Minors in China are no longer allowed to watch live streams after 10 p.m.

Children under the age of 18 are not allowed to watch live streams after 10 p.m. in China. They are also no longer allowed to tip those streamers. It is a new measure in a series that the Chinese government is imposing on the live streaming industry.

Users under the age of 18 should only tip live streamers with their guardian’s permission, reports Reuters, among others. In addition, the live streams for spectators with youth mode, a kind of parental controls, switched on, must automatically go black at 10 o’clock in the evening local time. The responsibility to comply with these measures would lie with the streaming platforms.

The new orders are said to be part of a two-month campaign against the “chaos” that would reign in the streaming world. That campaign started last month, according to Reuters. A previous measure taken by the government was a ban on streaming non-government approved games. Elden Ring was a popular game on Chinese live streaming platforms, despite not being licensed. As in the west, live streaming is very popular in China.

Last year, China already banned excessive gaming sessions. Players under the age of 18 are not allowed to play for more than 3 hours per week. Also, “abnormal aesthetics,” “harmful celebrity fan culture,” depictions of excessive violence, and excessive materialism in games and streams are being fought by the government.

Such drastic measures can be enforced in China because it has been prohibited for users to use the internet anonymously for some time. Registration with online platforms such as streaming services is required to be accompanied by showing proof of identity. In this way it is not possible to hide whether someone is a minor, for example. The measures do not apply to streaming platforms known in the west such as Twitch and YouTube; they have been blocked in the country for some time.

The homepage of douyin.com, a popular Chinese streaming platform of TikTok owner ByteDance