Coordinated efforts needed to protect children online: Report

BEIJING -- Chinese children face challenges in using the Internet in a safe and healthy way, and it takes coordinated efforts from all parties involved to enhance Internet usage education and underage online protection, a white paper by tech giant Tencent showed.

Data from the China Internet Network Information Center showed that China had 829 million Internet users by the end of 2018, with about 21.6 percent of them under 19 years old.

Chinese children start to use the Internet at an increasingly younger age, with about 81 percent of the surveyed children first surfing the Internet between six and 15 years old, according to the white paper released by the Tencent Center for Eco-Security Research.

However, the awareness of potential risks in surfing the Internet among minors is still low, and the country lacks a sound mechanism to protect teenage users online, the report pointed out.

Child online protection is a systemic project that entails coordinated efforts from the government, schools, enterprises, media and families, the white paper said.

As the operator of some of China's most popular online and mobile games as well as instant messaging tools, Tencent has highlighted internet education and protection for teenagers in recent years and introduced a string of initiatives and systems under the Tencent for Children project.

In 2017, Tencent decided that players under the age of 12 could only play most of its games for one hour at most each day and are banned from playing from 9 p.m. to 8 a.m. Earlier this year, the company further tightened restrictions on underage game players by imposing a digital lock on logging onto some games.

The company also unveiled the Digital Natives Action (DNA) program last year, a joint initiative with government authorities, universities, industry experts, and third-party organizations to help teenagers better navigate digital platforms.