The Regulations on the Protection of Minors’ Network was officially promulgated recently. This is the first comprehensive legislation on the protection of minors’ network in China, which reflects the great attention and cordial concern of the party and the state for the growth of minors, and marks that the legal construction of minors’ network protection in China has entered a new stage.
As of June this year, the number of netizens in China has reached 1.079 billion, and the number of underage netizens has exceeded 191 million. Internet has expanded the space for minors to study and live, but some illegal and bad information also has a negative impact on minors’ physical and mental health. In addition, minors’ awareness and ability to use the network safely and reasonably is not strong, and it is necessary to strengthen the rule of law and build a new mechanism for the protection of minors’ network in the digital age to prevent personal information from being abused and addicted to the network.
The "Regulations" adhere to the problem orientation and focus on the outstanding problems faced by minors’ network protection. For example, indulging in the Internet has seriously affected minors’ physical and mental health and normal study and life, and has become a hot topic of concern to the whole society. The "Regulations" clearly require network products and service providers to establish and improve the anti-addiction system, refine the real-name registration system regulations of online games, establish and improve the rules of anti-addiction games, and guard against and resist the adverse value tendencies such as traffic supremacy. For network service providers, whether to enhance user stickiness is a key indicator of the success of product design, which is a natural contradiction with preventing users from indulging. To this end, the "Regulations" put forward requirements for some network platform service providers that have a significant impact on minors, such as regularly evaluating the impact of network protection for minors, providing models or areas for minors, and formulating special platform rules.
It should be pointed out that the "Regulations" do not simply position minors as protected persons, but regard them as important internet users, and fully respect their right to use the Internet. All the protective measures in the Regulations are aimed at supporting minors’ scientific, civilized, safe and rational use of the Internet, and it is clearly stipulated that it is strictly forbidden to interfere with minors’ addiction to the Internet in a way that infringes on their physical and mental health. This is the embodiment of the progress of legislative ideas in the new era.
The promulgation of the "Regulations" has further improved and perfected the system of laws and regulations on juvenile protection, and together with comprehensive laws, juvenile-specific laws, relevant administrative regulations, local regulations, departmental rules and supporting judicial interpretations, it has built a legal barrier to safeguard the rights and interests of adolescents.
The life of laws and regulations lies in their implementation. After the implementation of the Regulations, relevant government departments and enterprises, schools, families, industry organizations and news media should actively perform their duties in the network protection of minors, strengthen supervision and protection of minors’ network use, provide a safe and healthy network environment for minors, and create a clear network space. (This article Source: Economic Daily Author: Liu Liang)