China wants to limit teens to using their phones for just an hour a day to fight rising ‘internet addiction’::The Cyberspace Administration of China announced proposed regulations for children’s smartphone usage, including a “minor mode” with time limits.
It’s only good until you realize how much it starts demanding identification and biometrics to properly implement. Just look at some of the laws being passed in the states in the name of protecting people. It’s that type of stuff that gradually leads to pseudonym websites like reddit or lemmy to erode away into more Meta type ones that lock your account until you send them photos of your identification.
Need to look past the this sounds like a good ideology and more into what are they going to start requiring when it comes to your daily use of tech. Of course only appealing to ideologies and buying into it is what governments lean on.
Well, I’m by far not a fan of invasive policies either, but the CCP is constantly spying on its citizens anyway. No privacy and no phone-addicted youth sounds better than no privacy, period.
I’m not in support of trying to control what people do. And I’m guessing those for it tend to be in support if they believe they won’t be subjected to it themselves, but would suddenly shift if they found themselves under the same policy.
That’s how it usually seems to go. Individuals thinking they are above the policy and in a special class. Believing it’s others that need controlling and not themselves.
If this can indeed be a mandate instead of just “demand parental controls”, the issue would be inflexibility. For a lot of people, limit would be enough. But for a lot, who are using their phones for actually beneficial purposes, it is not, and such people (who can also be talented and useful) are completely disregarded by universal rules like this. I myself firmly believe that smartphones are not suitable for actual work, but every situation is individual, for a lot it might be genuinely necessary. Also maybe things like LineageOS could bypass this anyway.
They’ve always been heavyhanded on that front, they manage a huge population and a standard police force can’t do all the enforcing for them.