People's Daily Online, Beijing, December 10 (Reporter Xu Weina) At present, the awareness of the protection of minors in China's game industry has been generally improved, and positive progress has been made in the prevention of addiction to minors' online games. According to the "2022 Progress Report on the Protection of Minors in China's Game Industry" released by the Game Working Committee of the China Audio and Digital Association, the proportion of minors (including minors who no longer play games) who play games for less than 3 hours per week has increased to more than 75%.
However, at the same time, cases of minors fraudulently using guardian information to register accounts and requiring parents to "substitute faces" to bypass the "anti-addiction" system also occur from time to time, which has also led to a number of disputes over the recharge and refund of minors' games.
Industry insiders pointed out that with the facilitation of mobile phone payment, the diversification of game channels, and the secrecy of private transactions, how game companies should be good "gatekeepers", take the initiative to improve the upper limit of the prevention and control of the "anti-addiction" system, and cooperate with all parties in the industry to block the gap of minors in an all-round way has also become a new problem faced by all sectors of society.
In recent years, on the basis of compliance, domestic game companies have actively explored innovative measures such as face recognition verification and cracking down on the gray industry of renting numbers, and have made significant progress in preventing addiction. The number of underage users, game duration, and consumption data released in the financial reports of many game companies have also shown a significant decrease trend. However, there are still some minors who exploit loopholes through "backdoor games" and "backdoor recharges".
It is understood that some minors mainly use guardian information to register accounts, use private purchase accounts, etc., to "backdoor" adults to play games, and some minors complete game recharge through parental notification or remembering their parents' mobile phone payment passwords.
Recently, it has been reported that the parent contact group reported that the "Egg Boy Party" game has difficulties in refunding minors' channel servers, reflecting some problems in the login review process and refund process for minors. These problems also put forward higher requirements for game companies to prevent minors' addiction to online games.
In response, the platform responded that it has launched "anti-addiction" measures such as omni-channel access to the face recognition mechanism for high-risk groups, setting up an exclusive customer service entrance for refunds for minors on the whole platform, launching a one-click ban on recharge, prohibiting game functions, and continuously optimizing the refund application process.
Game "anti-addiction" is a systematic, long-term and socially important project. In response to the problem of "difficulty in refunding" the new type of minors who recharge their adult accounts due to the "backdoor" of minors, many industry experts believe that game companies, platform institutions, parents, regulators and other parties should make efforts within the scope of their responsibilities to jointly solve new problems from different perspectives.
Liu Xiaochun, executive director of the Internet Rule of Law Research Center of the University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that the core difficulty in the governance of the issue of minors' recharge and refund lies in how to effectively identify the identity of minors, especially when there are cases where parents assist in verification, unless minors take the initiative to directly disclose their identities through ID cards and other means.
At present, there is no particularly clear standard in China. We can see that platform companies have actually made varying degrees of efforts, such as face recognition technology. Liu Xiaochun suggested that the platform can also take corresponding technical measures and technical models to enhance the ability of algorithms to identify minors. "I hope that in the future, the platform can help parents quickly grasp the gaming behavior of minors through more effective and convenient technology, and provide timely guidance, so as to fundamentally deal with this social problem. ”
Regarding the difficulty of refunding minors through "backdoor", Zhao Zhanzhan, a lawyer at Beijing Yunjia Law Firm and legal counsel of the Credit Evaluation Center of the Internet Society of China, said that it is difficult for minors to recharge and refund, and there are many complex factors, including "account resale" and even individual adult users refunding fees in the name of minors. For relevant game companies, it is necessary to do a good job of technical prevention and governance, timely handling, and strengthening publicity and education, especially game companies to set up functions such as one-click prohibition of recharge in their products, and even advocate in the entire game industry, and let the majority of parents know and use it for prior prevention, so as to more comprehensively and better strengthen the protection of minors.
The healthy growth of minors is related to the happiness and tranquility of hundreds of millions of families. The protection of minors online has attracted much attention, and the importance of home, school, and community collaboration in educating people has become increasingly prominent. The "Regulations on the Protection of Minors Online", which will come into effect next year, clearly stipulate the responsibilities of relevant departments, enterprises, schools, families, industry organizations and other parties, and promote the formation of consensus and joint efforts from all walks of life to jointly protect children's cybersecurity.