Beijing – China announced Wednesday that users of blogs and chat rooms will be required to register their names with operators and promise in writing to avoid challenging the communist political system, further tightening control over Internet use.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
The announcement follows what technology companies say are official efforts in recent weeks to block virtual private networks that are used to circumvent China’s extensive Internet filters. China has the world’s biggest population of Internet users with 649 million people online but increasing censorship has chilled the popularity of social media.
Beijing has required Internet companies since 2012 to obtain real names of some users. But compliance was uneven and the rules failed to specify what services were covered.
The latest announcement extends that “real name” registration requirement to blogs, microblog services such as the popular Sina Weibo and website comment sections. Such settings offer many Chinese their only opportunity to express themselves in public in a society in which all media are controlled by the ruling Communist Party.
The rules also require Internet services for the first time to have users sign a contract that includes a pledge to refrain from “illegal and unhealthy” activity.
Wednesday’s announcement affirmed an earlier prohibition against posting material deemed a threat to state power or national security — terms the ruling party uses to describe opposition to communist rule. It said operators will be required to deactivate accounts of violators.
The ruling party encourages Internet use for business and education but tries to block material deemed subversive or obscene. Beijing regularly launches new censorship initiatives to respond to changes such as the growing popularity of social media.
The Cyberspace Administration of China said the latest rules are needed to combat “username chaos.” In a statement, the agency said users took inappropriate online names such as Putin and Obama, promoted “vulgar culture,” committed fraud by pretending to be Communist Party officials or agitated for separatist causes.
Operators will be required to assign an employee to review and keep track of user details to ensure they comply, the agency said.
The government of President Xi Jinping has been calling on Internet companies since last year to “spread positive energy” online.
In May, Sina Corp., which operates one of China’s most popular Internet platforms, said it was penalized for allowing “unhealthy and indecent content” online. Sina was fined $815,000 and stripped of two of its licenses for Internet publication and online transmission of audio-visual programs.
In a statement on its own Sina Weibo microblog account, Sina said it “firmly supports” the new measures. It posted instructions for users to alert censors to possible violators.
China operates the world’s most extensive system of Internet monitoring and filters. It blocks access to websites abroad run by human rights and other activists groups, as well as popular services such as the Google search engine and Facebook.
Until recently, users of virtual private network, or VPN, services were able to skirt those restrictions to reach business tools operated by Google and other blocked sites. But in recent weeks, some companies that operate VPNs, which encrypt traffic to prevent censors from reading it, say tighter controls have disrupted their services.
The government has not confirmed it was responsible for the blockage. But an official of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, responding to a question about it at a Jan. 27 news conference, said, “harmful information should be managed according to Chinese laws.”
Censorship also has eroded the popularity of social media such as Sina Weibo, which freelance journalists and independent commentators used to distribute news reports and essays. The number of users has declined since Beijing tightened control in 2013 over how such services could be used.
The number of microblog users as of the end of last year declined to 249 million, some 7.1 percent, or 32 million people, below 2013, according to a state-authorized research body, the China Internet Network Information Center.
Apparently, the Chinese attended the “internet asefah” held at the stadium last summer and were so impressed by the admonitions of the gadolim yelling gevalt about the pritzus and treifus on the internet that they went home and decided to follow the words of gadoley yisroel and we are now seeing the results. Mi kamocha yisroel!! Who would have thunk that the Satmer Rebbe shlita and President Xi Jinping had anything in common.
This shows the strength of the number one super power which can firmly control the internet from causing any type of corrosion of its social harmony. In addition it clearly prevents terrorism by filtering out would be terrorists who use the Internet for their own destructive agenda. China has no interest in allowing social media to turn over its country as did Facebook did to Egypt! Nor do they want a 911 as did social media do to the world Trade center which was the world’s largest terrorist single attack 8n history! Other countries and their governments should take a lesson from China that control of the internet is required to preserve and secure it’s citizens and keep them out of harms way both socially and physically. Too much freedom of speech can lead to abuse of democracy as has been proven in France in the case of Charlie Hebdo.
Imagine that. China censoring more stuff that is unnecessary. Most of us got to move to China.
The Chinese government is able to protect and secure it’s citizens by keeping the crime rate statistically at virtually zero, since they maintain a government structure which is identical to what a Jewish government was and what a Jewish government will be once again with the coming of the Mashiach, namely one King and one Sanhedrin. That’s precisely what China copied, one Leader namely the president (the king) and one party (their sanhedrin) who lay down the law including the regulating of the internet which is deemed the most potential destructive force in the history of all mankind. Kudos to the Chinese government in curving and preventing destruction from the internet to its citizens, minds, bodies, and souls! Other free minded “democratic” nations have alot to learn from “communistic” China, and from post Mashiach Israel when we will be fortunate to have one melech and one Sanhedrin who will control the internet, and mete out punishment against those who violate their edicts and they will bring down crime to virtually zero so our children (and us) can feel free once again to walk out on their own after dark as all children and teenagers can do so now in modern day China without having to look over their shoulders.