: Here’s What to Know About China’s Sweeping Tech Crackdown—and Why It Could Make U.S. Big Tech Regulation More Likely #WorldNEWS In the latest sign that the unfettered growth enjoyed by China’s

Here’s What to Know About China’s Sweeping Tech Crackdown—and Why It Could Make U.S. Big Tech Regulation More Likely #WorldNEWS
In the latest sign that the unfettered growth enjoyed by China’s tech giants is coming to an end, Beijing has unveiled a raft of new regulations that reasserts the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s authority over every aspect of its citizens’ digital lives.
Among the new regulations: a law that reduces the amount of time that children and teens are allowed to spend playing video games to just three hours per week, and a directive banning online celebrity fan clubs.
The new rules are part of a broader crackdown by Beijing against domestic tech tech titans like Tencent and Alibaba. “The story of Chinese tech companies over the last 15 years is, they grew quickly and became innovative because they existed in this space that the state did not regulate and did not fundamentally understand,” says Adam Segal, the director of the digital and cyberspace policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Now it has clearly laid down the marker and said: That era is over. ”
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Read more: How China Is Cracking Down on Its Once-Untouchable Tech Titans
Some of the new rules, like regulating social media algorithms and bringing in new privacy laws, bear similarities to proposals from progressive critics of Big Tech in the U. S. —at least on the surface.

The regulations are part of a global trend of states wresting power out of the arms of tech companies. China’s intervention, as the second-largest economy in the world, could set a new template for how authoritarian states deal with tech giants.
The new Chinese rules could also potentially make it harder for companies like Facebook and Google to fend off efforts by authorities in the U. S. and Europe to regulate them more heavily. “One of the arguments that we shouldnt be going after Big Tech so strongly in the U. S. was that China has analog firms for every one of these companies, and they would be able to roll over U. S. companies because the government was supporting them,” says Scott Wallsten, president of the Technology Policy Institute, a D. C. -based think tank. “Well, overnight, that argument just went up in smoke. ”
“China’s recent moves support the idea that the choice is not between regulation and no regulation,” says Segal. “The new question is: Whos going to do the smartest regulation?”
Here’s a look at what the new Chinese tech regulations mean for China—and the attempts to rein in Big Tech around the world.
Limits on gaming and celebrity culture
Chinese regulators announced on Monday that they would reduce the number of hours that children under 18 would be allowed to play online video games to three hours per week—only Fridays and weekends, plus an extra hour on public holidays.