China considers ways to curb youths’ ‘excessive’ video use

CHINESE media regulators are studying measures to curb young people’s addiction to short videos, the format popularised by tech giants from ByteDance to Tencent.

The National Radio and Television Administration held a meeting on Feb 22 to consider ways to tighten oversight of the short-video industry. The powerful agency called for the sector’s “healthy development” and improvements in content quality, without elaborating or naming companies. The key was to prevent minors from spending too much time on them, it said in a brief statement.

It is unclear whether regulators will eventually move ahead with concrete measures. However, Beijing has in past years prioritised measures to wean China’s youth off excessive gaming and other pursuits that it considers harmful or undesirable. In 2021, the government abruptly limited gaming time to just three hours a week for children, a landmark regulation that hammered the bottom lines of companies including Tencent and NetEase.

Short videos – the bite-sized segments of a few seconds that characterise services such as TikTok and its Chinese cousin Douyin – have in recent years exploded in popularity globally, particularly among teens. Their proliferation made ByteDance the world’s most valuable startup, spurred incumbent giants such as Meta Platforms and Tencent to adopt the format, and minted an entire economy of influencers, advertisers and merchants.

Beijing has since 2020 clamped down on other industries that gained widespread followings and amassed valuable personal data, including e-commerce, ride-hailing and online education. The government has consistently tried to curb the rising power of China’s Internet titans, though in recent months, Xi Jinping’s administration sent strong signals that it was loosening the reins, in part because of the overriding objective of reviving the world’s No 2 economy. BLOOMBERG