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China Moving to Real Name Registrations for Blogs
dptalia writes "China is moving to require people to use their real names when blogging. The proposed solution, arrived at by the Internet Society of China (affiliated with the ministry of information) would allow bloggers to use a pseudonym when blogging as long as they used their real name when registering."
Names are by no means unique identifiers in China -- there are only a hundred or so family names in common use and the characters used in people's names are often recycled. With the population of China being as large as it is, even if you use your real name there could easily be 50 people in your area who have exactly the same name.
Now if they were requiring that a person register with their ID number -- everyone in China has one -- that would be something. It surprises me, actually, that they're not doing that. I wonder why?
The same thing is in place for registering .us domain names, isn't it?
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The reason for domain name registration is so that a name is not consumed by an uncontactable individual. It's like owning a building to print/sell newspapers. If something happens to the property or you do something to it, they may need to contact you about it. What this is saying, however, is that you have to use a name that can be traced when blogging, which is an exclusivly speech activity. Basically it seems they require all journalists to be registered. This would be like the US government requiring all publications to discose who their authors are.
Prove that. Prove that although we can be monitored, we aren't. Because I can prove otherwise: I worked for a company called ClientLogic that does customer service and Tech Support for Earthlink in Albuquerque, NM. Every single message you send out through Webmail is kept on a server, whether or not you delete it at home. We even had the option of reading your mail and then checking a box to Mark them as "Unread". Because you are such a compliant citizen, it makes no difference to you, I'm sure, but all servers do that. If we didn't like what we read, we were trained to report it anonymously at work or simply to call DHS on our own.
And just like I'm sure in China they will be scanning large amounts of date for keywords, the same thing is done here. Noone is sitting there reading everything but certain sites and certain keywords or phrases activate surveillance on you. Google Total Information Awareness and Ecehelon...
A famous, funny, and somewhat insightful joke to be sure, but I'd have to say that the vast majority of insightful, inspiring, bullshit-cutting dialog I've ever witness (or partaken in) has been on the internet. Check out the top of that blackboard--the comic was inspired by Unreal Tournament 2004, not +5 Insightful comments on slashdot. For all of the bullshit and flame wars out there, I think that anonymity inspires honesty and frankness that, while holding the potential to inspire personal attacks and general disruption, also holds the potential for real, unhindered communication in a way that most real-world communication sadly lacks. If a friend or coworker or member of my family says something stupid and shortsighted about (for instance) Iraq, most of the time I let it slide because it isn't worth the potential long-term consequences if they decide to take offense or otherwise become bothered by my response. Even less-divisive topics can be troublesome. I remember one time a somewhat-ditzy coworker of mine starting ranting about how sucralose (Splenda) was soooo unhealthy because she heard it contained chlorine, and I was like, "ummmmmmm...., so?" "Chlorine is bad for you!" "Well, chlorine bound up in a molecule isn't *inherently* harmful. In fact, you get far more chlorine from eating salt!" and somehow she took offense (ok, so maybe I laughed at her just a *little*. Couldn't help it.) Put a stopper on the entire conversation, and for a weeks afterwards she wasn't as friendly with me. Oh yeah, and I've probably alienated at least a dozen other coworkers with simple, non-confrontational, matter-of-fact statements regarding my (dis)belief in God and religion in general. (I'm not a completely insensative person, but I happened to be working with a ton of highly religious people and they kept asking me about my church and my prayers and stuff. And when I said "I don't believe in God" they usually asked why. So I told them.)
Anyway, you just don't have to worry about this kind of shit online. At any time you can walk away and find another forum (or hell, sometimes just another username) and never talk to those people ever again without any undesirable long-term consequences. Yeah, you can swing too far in the other direction and devolve into vicious, pointless flaming (safe in the knowledge that you don't personally know anyone involved) but on the whole I think there's more rational discussion on the net than in polite-and-politically-correct real life.
But it could just as well be ingenious in the opposite direction as well. I note that it says nothing about addresses being required. In a country with well over a billion people, what are the chances of anyone having a unique name?
As always with this sort of thing, the devil will be in the details. It may be as bad as you think, but it might be a clever sap for the PHBs with no teeth what so ever. Sort of a "Who is Wen Chen and why is he saying these horrible things about me?" situation.
--MarkusQ
No, they cannot. I'm from China. Just to show you some facts: One of my bank account (which is used for ebay) is under a fake name (the Chinese equivalence of John Smith). The name on my ISP account is fake. My utility bill is always send to a person died 1182 AD. And the name on my cellphone bill is, guess what, fake. None of these involve any underground or high-tech work, and all I did was to lie when being asked.
Knowing these, do you still think real name mean real name?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe many people will be sent to prison because of this, but it won't take long for Chinese people to figure out how to lie.
PS, In U.S., cellphone, credit card, ISP, and pretty much everything else require real name (worse than that actually: SSN), but somehow people did not care at all.