China’s efforts to address “gambling addiction” are not unique to China and date back more than a decade: Politicians need to ask more fundamental questions, write Xinyu Zhao and Julian Sefton-Green.
China’s well-publicized decision to tighten its grip on online games for children has become a subject of suspicion, criticism and even jealousy among some outside China.
What kind of measures can India explore to tackle gambling addiction?
Patankar has established the following measures, which the government of the Union must take into consideration, in an interview with MediaNama:
- Need for a rating system in India: Patankar he explained that there is no awareness of age-appropriate gaming behavior. “It is a major concern where even five-year-olds play PUBG. There are no ratings. We follow ESRB and PEGI. There is no Indian grading system. Google ratings have no value,” he said, adding that a holistic assessment of maturity is critical for the Indian audience.
- App Screen on Google Play Store: Patankar recommended that app screening should be strengthened by Google because the presence of these apps on the store is what exposes minors to them. He revealed that the organization has seen cases of 10-year-old children using apps like Bumble and Tinder. He added that the apps should also be subject to maturity assessments.
- Don’t let minors transact: The issue of gaming and gambling is critical and cannot be separated because there are many overlaps between the two, according to Patankar. suggested that transactions involving minors buying skins or upgrading their levels cannot be allowed.” There must be a system to prevent them from u use any economic transaction,” he said.
- Bans are not effective: Patankar, however, stopped short of supporting a ban saying that a ban never works in these cases. He said a ban only accelerates adoption and helps such platforms thrive. He reiterated that it is important to classify games involving commercial angles in a separate domain as the responsibilities are different.
- Platforms should safeguard their content: It should be the responsibility of platforms to ensure that their content is not freely available on other platforms, according to Patankar. For example, several people downloaded the apk file of a popular PUBG game after it was banned from India, or popular movie or game titles were available for download using Telegram, ShareIt, and torrent sites.
- Implement the measures established in the curriculum: Many state governments, including NCERT, have developed academic content on cybersecurity covering Internet abuse and addiction. “Our concern is who and how implement it in the classroom? This is where the challenge lies. Only a few organizations have trained teachers to implement it because schools don’t have the bandwidth to implement such programs due to understanding issues or lack of training,” she said, adding that civil society organizations need to come together to educate and implement awareness programs within educational institutions.
- Create awareness about the dangers of internet addiction: There is very little awareness about internet addiction and it is usually dismissed as a phase in people’s lives. be encouraged to seek help, he said.
- Providing infrastructure with a multi-stakeholder approach: Responsibility cannot rest solely with the government or law enforcement or educational institutions, Patankar reasoned. He said that more services like clinics are needed to deal with addiction gambling, which can only happen once the idea of gambling addiction is normalized.
- Sensitize parents from the outset: Fear of the unknown due to rapid developments in the tech space is pushing parents into a ban because they don’t know how to handle the situation, Patankar reasoned. Cyber hygiene needs to start at the pre-primary level, she said. “Introducing gadgets has to be a staple of parenting,” she said.