China orders gaming giants to cut 'effeminate' gender imagery

[reader]

From AFP / Channel News Asia

BEIJING: Chinese authorities have ordered gaming giants Tencent and NetEase to end their focus on profits and cut content perceived to be breeding "effeminacy", as Beijing tries to direct youth culture, gender ideals and the reach of big tech.

The move is the latest by authorities to tighten their grip on the embattled technology sector, and sent shares in some of the industry's biggest names plunging.

Officials on Wednesday (Sep 9) summoned gaming enterprises including Tencent and NetEase, the two market leaders in China's multibillion-dollar gaming scene, to discuss further curbs on the industry, which has already been ordered to limit gaming time for those under 18 to three hours a week.

Among the new targets are media representations of men, which experts say are a cause for anxiety among the conservative, older generation of Communist Party leaders.

In recent days, regulators have ordered broadcasters to resist "abnormal aesthetics" such as "sissy" men, calling for more masculine representations in programming.

Continues at

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/china-gaming-giants-effeminate-gender-imagery-tencent-netease-2166016

 

[PeterRS]

Once a genie is out of the bottle it is usually difficult to get it back. Young people in China are like young people most everywhere else. They follow the latest fads and fashions, and with the K Pop look and craze having flooded the country, I can see the increasingly old guard among the leadership muttering disapprovingly that this is not what the revolution was all about. Let's not forget that President Xi's father had impeccable credentials as a revolutionary, even though in his later years he was better known and even imprisoned for his political moderation.  I am sure the old guard will succeed in their efforts to control the rise of Tencent and NetEase, just as they have clipped the PR wings of Alibaba and other private sector giants. They see the rise of any company that gets so big and with such an extensive national reach as increasingly able to sway the public as a threat to the Party. But when it comes to the way people dress, I don't believe there will be more than a temporary change - if that.