China’s “Minor Mode”: Blueprint or Cautionary Tale?
As multiple countries around the world consider the best ways to protect children from various online harms, China has followed through with a key part of its approach. On April 29, 2025, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) launched “minor mode,” a series of requirements for mobile device settings that give parents more control over their children’s online experience. While China’s overall approach to digital policy is known for being authoritarian, censorial, and privacy invasive—an approach democratic nations should avoid—this customizable, device-level solution to children’s online safety can serve as inspiration as the United States crafts its own solutions.
First proposed in 2023, CAC released guidelines for minor mode in November 2024. The proposed plan included daily usage limits, blocking non-essential applications between the hours of 10:00 PM and 6:00 AM, reminders to take a break from the device every 30 minutes, content filters of age-inappropriate material, the option to block messages from strangers or specific users, and controls for minors’ visibility on social media. Parents can customize these settings, and all settings require parental verification to change or remove. Of course, as part of minor mode’s content filters, age-appropriate content should also “promote core socialist values” and “cultivate minors’ patriotism,” hallmarks of China’s online censorship.
China’s approach to creating its minor mode is less restrictive than many of the country’s other digital policies. Minor mode ultimately gives parents the power to customize their children’s online experience rather than mandating the same set of controls for all children, though certain controls have default settings. However, it is important to note that this less restrictive approach sits on top of China’s existing censorship practices of controlling information by spreading propaganda and suppressing dissent, including banning certain websites and apps entirely, as well as privacy-invasive practices that aim to eliminate online anonymity. Minor mode may offer parents some freedom over their children’s online experience, but as a whole, Chinese residents do not have the same online freedoms that democratic nations should maintain and prioritize.
While the guidelines for minor mode came from CAC, the agency directed device makers, app developers, and app stores to work together to develop and implement minors mode in what CAC calls “three-party collaboration.” CAC’s aim with the new minor mode is to curb children’s screen time and potential Internet addiction while promoting “positive” (as defined by CAC) uses of the Internet. As a democratic nation that values free expression, the United States should avoid prescriptive content-based regulations or guidelines that would require online services to promote certain social or political values or restrict others, which would violate the rights of online services and their users. However, other aspects of China’s approach could inform the United States’ agenda for children’s online safety.
First and foremost, the United States should prioritize giving parents, rather than government or industry, more control over children’s online safety. While there is a place for government regulation, especially when it comes to illegal online activity, and industry can and should implement measures to safeguard children from online harms, ultimately, parents are best suited to tailor their children’s online experiences to each child’s unique circumstances, but they need easy-to-use tools. Customizable screen time limits, reminders to take a break, blocking messages from strangers, and toggling minors' social media visibility are all examples of effective parental controls. Content filters can be potentially problematic, but as long as they are under parents’ control—as opposed to government control, which would pose free speech concerns—these can also be useful controls.
In addition, the concept of a minor mode is a useful approach. Rather than banning minors from certain online spaces or requiring age verification for all users to access certain online spaces, Congress should pass legislation requiring device operating systems to create an opt-in “trustworthy child flag” for user accounts, similar to minor mode. This option would be available when first setting up a device and later in a device’s settings and would signal to apps and websites that a user should be treated as a child. Congress should also require apps and websites that serve age-restricted content to check for this signal for their users and block these users from this content. This would be useful not only for adult websites or websites that include adult content, but also for social media platforms that typically restrict children under 13 from creating an account.
While China’s authoritarian approach to digital policy rarely serves as a positive example for democratic nations, its minor mode is in some ways a surprisingly less restrictive approach than some democratic nations and states have taken, such as banning social media for users under a certain age, either entirely or without parental consent. The United States should learn from this approach as it crafts its own children’s online safety agenda and give parents more options to protect their children online while promoting positive online activity.
