On the face of it, a Bill designed to make registration of real names mandatory?as the one currently being debated in China?while signing up for mobile internet, broadband or microblogs, may be a good thing. Because, in times like ours, rigour and ethics applied to journalists do not apply to the twitterati (or its Sina Weibo counterpart in China). With the correct hashtags, decent marketing and right atmosphere, rumours circulated online under the garb of anonymity, too often become facts in the eyes of many?this may explain exogenous black money numbers believed by many to be stashed abroad or the ?fact? that Obama is a Kenyan socialist Muslim prevalent in certain parts of rural America.
Yet, unlike India, Western Europe, North America or Japan, China is a one-party state with more than a slight history of censorship, which by the virtue of its own logic needs to control opinion to stay in power. Even after considerable opening during Deng Xiaoping years, the Chinese state has vehemently purged its loud dissidents. Liu Xiaobo, Ai Weiwei and Chen Guangcheng constitute the more recent entries to the long list of Chinese dissidents. Thus, with conventional media censored, online criticism?through microblogs like Sina Weibo?forms the most reliable tap on middle-class discontent. And in a single-party state like China, vociferous criticism can only happen under the garb of anonymity?so even when the internet police deletes accounts and blogposts, users could take solace over the fact that their identities remain secret. However, the bill, if passed, will not only dampen such criticism but also add numbers to the largest list of imprisoned cyber-dissidents in the world. More remarkably, it may disappoint those optimists hoping for a more liberal turn under Xi Xinping.
