The Slippery Slope of Real-Name Rules on Chinese Social Media

Wednesday - January 10 2024, 17:11 UTC - 10 months ago

The new real-name rule on Chinese social media platforms is being used to restrict accounts and potentially monitor online activity, challenging the importance of online anonymity. Despite promises of only applying to serious topics, the rule is already being broadly enforced. China has made other big moves in 2023, including sanctioning US defense companies and surpassing Tesla in electric vehicle sales. Meanwhile, the government continues to crackdown on LGBTQ+ content and promote its authoritarian response to the COVID-19 pandemic and human rights issues.

Happy New Year! I hope you had a good rest over the holidays and feel ready to take on 2024. But for one more time, please allow me to indulge in a look back at 2023.

The government and the platforms argue that the new rule can help prevent online harassment and misinformation. While anonymity can be associated with wrongdoing, their argument conveniently neglects what anonymity—a right that has existed since the invention of the internet—has afforded people online. Who among us hasn’t participated in a niche online hobby that we didn’t tell our family about? Who insists that every online acquaintance call them by their real name? There’s comfort in knowing that my online persona and who I am in real life don’t have to be the same. Not everyone should, or deserves to, know everything about us. This topic is important for me both professionally and personally. As a reporter, I’m always watching what people are saying online and working to extract important information from between the lines. But I’ve also used Chinese social media personally for more than a decade, and my profiles and communities mean a lot to me, whether as archives of my life’s moments or places where I met dear friends. That’s why I wrote the essay. And I’m worried there’s more change to come.

Consider that when it was first announced in October, platforms stated the real-name rule would only apply to accounts in more "serious" fields—people talking about politics, financial news, laws, healthcare. Even Weibo’s CEO, Wang Gaofei, replied to a user with 2 million followers who was worried about the rule, posting, "Took a look at [the] content. If it’s only an influencer sharing about their personal life, I don’t think they need to display their real names upfront." But as we’ve seen in the past, these kinds of "small" changes are really a slippery slope. Fast-forward to today and that Weibo user’s real name is already on their public profile. And other accounts on the platform that don’t engage in serious topics—pet influencers, comedians, artists, car bloggers—have all received messages that they need to display their names or their accounts’ reach will be restricted, essentially meaning they’d be shadow-banned on the platform. Meanwhile, some platforms have acted even more quickly to implement the rule thoroughly. Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, seems to be already displaying the real names of most users with more than 500,000 followers. And last week, accounts on Bilibili, a Chinese YouTube-like video platform, also started mass-displaying popular users’ real names.

Catch up with China .

1. A draft of a harsh new regulation regarding video games tanked the stocks of major Chinese tech companies and caused widespread market fears in December. Now, a Chinese official behind the regulation has been removed from his position. (Reuters $) .

2. China has sanctioned five US defense companies for selling arms to Taiwan. (BBC) .

3. In the fourth quarter of 2023, Chinese electric-vehicle maker BYD officially outsold Tesla globally for the first time. (Wall Street Journal $) .

4. As China has set aggressive goals for decarbonization, "dinosaurs" like coal and steel will struggle to survive. (Financial Times $) .

5. Activists are raising awareness and fighting back as China cracks down on online LGBTQ+ content. (Reuters) .

6. Chinese media continues to criticize Western companies and governments for their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and human rights issues, while promoting China's authoritarian response. (New York Times $) .