China adopted a rule that requires Internet subscribers to use...
China adopted a rule that requires Internet subscribers to use their real names, according to reports from state news agency Xinhua (http://xrl.us/bn8b7a). The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress adopted the rule, which Xinhua described as having “the same…
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legal effect as a law,” which made official a policy against the anonymity that most telephone and Internet service providers already have in place, the report said. The decision requires that service providers protect the identities of their subscribers and prohibits “service providers, as well as government agencies and their personnel, from leaking or damaging users’ digital information,” the article said. It’s unclear whether the new regulations apply more broadly to online services. According to the Los Angeles Times (http://xrl.us/bn8b7n), which wrote about the rule before it was adopted, “the law would be especially damaging to China’s micro-blogging platforms such as Sina Weibo.” The committee’s deputy director of the Commission for Legislative Affairs, Li Fei, told lawmakers that users can still use psuedonyms when posting content online, and the identities of users will remain “backstage,” according to Xinhua.