Why China Is Blaming Social Media For The Country's Highest Ever Youth Unemployment Rate

Barely six months after China began seeing a new trend of its youngsters turning into 'full-time children', a new problem has emerged for a nation that is already struggling with record-high youth unemployment rates.

What Is China's Youth Unemployment Rate?

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The nation's struggling economy, which is still at a standstill despite a sluggish recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, appears to be the target of the most recent effort to restrict the doom and gloom of social media. Chinese youth have suffered the most. In the spring of this year, youth unemployment hovered around a record 20%. The numbers were so bad the government opted to simply stop sharing them, as per Fortune's report. The jobless rate for 16- to 24-year-old youths in China's urban areas hit an all-time high of 21.3% in June.

Also Read: Why China Is Facing World's Biggest Millionaire Exodus This Year

How Is China Tackling The Social Media Craze?

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China¡¯s internet censors have begun a new campaign aimed at short TikTok-style videos that have spread on social media throughout the country, and the current government crackdown has a new target: content that promotes pessimism.

The new guidelines released this week on Tuesday come from the Cyberspace Administration of China, as part of an effort to limit ¡°misleading content¡± or content promoting ¡°incorrect values,¡± according to the South China Morning Post. In March, the government agency had said it would focus on removing internet content that wasn¡¯t aligned with the government¡¯s values. These censorship efforts are part of a broader three-year-old campaign called Qing Lang, which aims to curb some negative aspects of social media and previously focused on things like limiting toxic fan cultures. The latest version, which includes the new restrictions on pessimism, is aimed at addressing mental concerns online, according to the South China Morning Post.

From 2021 to 2022, the effort shut down 10,500 websites, and 1.35 billion accounts, and deleted 76 million messages, according to the Cyberspace Administration.

When Did Chinese Youth Become 'Full-Time Children?'

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As the jobless rate for 16- to 24-year-old youths in China's urban areas hit an all-time high of 21.3% in June this year. many youngsters in the country began becoming 'full-time children'.

On the Chinese social networking website Douban, about 4,000 members of a group called ¡°full-time children¡¯s work communication center¡± discuss topics related to their daily ¡°working¡± lives. The buzzword has spread to other social media platforms. On Xiaohongshu, China¡¯s most popular lifestyle-sharing platform among younger people, there are currently more than 40,000 posts under the ¡°full-time sons and daughters¡± hashtag. Click here to know more about this trend.

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