🏠 » General » Riot Games under fire for helping China monitor players

Riot Games under fire for helping China monitor players

Riot Games is under fire from the Los Angeles Times for its participation in China’s increased surveillance of its citizenry.

The Chinese version of League of Legends tracks how long its players spend in-game in order to limit the time minors spend gaming. The so-called anti-addiction system includes warnings to players when they’ve reached their daily playtime limit, denial of time-based rewards, and kicking players out of the game. This is measured using their national ID.

A government monitoring and logging the entertainment habits of its citizens would be considered unethical by many. Regardless, companies like Riot are often faced with a choice of taking a moral stand in support of their customers or fully cashing in on the Chinese market. They routinely choose the latter.

China’s increasingly close watch on the lives of its citizens has been receiving attention around the globe with American and European tech companies often finding themselves caught in the middle.

In Riot’s case, the implementation of the anti-addiction system came at the behest of Chinese parent company Tencent Holdings, which achieved full ownership of Riot in 2015. Though Tencent typically takes a hands-off approach, the report from the LA Times discusses the conglomerate demanding action following increased scrutiny from the Chinese Government and outlining the needs of the system. Riot quickly followed through on Tencent’s requests, functionally developing software for the increasingly authoritative regime.

Some might dismiss this as an exclusively Chinese issue but there is no reason to think that this sort of surveillance technology can’t be implemented in the United States, especially when it is being developed by American companies. Critics of the move added that Riot’s willingness to normalize this invasion of privacy in China helps to make this the standard internationally.

As of 2018, Tencent is the largest game company in the world. It wholly owns Riot Games but also owns a 40% share of Fortnite publisher Epic Games while owning smaller slices of Activision Blizzard and Ubisoft.

Latest News
The TF2 SDK release paints a bright future for mods
Valve is officially releasing the TF2 SDK for ...
Kick stream reveals the new Stake Formula 1 car for 2025
The Stake Formula 1 team has revealed its ...
Marvel Rivals to nerf triple strategist comp in mid-season changes
As Marvel Rivals reaches the halfway point in ...
Best Varesa build in Genshin Impact: Artifacts, weapons, more
Varesa is a 5-star Electro character in Genshin ...
The best character creator mods for Stardew Valley 1.6
Stardew Valley 1.6 players have a plethora of ...
Genshin Impact Mizuki build guide: Artifacts, teams, weapons
Genshin Impact welcomes iyd first Swirl DPS in ...
Is there any hope for a StarCraft 3? Here’s everything we know
RTS players have all wondered whether there’s hope ...
Editor's Picks
Who is Stevewilldoit? Net worth, girlfriend, and more
The news of Stephen "Stevewilldoit" Deleonardis, the master ...
All we know about Thea Booysen, MrBeast’s girlfriend
Jimmy "MrBeast" Donaldson is known purely for his ...
How to quickly make infinite water in Terraria
Whether you’re looking to spruce up your Hellevator ...
Best Pokemon Glazed cheat codes
Pokemon Glazed is one of the most popular ...
How to enable net graph in CS2 
Competitive players were disappointed when they discovered that ...

Players must be 21 years of age or older or reach the minimum age for gambling in their respective state and located in jurisdictions where online gambling is legal. Please play responsibly. Bet with your head, not over it. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, and wants help, call or visit: (a) the Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey at 1-800-Gambler or www.800gambler.org; or (b) Gamblers Anonymous at 855-2-CALL-GA or www.gamblersanonymous.org.

This site is using Cloudflare and adheres to the Google Safe Browsing Program. We adapted Google's Privacy Guidelines to keep your data safe at all times.
21+NCPGGamblers Anonymous
×
Your Promo Code:
The bonus offer of was already opened in an additional window. If not, you can open it also by clicking the following link:
Visit Site