p2pnet - rss feed: Chinese bloggers under threat
p2pnet.net News:- The noose around the necks of Chinese bloggers has been tightened even further.
China has “clarified” rumours that it’s planning to force bloggers to use their real names.
So far, the Ministry of Information Industry, “has not officially made any related policies,” says the Internet Society of China (ISC), quoted by state news agency Xinhua.
But a real name system, an “unavoidable choice if China wants to standardize and develop its blog industry,” is only a shadow away.
“An official with the ISC confirmed on Thursday that the society is working on a real name system for Chinese bloggers, which attested to netizens’ longtime guess about it and triggered a hot controversym,” says the story, which has ISC secretary general Huang Chengqing saying, “We suggest, in a recent report submitted to the ministry, that a real name system be implemented in China’s blog industry.”
Under it, people would be compelled to register with their real names to start a blog, but could post under nicks, if they wanted.
But even before that would be allowed, “a complete personal data protection system should be established in advance,” Huang said, according to Xinhua.
Condemning the move, blog services available in China are already closely controlled, says Reporters Without Borders, going on:
“They automatically filter sensitive content and moderators are told to warn bloggers who go too far. Despite these restrictions, the Chinese blogosphere is growing rapidly. But that could be brought to a complete halt by a rule ending anonymity for bloggers.
“In a country where you can spend 10 years in prison for a few messages posted on the Internet, keeping a political blog under one’s own name would be extremely risky.”
China is a past master in the art of regulating new technology, says RWB, continuing, “Each time a new Internet tool becomes available, the authorities find technical and legal means to control it.”
China, with some 130 million Net users and more than 17 million bloggers, “is also the country with the most developed human and technological resources for censoring the Internet,” says RWB.
“With 52 people currently in prison for criticising the authorities on a website or in a blog, China is by far the world’s biggest prison for cyber-dissidents.”
Meanwhile, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Cisco recently had to face a US congressional human-rights hearing to explain why they’re actively cooperating with China to help keep news and information from the country’s citizens.
Amnesty International has also attacked the three, as well as Sun Microsystems and Nortel Networks, and to coincide with the launch of the international freedom of speech campaign, released a report about the role of Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google in Net repression in China.
Britain’s Committee on Foreign Affairs specifically named Google,Yahoo and Microsoft for actively working with China to police the Net.
Also See:
Xinhua - Blog real name system undecided, October 23, 2005
Reporters Without Borders - Moves to ban anonymous blogging, punish “defamatory” videos, October 23, 2006
human-rights hearing - Free speech in China, February 15, 2006
also attacked - Google, et al, Code of Conduct, February 15, 2006
Net repression in China - Claim back the web, July 20, 2006
actively working - China Net censors named, August 14, 2006
If you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent website blocking outside of China.
Download it here and feel free to copy the zip and host it yourself so others can download it.
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October 25th, 2006 at 2:19 am
Somone correct me if i’m wrong, but there are more than 1 billion people in china aren’t there? So just how many people would share the same first and last names?!
I can see it now:
“Ok we have to question this Johnny Z Chang about his blog. How many are there in Shanghai?”
“Ummm, about 52,456 sir.”
“Oh. Well. I guess we’ll just have to bring them all in for questioning. One of them has to be the one we’re after.”