On Dec. 17th, 2011, Loretta Chao and Brian Spegele reported for the Wall Street Journal on new Chinese regulations that will impact how Chinese citizens express themselves on the internet. According to the article, Chinese authorities are attempting to clamp down on the Chinese version of Twitter (called Sina Weibo) by requiring users to register their actual names with the service. The service would then confirm those names with government authorities. This regulation would destroy any anonymity that Chinese citizens previously enjoyed. The WSJ also noted that the regulations would ban the posting of state secrets and anything that "disrupts social order."
The article went on to explain that the Chinese government was worried about the power of social networking sites after the Arab Spring. Apparently micro-blogging has gained huge popularity in China, and often times its speed defeats the government censors. To justify the regulations, the Chinese government portrayed them as a way to "combat harmful internet rumors" which are "like psychological drugs."
The WSJ source article can be found here.
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