Tencent rolling out 'midnight patrol' to clamp down on kids playing games at night

[VixAAT]

Summary

Tencent, the Chinese Gaming Giant is rolling out FACIAL RECOGNITION to stop young children playing at night. The system works from 22:00 to 08:00. The new tech has also been implicated if a user plays a game for a certain amount of time. The bans came in after in 2018, the Chinese Government introduced the establishment of a gaming legislator and in 2019, a ban on games allowed to be used in China and when the clamping down on children gaming first began. Also, the legislation also caps spending limits for U18s. Tencent has been trialling the tech since 2018. However, many children have been using Adult ID's instead of their own. This may seem strange but in China people have to put an ID in before playing a game. The company now says using this new tech it will prevent circumventing the bans imposed in 2019.

Quote

Gamers under 18 will be banned from playing online between 22:00 and 08:00. They will also be restricted to 90 minutes of gaming on weekdays and three hours on weekends and holidays.

My thoughts

I don't want this topic to get too political as then the topic gets locked and other things happen as well. So let us focus on the tech and privacy (why privacy? because Apple likes privacy so it is related to Technology) 

Would I like a child being watched by a massive tech brand? 

NO, definitely not

Should people start being scanned just because they played a game for longer than 2 hours or so?

NO

Do I think children should be limited on microtransactions?

Well, yes. I don't want any child draining their parents bank accounts. Even for me the Chinese limits are generous.

Sources:

Main Article:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57752782

Supporting Article:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-50315960

[emosun]

yeah but after a week there with be 3 different work arounds for it anyway.

 

You got a small team developing the tech and a billion people looking for a work around.

[Vishera]

6 minutes ago, VixAAT said:

Tencent, the Chinese Gaming Giant is rolling out FACIAL RECOGNITION to stop young children playing at night. The system works from 22:00 to 08:00.

Imagine being 20 years old and getting flagged as a kid in their system.

2 minutes ago, emosun said:

You got a small team developing the tech and a billion people looking for a work around.

Who needs high-tech when you can use low-tech solutions such as blocking the camera with tape or a photo of your grand father.

[Eigenvektor]

4 minutes ago, Vishera said:

Who needs high-tech when you can use low-tech solutions such as blocking the camera with tape or a photo of your grand father.

The tape workaround would be easy to fix. No image? No game. I wonder if it requires an "always-on" camera, or just a one-time image to unlock. If it's an always on camera you'd have to tape the image to your forehead

[Brooksie359]

21 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

The tape workaround would be easy to fix. No image? No game. I wonder if it requires an "always-on" camera, or just a one-time image to unlock. If it's an always on camera you'd have to tape the image to your forehead

Just pay a Hollywood makeup artist to make you old easy fix. 

[WkdPaul]

* thread cleaned *

 

Please avoid political commentaries and focus on the tech side of things.

[Taf the Ghost]

The last time Top Gear was in Japan, Jeremy Clarkson talked about their speed cameras, where they require a photo of the person driving. Thus, he used a printed cutout of someone else. I expect many clever work arounds to something like this, in a similar fashion.

[VixAAT]

1 minute ago, Taf the Ghost said:

The last time Top Gear was in Japan, Jeremy Clarkson talked about their speed cameras, where they require a photo of the person driving. Thus, he used a printed cutout of someone else. I expect many clever work arounds to something like this, in a similar fashion.

Ah yes I remember watching that (sorry for off topic)

[Moonzy]

"why don't people just sleep earlier like we should?" - Moonzy typed this as their clock shows 4:11am

[rockking1379]

1 hour ago, Eigenvektor said:

The tape workaround would be easy to fix. No image? No game. I wonder if it requires an "always-on" camera, or just a one-time image to unlock. If it's an always on camera you'd have to tape the image to your forehead

I actually think ATMs work this way. I had one on a college campus that would refuse to accept the correct pin because the camera was blocked by my hand. It was by accident at first but then on purpose to see. Once I moved my hand the same pin magically worked just fine. 

[Brooksie359]

3 hours ago, Caroline said:

It's kind of dumb to develop this but only apply it to catch minors playing after 8PM. Also: it's China, we all know what that means.

 

I'd support the implementation of similar tech if it was done to punish toxic communities, I think it's about time for toxic groups that make online games literally unplayable to face consequences in real life for their actions: excessive flame baiting? banned for a couple of days from connecting to the internet, mysogyny? increased internet costs and time limits reduced to just 1 hour per day, if he refuses to change then more punishments come, like not being able to board public transportation (more expensive gas/tolls/parking to avoid circumventing it with a car) or having mandatory community service, if he still refuses to change then jail time.

There's a big gap between freedom of expression and being a putrid piece of s. just for the sake of it. There's also difference between a couple jokes and dedicating your entire life just to make games unplayable for people you dislike for their sex, skin colour or whatever.

 

About facial recognition there are techs that prevent these trolls from using a printed picture or a fake webcam that involves doing actual movements with your face, head and hands to prove the one trying to pass is an actual human and not a doll or photo, I think it works with light changes, depth and perspective.

