Chongqing launches China's 1st online check
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The country's first regulation to monitor online social networking and micro-blogging will be implemented in Chongqing municipality this year, local authorities said on Friday.
Under the new rule, the city will boost monitoring and inspections of online content including those on the major QQ social networking site, micro-blogs and cell phone text messages. Netizens will also have to register their real names when they log onto the Internet, authorities said.
Details are expected to be released later this year, local media reported.
"Chongqing has nearly 6 million Net users and there is one cell phone for every two people on average. Faced with such large social groups, the government has to strengthen management and guidance to crack down on illegal online activity," Liu Guanglei, Party secretary of Chongqing's politics and law committee, was quoted as saying by the Chongqing Evening News.
China's law on real-name web registration was introduced last May when Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province, started requiring local netizens to register themselves with valid identification before participating in local chat rooms and forums.
But a number of Internet analysts subsequently questioned the effectiveness of the regulation as they said it only acted as a deterrent at best.
"Although netizens are asked to register themselves, there is no effective way for websites to verify their information," said a website operator in Beijing who only gave his surname as Zheng.
"But authorities can still track netizens who don't use their real names through their IP addresses," he said.
"Therefore, it only forces people to think twice before they express their opinions on the Internet," he said.
It is unnecessary to implement a real-name registration system as the country already has firm ways such as firewalls to monitor online content, Tian Zhihui, a professor of new media research at the Communication University of China, said on Friday.
"So far, only China and South Korea have put in place real-name Web registration systems. But networks have played a more important role in China when the public expressed its views to officials," Tian said.
"For instance, during the city's crackdown on organized crime that started last July, Chongqing residents actively expressed their opinions. But now I worry that the regulation will dampen the enthusiasm of the masses," she said.
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