I believe [they] will follow where the UK has led,” he said.
Shadow minister Wes Streeting said it was unlikely a Labour government would bring people back from Rwanda if some are sent there.
“Once people are settled in Rwanda, they’re settled in Rwanda,” he told Sky News, adding it was doubtful that Labour would “unpick that situation”.
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Regarding illegal migration in general, he said it required “putting the money that’s gone to Rwanda into the National Crime Agency so we can have proper cross-border policing to tackle the criminal gangs, speeding up the processing of decision-making, making sure we’ve got serious returns agreements with other countries”.
He added: “Those are solutions that can work.”
Pope Francis has made his first trip out of Rome for seven months with a visit to Venice where he asked worshippers to “pray for me”.
It was a rare acknowledgement of the strains of the job as he told thousands of the faithful gathered in St Mark’s Square: “This work is not easy”.
During a five-hour visit on Sunday, the pontiff visited an art exhibition and prison as well as conducting mass.
The 87-year-old unexpectedly withdrew from a Good Friday procession in March “to preserve his health”.
He had been battling respiratory problems all winter that made it difficult for him to speak at length.
In December, he was due to go to the United Arab Emirates, but pulled out after coming down with flu.
A painful knee ailment makes it hard for him to walk and on Sunday he regularly used a wheelchair, with Vatican News Television cutting away whenever he was helped into a chair to give a speech, or on to his white golf cart.
Pic: Reuters
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The Pope acknowledged Venice’s “enchanting beauty” in his homily at a mass before about 10,000 people in the shadow of St Mark’s Basilica, one of the most celebrated churches in Italy.
But he said the city also faced an array of challenges, including climate change, the fragility of its cultural heritage, and overtourism.
“Moreover, all these realities risk generating… frayed social relations, individualism, and loneliness,” he said.
Venice introduced a €5 charge last week for day-trippers during peak travel periods in an effort to thin the crowds.
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He started the day by flying by helicopter into a women’s prison where the Vatican has set up an exhibition that is part of the Venice Biennale, a prestigious international art show that has never been visited by a pope before.
The pope has repeatedly called for society to rally around the poor and neglected, including prison populations.
“Prison is a harsh reality, and problems such as overcrowding, the lack of facilities and resources, and episodes of violence, give rise to a great deal of suffering. But it can also become a place of moral and material rebirth,” he told inmates and guards on Sunday.
He also addressed a group of young Venetians, urging them not to spend their life glued to their smartphones, but to help others.
“If we always focus on our self, our needs, and what we lack, we will always find ourselves back at the starting point, crying over ourselves with a long face,” he said.
Two Russian journalists could face at least two years in prison after they were arrested on “extremism” charges, accused of working for a group founded by the late Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny.
Konstantin Gabov and Sergey Karelin are accused of preparing materials for a YouTube channel run by Navalny’s Foundation for Fighting Corruption, which has been outlawed by Russian authorities.
Russian courts have ordered them to remain in custody pending an investigation and trial.
They will be detained for at least two months before any trial begins.
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They face a minimum of two years’ jail time and a maximum of six years for alleged “participation in an extremist organisation”, according to Russian courts.
Both journalists deny the charges.
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The journalists are the latest to be arrested amid a Russian government crackdown on dissent and independent media that intensified after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The Russian government passed laws criminalising what it deems false information or discreditory statements about the military, effectively outlawing any criticism of the war in Ukraine.
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Mr Gabov, who was detained in Moscow, is a freelance producer who has worked for multiple outlets, including Reuters, the court press service said.
Mr Karelin, who has dual citizenship with Israel and has previously worked for The Associated Press, was detained on Friday night in Russia’s northern Murmansk region.
“The Associated Press is very concerned by the detention of Russian video journalist Sergey Karelin,” the AP said in a statement. “We are seeking additional information.”
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Their arrests come after Forbes journalist Sergei Mingazov was detained on charges of spreading false information about the Russian military on Friday, according to his lawyer.
A number of journalists have been jailed in relation to their coverage of Mr Navalny, who died in an Arctic penal colony in February.
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