Fortnite Addiction? China Has the Answer.

In the 21st-century, liberal democracy will face a challenge of an entirely new kind. Here’s one powerful signal of that future.

Life is full of stories. Sometimes one small story gives a glimpse of a far larger one.

Last week I was in Prague to speak to executives at one of Europe’s largest lottery and online gaming groups. The industry is being buffeted by negative attitudes towards gambling, a ton of regulation and the shift online. And these people want to know what to do about it.

Every so often you show an example to an audience and get a visceral response. That happened this time: when I talked about how Chinese technology giant Tencent have started using camera-enabled facial recognition to restrict the amount of time that young people spend inside the multiplayer video game Honor of Kings.

Cue gasps, and then wry laughter. For those in the room this example was nothing more than a momentary glimpse of the world’s largest video game market.

But I’ve been obsessed with this move by Tencent for a while now. That’s because I think it’s a small but powerful signal of something far greater. I mean the challenge posed to liberal democracy— its societies, deepest values, everything — by…