China youth ‘trusts tech sector but backs tighter regulation’
Poll finds fears over data privacy a major issue compared to respondents in the US and Britain
The technology industry enjoys a rosier reputation among young people in China, but they are more supportive of government regulation of the tech sector, a private survey has found.
Chinese youth have more trust in the sector, with nine out of 10 believing tech is a source for good, compared with 44 per cent in the United States, 50 per cent in Britain, and 45 per cent in Germany, according to the poll by public affairs consultancy Finsbury Glover Hering.
The poll covered 2,400 young people in the millennial and Gen Z age groups – those born from 1981 to 1996 and after the mid-90s respectively, across the US, China, Britain and Germany.
However, Chinese respondents were the most worried about their personal data being misappropriated by tech companies, with 83 per cent concerned about their data privacy, compared with 64 per cent in the US, 56 per cent in Britain, and 53 per cent in Germany.
Surprisingly, 32 per cent of respondents in China thought they benefited from data collection, whereas less than one-in-five young people in Western markets felt they benefited a great deal from the prevalent practice among tech companies.
“Our research shows that China’s young generation is particularly concerned that companies are tracking their activity and mining their data,” Ginny Wilmerding, a partner covering Asia at Finsbury Glover Hering, said in the report.
The report also found more young Chinese believed artificial intelligence could solve societal problems and that more regulations were needed for taming tech companies.
As a leading nation employing AI technology, 84 per cent of the Chinese respondents thought AI could transform society for the better. Only 44 per cent of youth in the US and Britain had the same view, while the figure among those polled in Germany was 49 per cent.
Chinese respondents also showed more support for government regulation of big tech companies, compared with their foreign counterparts.
More than 72 per cent of young Chinese thought the tech industry should be subject to more regulation, and 49 per cent wanted the government to take steps to reduce the size of tech companies. Both figures were higher than those from the Western countries.
Wilmerding said nationalist propaganda could explain in part why tighter regulation on tech firms won more favour among Chinese youth, but added that “its citizens clearly worry that tech companies have become too powerful”.
China’s crackdown on tech firms in the past year has reverberated across the sector, wiping out billions of dollars in market valuations and forcing many tech giants to make deeper than usual job cuts.
Observers are looking for clues as to how Chinese tech regulators will act this year as the country’s biggest annual political gathering, known as the two sessions, started last week.