You know they have a crazy technology called a report button. I have gotten multiple people punished for reporting them for being toxic in game. If enough people report them then it's fairly easy for the game company to look into chat logs or if many instances are reported they might just not need to look as its most likely true. As for real world repercussions for what you talked about well the most usually get for being a toxic person is that people won't like them and tbh the same can be said about online games. Nobody wants to play with a toxic teammate. 

[Guest]

I think there is a pretty clear problem if you are below 18 and playing video games into the candle hours. No problem with the weekend, but don't act like playing fortnite into the am won't impact school. Yeah i know im an old grumpy man. 

[IkeaGnome]

23 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

You know they have a crazy technology called a report button. I have gotten multiple people punished for reporting them for being toxic in game. If enough people report them then it's fairly easy for the game company to look into chat logs or if many instances are reported they might just not need to look as its most likely true. As for real world repercussions for what you talked about well the most usually get for being a toxic person is that people won't like them and tbh the same can be said about online games. Nobody wants to play with a toxic teammate. 

There's something fun about coming home from a couple weeks at work and getting a notification from Blizzard saying they've taken action against people you've reported.

While it doesn't always work the same, I've had better luck talking to some people. Last time I was home a guy got angry with my fiancee. He was playing bad, blamed the healer, and chose her. After a 2 or so hour message back and forth between him and I he admitted (like most people who act like that) that COVID has been rough, lost his job and just lost it. He then apologized to her. 

[Helpful Tech Witch]

2 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

I think there is a pretty clear problem if you are below 18 and playing video games into the candle hours. No problem with the weekend, but don't act like playing fortnite into the am won't impact school. Yeah i know im an old grumpy man. 

Yeah, playing video games past 10pm in the middle of summer will really affect how well you do in school in a montand a half

[Fasterthannothing]

20 minutes ago, Abyssal Radon said:

Not gonna lie, that is so unbelievably creepy of the Chinese government to do that...

I mean it is the Chinese government but I'll tell you what I wouldn't be installing any tecent software on my computer

[da na]

oh crap I swear I own at least a game or two made/owned/something by Tencent... guess it's time to unplug my webcam!

[thechinchinsong]

When the CCP gets so desperate to wean children from videogame addictions but can't even see the root cause that's staring them right in the face.

[NotTheFirstDaniel]

Unless the summary doesn't cover it, it doesn't look like the Chinese government itself is asking/requiring the use of facial recognition to track children playing games. They could be, I wouldn't put it past them, they've done similar stuff in the past, but at least the way the summary is worded, it looks like Tencent is going above and beyond what is required.

 

They could've just done an age check, or even ask for ID. I mean at the point where you're tracking with facial recognition, you could pretty much ask for anything and have it be less severe.

 

I'm not going to talk about how badly this can go (One of the best implementations/versions of facial recognition on consumer hardware is Face ID, and that barely recognizes me based off of a reference. Imagine being labeled a child because you're matched with what the software engineer thinks is a child), or the moral implications of this system, they speak for themselves. I'm just wondering why children are being "forced" to play games within a certain period of time by legislation. That's the responsibility of the parent, not a government. If a parent can't parent correctly and lets their 8 year old child play video games until 3 in the morning, that's the parent's fault...

[Guest]

2 hours ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

Yeah, playing video games past 10pm in the middle of summer will really affect how well you do in school in a montand a half

Obviously I’m not talking about holidays. That said if you’re staying up till like 4am playing Fortnite you might have a problem.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

12 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

Obviously I’m not talking about holidays. That said if you’re staying up till like 4am playing Fortnite you might have a problem.

I mean not fortnite, but some days this summer i have done that with valorant (not when I had school though

[LAwLz]

The comments in this thread makes me fear for the future of humanity.

 

"Yeah a private company using cameras in our homes to determine what we are allowed to do and when sounds good. It's for a good cause after all!"

"I hope this system extends to other things as well!"

 

 

This is bad. This is really bad. This is the dystopian nightmare shit that people used to joke about. We should be against this, very strongly.

 

 

6 hours ago, thechinchinsong said:

When the CCP gets so desperate to wean children from videogame addictions but can't even see the root cause that's staring them right in the face.

What do you think the root cause is?

[PCGuy_5960]

19 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

"Yeah a private company using cameras in our homes to determine what we are allowed to do and when sounds good. It's for a good cause after all!"

"I hope this system extends to other things as well!"

[suicidalfranco]

Oh no, Chinese company is bad to it's Chinese user base because of Chinese government request...

Anyway, water is wet.

 

Why does anyone act shocked with this kind of news,  at this point everything that sounds or look dystopian in that country.

 

[CarlBar]

16 hours ago, Moonzy said:

"why don't people just sleep earlier like we should?" - Moonzy typed this as their clock shows 4:11am

 

As someone with a severe sleep disorder i felt this in my soul. Dosen't take much to make a mess of my slepe and have me up at all hours :(. Also nice new avatar Moonzy, gonna miss the silly cat though.

[Brooksie359]

33 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

 

As someone with a severe sleep disorder i felt this in my soul. Dosen't take much to make a mess of my slepe and have me up at all hours :(. Also nice new avatar Moonzy, gonna miss the silly cat though.

Honestly I hate it when I go to bed at a normal time only to end up waking up at 1 am and not being able to go to sleep again.