Chinese Net Comment Policy on Steroids — Your ID, Please
Shocking news in Chinese as tweeted out by @freemoren from 1984BBS: it so appears that the central propaganda authorities have meted out a requirement that all major portals in China must redo article commenting systems so that ID numbers, addresses and so on become required. Deadline: August 15, 2009.
With October 1, 2009 closing on this soon, it’s little surprise that China’s going through its Big Sixty in super-sensitive mode. YouTube, Twitter and Facebook have been down for quite a bit, and now ways around the firewall are a fact of life — no longer just an option.
I (as in @DavidFeng) am actually a supporter of the “real name system”, but even here, I disagree with its almost-immediate implementation — especially just ahead of the Big Sixty. It’s true that we remain ourselves online and are to bear the burden on what we say (hence the support for the “real name system”), but that’s only if the atmosphere becomes less charged. In this super-sensitive environment, this latest propaganda authorities order, obviously, is not a case of too little, too late — but rather too much, too soon. Not the best move they could do.
Updates:
- The Twittersphere is chiming in on this — with a whole lot of irony: 群众的一切都要求实名，官员的一切都是国家机密，好极了 (This is just great: the masses must use real names… meanwhile, everything about the officials become state secrets!)
August 4th, 2009 at 10:02
a link in chinese? i want to show a friend .. thanks
August 4th, 2009 at 10:04
David-
I certainly hope that it is not REALLY coming to this?!?!?
I don’t understand the real benefit, unless each blog installs some technology to verify ID numbers and cross-ref to names etc. I would imagine anyone that wanted to comment anything semi-controversial would use a faux ID number?
Am I missing something?
China continues to amaze me.
let freedom ring.
best,
@JeffreyJDavis
ID#6969696969
http://www.jeffreyjdavis.com
August 4th, 2009 at 10:25
@gregorylent: Don’t have a link, but this is what popped up on Twitter in Chinese:
RT @freemoren: 中宣部等部门下达指令，要求各门户网站务必在8月15日将新闻评论功能改为“实名制”，用户使用时将填写身份证、居住地址等必填选项（来源1984BBS）
August 4th, 2009 at 10:27
@JeffreyJDavis: They could still game the system (with, say, fake ID numbers and bogus addresses). (OK, then the censors would up the security with — I dunno. Scarier censorship upgrades? Biometric comments? Anything’s possible — especially in the run-up to the Big Sixty…)
August 6th, 2009 at 01:55
it will never work and chinese authorities rarely implement what they set up. With hundreds of millions of netizens, it is simply impossible to scrutinize the ids and names one by one.
During SARS and H1N1, every passenger crossing borders is required to fill in form declaring them free of symptoms and viruses, nobody does it seriously, false names and false ids are used. so basically this rule is crippled by the massive amount of people, people’s unwillingness of disclose true identity and most importantly nobody enforces it.
and the only result is waste and ineffeciency.