China's real-name policy is in effect

[bill]

http://blog.webcertain.com/please-have-your-passport-ready-to-enter-the-internet-in-china/02/04/2015/ [blog.webcertain.com]

Please Have Your Passport Ready To Enter The Internet In China

Nicknames and made-up names are becoming a thing of the past in China: No more fake Putins, Obamas or Financial Times columnists. No more anonymous bloggers. From pop-stars to politicians, and everyone in between, from 1st March 2015 Chinese users have had to provide their real, full names when signing in to forums and social networks.

Related threads on WebmasterWorld:

• China to Force Authors to Provide Real Names When Publishing Online [webmasterworld.com] 2015
  
• China considers "real name system" for blogs [webmasterworld.com] 2006

[topr8]

i personally feel that in principle this is a good idea.

[lucy24]

this is a good idea.

For other people, you mean? Or only for Chinese people?

[topr8]

that did make me laugh a little lucy24.

i meant for ALL people

[Samizdata]

i meant for ALL people

Here's a few well-known names at random:

Mark Twain
Lewis Carroll
George Eliot
Voltaire
Bob Dylan
Muddy Waters
Bo Diddley
Rock Hudson
Nicolas Cage
Man Ray
Marc Chagall
Le Corbusier
Leon Trotsky
Che Guevara
Garry Kasparov
Rocky Marciano
Estée Lauder
Paco Rabanne
Colonel Tom Parker
Lady Gaga

None of them are any more (or less) real than "Wun Hung Lo".

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[topr8]

i don't really understand the point you are trying to make, in china they will still be allowed to use 'pen names' as long as their real names are registered.

[Samizdata]

they will still be allowed to use 'pen names' as long as their real names are registered

And you would like to see that rule applied on WebmasterWorld?

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[topr8]

i would be happy to see it applied to any public forum where individuals might make offensive remarks, endorsements, reviews etc. - not that i'm in any way suggesting that happens on WebmasterWorld, but it could.

funnily enough in the case of WebmasterWorld, it would enable the mods to track users who have multiple aliases on the forum. and also possibly help them spot self and paid promoters who are pretending not to be associated with the product that they are praising.

[Selen]

i would be happy to see it applied to any public forum where individuals might make offensive remarks, endorsements, reviews etc.

That is a reasonable and creative way of thinking (hopefully it will be implemented in the EU soon). When someone posted an offensive remark or posted a review of something he/she hasn't purchased he/she could be easily tracked and pay a penalty. When there are more than X offenses a year, he/she should be temporarily suspended from using the Internet for the next X days (however, he/she could complete a course to have the net access enabled sooner). It would make the Internet a better and safer place for us all, it would eliminate the most notorious trolls, and it would even not cost extra money to run this system because the penalties would cover the administrative costs (and money spent on re-education courses would bring even more revenue for the people).

[londrum]

even if someone knows your real name, it doesn't really help them unless they also know your location.
if you libelled me where would i send a legal letter to? i wouldn't have a clue
i wonder if they make them hand over their addresses as well

[LifeinAsia]

It sounds like yet even more issues victims of identity theft would have to deal with.

it would even not cost extra money to run this system because the penalties would cover the administrative costs

I don't see how individual site owners would be able to tap into the revenue from any penalties to offset the costs they (site owners) would have to pay to implement this. Can you explain how it would work?

[Selen]

I assume topr8 meant that the Internet would be run by the government (which would have access to locations / physical addresses of all connected computers).

[Samizdata]

i would be happy to see it applied to any public forum

A legal requirement to register with the state before expressing an opinion in public?

The police rounding up anyone who steps out of line?

I posted a random list of pseudonyms earlier. This one is not random:

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

George Orwell

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[lucy24]

it would enable the mods to track users who have multiple aliases on the forum

You think they can't already do that?

In the cases I know of where someone has changed screen names*, it's been to make a fresh start. Even when I know that two or more names belong to the same person, they still come out as different personalities and I interact with them in different ways.


* Could never do it myself, because I honestly don't believe I could obfuscate my prose style for more than five minutes :(

[bill]

The Chinese government let this go on a lot longer than I expected. Now that the cat's out of the bag it might be hard to contain at the level they want. I feel sorry for the forum operators who have to police this.

[toidi]

They are running out of fingers to plug up the dam.

[Samizdata]

I feel sorry for the forum operators who have to police this.

They may well have to spend time deleting posts, but that is not the most worrying kind of policing.

From the article cited in the opening post:

a passport number is required to register on many social networks

Webmasters cannot check passport numbers, only the state can do that.

This has nothing to do with "offensive remarks" (as some seem to think), it is all about political suppression.

From the same article:

if any subjects which are censored in China, such as Tibet, are mentioned, the account may be blocked.

Other banned topics include "Anything that undermines the constitution" and "Anything that goes against religion".

From another of Bill's citations:

Users will also be required to agree to respect the law, the socialist political system, social morality and truth before being allowed to use a given service.

Not what I would call "a good idea", but I am happy to hear a counter-argument.

And I don't require an ID card.

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[lucy24]

Webmasters cannot check passport numbers, only the state can do that.

Will they actually check, though?

For comparison purposes: many, many entities in the US ask for a social security number. The vast majority of them have no governmental connection and no means of verifying the number. (The ones that have a legitimate reason to get your SSN will include a fine-print blurb explaining why they ask and what they do with it.) For the rest, you can simply make something up: most easily your telephone number with two interpolated digits.

Does everyone in China even have a passport? Why would they, when most people never leave the country? (Er... do they? There can't be more than a small part of the population that has the means to vacation in Bali or whatever the hot foreign destination is.)

[bill]

I'm not sure what processes these checks consist of, but when you've got memberships in the millions it's no small feat to coordinate validation of this sort. It must be extra difficult when a political entity simply wills such regulation into existence. Who knows if there is even some sort of background infrastructure to support this type of validation.

Everyone in China has national ID cards, so I would assume those are being used in conjunction with this.Older cards used to be quite easy to counterfeit, but the newer ones are supposed to be a bit more resistant to that.

All websites in China have to be registered with the authorities and show an ICP (Internet Content Provider) number, so there is that system in place already since 2000.

[LifeinAsia]

In South Korea, a lot of sites require a person's national ID number to register (although I don't think there is any national requirement to do so, unless it's an online banking account). I believe that there is a simple algorithm use to verify the number is a valid national ID number, so it's easy to implement. Verifying that the ID actually belongs to the person registering? Well, that's a whole different story. Which goes back to my earlier comment about identity theft.

Related to that, foreigners in SK on long-term stays also get a type of national ID number with their registration permit. Of course, it uses a different algorithm, so most non-Koreans are effectively locked out of those Korean sites requiring a valid ID to register. And those abroad or foreigners in Korea without a residence card? Also locked out.

[Samizdata]

Will they actually check, though?

The point is that webmasters cannot check - they can only collect what users provide, on behalf of the state.

South Korea famously tried this system first (using ID numbers) and the courts eventually declared it unconstitutional - though China, obviously, will have no such problem.

In the South Korean example, Google refused to collect ID numbers and (in order to comply with the law) blocked users from uploading to YouTube - but users could bypass the restriction by changing their location to "worldwide", and even the office of the Korean president did the same.

As for Facebook's "real names" policy, compliance is unenforceable as long as a non-celebrity name is used.

The constitutional position on anonymity in USA:

The Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that the right to anonymous free speech is protected by the First Amendment

Source: [eff.org...]

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