Are they linked at all? Otherwise if you add up all the time limits they must exceed a day...

Yes, they're linked by some form of government ID. Of course, it's probably very easy to get around that in some manner by just playing offline games or using a parent's ID.

The question is asking about multiple apps coordinating.

Wouldn’t this require a central database and an API for querying/updating time spent in an app per ID? Where is that API?

Yes that's what I meant, the apps coordinate by being linked to some government ID. At least that's what I've heard.

I am quite skeptical of this. There would have to be an API. There would have to be documentation for that. There would likely be keys assigned to individual apps.

Couldn't they just send the government 'ID #11111 has played our game for 30 minutes' and 'ID#11111 is requesting a login how much time do they have left' and let the gov track the specifics

Of course they could. It would obviously be an enormous security problem. Apps would have to know the government ID of children. Nefarious entities could stage denial-of-service attacks against individuals.

Obviously China could do this. I am skeptical of the claim presented as hearsay without evidence.

If such a system exists, there should be easily found documentation for it.

"In addition, minors were required to use their real names and national identification numbers when they logged on to play and companies like Tencent and NetEase (9999.HK), set up systems to identify minors.

In July, Tencent rolled out a facial recognition function dubbed "midnight patrol" that parents can switch on to prevent children from using adult logins to get around the government curfew."

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/why-how-china-is-drastic...

That does not support the claim that apps are coordinating to restrict usage.

"in 2019, it passed laws limiting minors to less than 1.5 hours of online games on weekdays and three hours on weekends, with no game playing allowed between 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. It also limited how much minors could spend on virtual gaming items each month, with maximum amounts ranging from $28 to $57, depending on the age."

How could this be done without coordination?

In addition: "One of the first systems required by the government was launched in 2005 to regulate adolescents' Internet use, including limiting daily gaming time to 3 hours and requiring users' identification in online video games.[134] In 2007, an "Online Game Anti-Addiction System" was implemented for minors, restricting their use to 3 hours or less per day. " https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_games_in_China

Yes, coordination between apps would be the hard part and I see no evidence that it exists. There is a lot of writing in English that does not point to anything canonical from China. It does not make clear exactly what obligations are placed on app developers. I remain skeptical that coordination between applications is happening.

I would love to see any evidence of this. It should be easy if it exists as there would be documentation telling app developers how to use the central database. I would imagine an ecosystem of libraries would exist to make it easier for app developers to satisfy these obligations.

This is a country that has "great firewall", social credit system for all citizens with centralized API etc. It's not a problem for them to create an API for this.

I agree it would be no problem. It would obviously be an enormous security problem. Apps would have to know the government ID of children. Nefarious entities could stage denial-of-service attacks against individuals.

Obviously China could do this. I am skeptical of the claim presented as hearsay without evidence.

If such a system exists, there should be easily found documentation for it.

I keep hearing about a "social credit system for all citizens" but have never seen evidence of its existence.

They do this. Basically everything runs straight through wechat, as if the facebook appstore hadn't lost relevance. Wechat is the api in most cases. You can even go to court on it.

Every app is using WeChat? TikTok coordinates with WeChat? Or uses the same API? Is this documented somewhere?

I've dug into this more out of curiosity:

They're called "mini programs" (小程序): You can see the dev pages etc. here: https://developers.weixin.qq.com/miniprogram/en/introduction...

These days, the vast majority of mobile development happens on this platform. They can have 100 million daily users in some cases.

Otherwise, you have to get an approval license from the government, per game. This had been blocked for a long time until recently: https://www.thegamer.com/china-approving-game-licenses-again...

These government pages discuss the process (but only in Chinese): https://www.nppa.gov.cn/nppa/channels/301.shtml or http://web.archive.org/web/20200605135934/www.sapprft.gov.cn... Note, only Chinese companies can go through the process. Apparently the process includes interfacing with the API, which isn't public. But some guys I pmed on reddit said they can interact with government ID servers or wechat auth. The 2nd api is public: https://developers.weixin.qq.com/doc/oplatform/en/Mobile_App...

I appreciate you digging this up.

It is still unclear to me how a Weixin ID corresponds to a government issued ID and how an app would know that a user is a minor.

The Chinese mandate you linked to describes the same rules as elsewhere, but there is no indication of how they would be implemented. Does a "real name" policy mean that an login is tied to a government ID? Or does it just mean what Facebook does to make users more valuable to advertisers?

I'm astounded that there is so much gossip about this and so little evidence.

> I'm astounded that there is so much gossip about this and so little evidence.

Welcome to discussion of China in Western media.

You're right though, I've never seen anything official about what I originally said, only reports about it.

> Welcome to discussion of China in Western media.

Yes, as someone who lived through the Cold War and has been studying Mandarin for a few years, I cannot help but see parallels in how everything about China is being muddled.

Oh nice, I'm at university right now with Mandarin as part of my degree. The politics around China is certainly interesting.