China bans children under 16 from streaming and becoming stars

China bans children under 16 from streaming and becoming stars

China has banned streaming with children under the age of 16. Local regulators were concerned about the demonstration of “capitalist values” and “extravagant pleasures” in the videos of young Chinese.

Internet platforms were banned from promoting the accounts of children and teenagers, creating underage stars out of them, in order to earn money from this activity.

Streamer dressed as Mario said the name “Mario” 395,000 times during 129 hours of stream

China bans children under 16 from streaming

This is stated in the statement of the State Administration of the People’s Republic of China for Cyberspace Issues.

“The participation of minors under 16 years of age in live broadcasts is strictly prohibited, <…> it is prohibited to persuade minors to receive remuneration, as well as a demonstration of wealth and worship of money, extravagant pleasures, speculation on suffering,” the regulator ruled.

According to the regulatins, special attention in connection with the new ban will be focused on Internet platforms. The Chinese authorities plan to nip in the bud attempts to speculate on children and create stars out of them.

The sites where the dominance of such content was revealed have already been fined and ordered to solve the “seven problems of children’s Internet” that threaten the mental and physical health of minors.

China bans children under 16 from streaming and becoming stars|Photo: www.nbcnews.com
China bans children under 16 from streaming and becoming stars|Photo: www.nbcnews.com

Here are some ways to solve these problems proposed by Chinese regulators:

  • prohibition of live broadcasts (streams) with the participation of children;
  • a ban on the distribution of “vulgar novels”, online games, entertainment and promotional products that are not related to education through online educational platforms;
  • prohibition of video materials and animations containing scenes of violence, “dark content”, vulgar plots, horror, dangerous and promoting sympathy for criminals behavior patterns;
  • cleaning forums and social networks from suicidal content and “vulgar” videos;
  • preventing minors from wanting to organize a fundraiser or spend large amounts, calling for voting or inciting hatred between groups of children;
  • suppression of unwanted social behavior and the manifestation of an unethical culture of behavior on the Web, including messages that form the “wrong” orientation and distort the value system of young people;
  • combating cyberbullying and violence;
  • prevention of Internet addiction among young people and the active implementation of the so-called “youth regime”.


Although the regulaton was only recently issued, major Chinese social media and streaming platforms such as Racer, Tencent QQ, Taobao, Sina Weibo and Xiaohongshu have already received fines. Their size, however, was not publicly announced.

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The local online giants have been ordered to remove all illegal content and offending accounts as soon as possible.

Earlier, in order to combat gambling addiction, the Chinese authorities, together with Tencent, launched the Midnight Patrol system, which blocks minors from accessing online games from 22:00 to 8:00. It already works in more than 60 popular online games and is based on facial recognition technology. Those who do not agree to scan their face and prove their age will be considered by the system as minors by default, forcibly closing access to the gameplay.

Source: http://www.cac.gov.cn/

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