There’s a new hoo haa on the Chinese Internet about new regulations that will require bloggers to register their real names with the authorities.
The rumblings about real name registration are emerging from the Ministry of the Information Industry (MII), the body that oversees Internet and telecoms.
It seems that few bloggers in China will pay attention to this regulation. The last time bloggers were required to register with the authorities was in June 2005. That rule did not have much effect on Chinese blogs because most of the bloggers were hostings their writings on free websites, which were already registered: only bloggers with their own servers were affected.
It seems that this new rule will be equally impotent in the face of the anonymous digital hordes.
Such as this fellow: Chinese Movie Nudity Research Center. The blogger says he loves all non-pornographic Mainland Chinese movies with nudity, and the blog is record of nude scenes from Mainland films. The image from the blog reproduced to the left if from the blog; it is a screenshot from In the Heat of the Sun (阳光灿烂的日子 – 1994), Jiang Wen’s superb film about growing up unsupervised in Cultural Revolution era Beijing. The top image is from Painting Soul (画魂 – also 1994).
Danwei wishes MII best of luck with their new regulation.
- Red Herring: Anonymity Ending in China Blogs? by Kaiser Kuo (well rounded summary of new rules
- The Guardian: China orders bloggers to register with government – about the blogger registration rules issued in 2005