The Chinese government will be banning the internet accounts impersonating people or organizations from March 1 and will further enforce the requirement asking people to use real names while registering their accounts online, according to its internet watchdog.
It has been for a long time that the Chinese authorities have been making repeated attempts to check the registration of online accounts on fake or unreal names, but the success results are so far very mixed.
The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) on its official website said that the ban included only those internet accounts based on impersonations that claim to be government bodies like the anti-corruption agency of China, or media organisations such as the People’s Daily state newspaper. Even those online accounts are under this category that impersonates foreign leaders like American President Barack Obama or Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The online accounts impersonating prominent personalities and celebrities are a very common affair now-a-days. Many social media users create parody online accounts of prominent personalities or institutions in order to make fun at them.
According to CAC, China’s new regulations are just efforts to mandatorily impose registration requirements on internet users based on real-names and suspend the spread of derogatory and controversial rumours across the world wide web.
The rigorous efforts reflect China’s attempt to tighten the control of web. Such measures related to Internet censorship by the Asian country seem to have accelerated since2013 after President Xi Jinping assumed power.
China operates world’s one of the most sophisticated mechanisms for online censorship, called the Great Firewall. According to the tech analysts, censors keep a stringent hold on sieving the publication of appropriate data online, mainly those contents that may potentially undermine the ruling Communist Party.
Share this:
