China Is Requiring People to Register Real Names for Some Internet Services

China announced sweeping new regulations requiring users of an array of Internet services to register with their real names and avoid spreading content that challenges national interests.

Internet users will also be punished for adopting misleading handles such as “Putin,” “Obama” or “People’s Daily,” state media said of the new rules, which could hurt some of the country’s biggest Internet companies. The requirements apply to users of blogs, microblogs, instant-messaging services, online discussion forums, news comment sections and related services, said the Cyberspace Administration of China, the country’s Internet regulator, in a statement posted on its website. Internet users will still be allowed to select their own usernames and avatars as long as they don’t involve “illegal or unhealthy” content. “Username chaos” had become a serious problem on the Chinese Internet, the state-run China News Service said in a report on the new regulations, citing an unidentified representative of the regulator. Fake accounts, it said, had “polluted the Internet ecology, harmed the interests of the masses, and seriously violated core socialist values.”