Mediaboss Marketing

The Chinese government under president Xi Jinping is continuing to make life on the internet difficult for its potential detractors. Yesterday (Aug. 25), the countrys highest internet regulator released new rules (link in Chinese) that govern who can post what online. The upshot: anonymity on the Chinese internet is just about dead.

The new rules are the most recent instance of the Cyberspace Administration of Chinas (CAC) efforts to enforce real-name registration, which aims to severely limit internet activity for users who do not provide identifying information. There are already rules in place that require using your real name to register for WeChat, mobile phone numbers, Weibo, and other services for a few years. But the latest rules target the relatively unruly world of online communities and discussion forums.

For users who have not given identifying information, platforms for and providers of online communities may not allow posting of any kind, the announcement declares. It adds that, on these platforms, no content may appear that is prohibited by national regulations. (Those are my translations; I tried to keep intact the confusing language often used in these Chinese government announcements.) The CAC announcement also requires these platforms to investigate thoroughly any users they think may be using fake names and retain all user data for government inspection.

With the major online platforms like WeChat and Weibo already censored and operating under real-name registration rules, forums provide some of the few remaining places where it is possible to be anonymous on the Chinese internet. Tiebathe largest of such forums and often the origin of nationalist political activismwas given the real-name treatment by its parent company, Baidu, just a few months ago. The new rules will extend those controls to smaller forums.

Under Chinas previous leader, Hu Jintao, expression on the internet flourished in spite of censorship. Now, under Xi Jinping, the censors appear to be winning. These latest regulations follow a crackdown on VPNslong the easiest way to browse the web uncensoredand the announcement that the countrys three largest internet companies were under investigation for not adequately controlling what users say on their platforms.

So what exactly constitutes forbidden topics on the Chinese internet? An unnamed CAC official told a journalist the following when asked about the new rules (first translated by The Diplomat):

Good luck avoiding all of those.

Go here to see the original:
In China you now have to provide your real identity if you want to comment online - Quartz