Foreign users of Weibo in confusion as China's 'real name' deadline looms
March 16th is the crunch day. That's the date on which the hundreds of millions of people who use China's microblogging sites--such as Sina's or Tencent's Weibo--need to register with their real names and ID numbers. And that applies to foreigners in China, or indeed to any users of the sites anywhere in the world. Trouble is, there's no clear system for those without a Chinese name and ID card, and Sina has a huge 8 million overseas users that it looks unlikely to be able to process in the coming month.
Users who don't prove their real name will no longer be able to post to Tencent's t.qq.com, or Sina's Weibo.com, or any one of these other Twitter-like services. It's all part of a government clampdown on false rumors spreading like wildfire. But some say it's about stifling freedom of speech even further on the Chinese Web, putting people into the mind-forged manacles of self-censorship.
But it appears the whole real name system is not really geared toward non-Chinese nationals, and so foreigners who use the sites are reporting that the implementation looks like it might be really chaotic. In the past, foreign users of the various Weibo sites could become a "V"- or "verified"- user on Sina Weibo if they so wished, but that entailed the help of someone who works at Sina, or a baffling combination of faxes and phone calls to verify your name. And that's all that Sina has in place for overseas users for the looming deadline.
An American user of Sina's Weibo told me:
Haven't tested it in the last month but as of January it was impossible to register an English real name. I asked every foreigner I know who has a verified Weibo account and they told me someone at Sina set it up for them. I contacted Sina about it and they gave me a non-answer answer. I'll try to register [with real ID] again this month but I expect it won't work.
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But not all foreigners are so phlegmatic about the new regulations, and a number will quit using Weibo rather than submit to potential repercussions from a "tweet" on the Chinese services. For example, if the Web company has your real ID on file, then anyone who lives in China is only one record query away from being located at your home address--which is held by your local public security bureau (PSB)--and being visited by the police (which is essentially also the PSB).
And so March will be a dramatic month for the Chinese Web, and we'll get a truer number of precisely how many people use the Twitter-like sites once the real ID system has pruned away the zombies, spam-bots, and perhaps also a great deal of overseas users.
About the Blogger
Six years after arriving in China to 'check it out', Steven has decided to stay longer, and is hooked on the fast-changing dynamic of mainland China. A freelance editor, lifestyle magazine writer and tech blogger, he can also be found on twitter (as @SirSteven) discussing media, tech and music. You can email him - sino...@gmail.com (< click on the first half of the address to reveal it all) - with any tips, queries or feedback. You might also like to check out the CNET Asia fanpage on Facebook.
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