The Cyberspace Administration of China has announced that from October 2017, internet users will be required to provide their real name in order to register with smaller websites and services.
Already, internet users are required to provide their real name (“real-name registration”) in order to register for the largest social networks and messaging services, including WeChat, Weibo and Baidu Tieba, and to have a mobile phone number.
Internet service providers and other companies such as Baidu and Tencent – which owns WeChat and QQ – will become responsible for requesting and verifying users’ real names when they register, as well as for investigating possible users of fake names, and reporting illegal content to the appropriate authorities.
The legislation could serve to shift the responsibility for policing online content from government agencies to internet companies.
As well as announcing these new regulations on internet posts, the agency also specified...