China updates rules on real-name registration online in crackdown on schemes to revive banned user accounts
- The Cyberspace Administration of China has proposed updating regulations on how users of domestic online platforms identify themselves
- This was designed to prevent owners of banned social media accounts from registering under a similar name on another platform
It was designed to prevent owners of banned social media accounts from registering under a similar name on another platform. While China’s internet is heavily censored, owners of banned accounts have often resorted to registering new accounts, either on the same platform or another, by using names that are identical to the previous moniker they used.
The CAC’s draft proposal directs internet platform operators to prohibit any re-registration of accounts that were previously closed for violating laws and regulations. These firms should also bar the holders of censored accounts from registering on another platform.
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“This rule [update] was mentioned in earlier campaigns,” said Wang Sixin, a law professor at Beijing’s Communication University of China (CUC). “This time it was put forward in the form of a normative document, which means it will become a routine operational requirement for all internet platforms.”
The CAC’s draft proposal also directs online platform operators to display their users’ internet protocol address location at a significant place on their page.
For domestic users, internet service providers must show in which province or city a user is located, according to the draft update. For overseas-based users, the internet platform operators must show the country they are located.
Under the CAC proposal, internet platform operators must also delete users’ personal and account information soon after their accounts are cancelled.
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Beijing initially published rules on real-name registration in February 2015. This version asked internet account owners, including institutions or individuals, to provide their identity information when they register on platforms for microblogging and instant messaging.
It highlights Beijing’s drive to create a “clean and healthy” cyberspace, free from information it deems harmful to society, which has recently come to include apolitical content such as stock market analysis and celebrity gossip.
The regulator also published a detailed 10-point notice, ordering China’s websites and apps to stop giving excessive exposure to celebrities and prohibiting their fans from forming online clubs. It has also started a campaign to clean up app alerts, specifically prohibiting those about celebrity gossip, violence and vulgar content.
“The internet has become the main battlefield of ideology,” the CUC’s Wang said. “The country will need to tighten up the process of publishing information, and providing details about the identification and location of the publisher, to make sure online services are being used legally.”