China has increased their control on social networking websites, in order to prevent negative comments about the communist government. The latest regulations requires the users of most popular online social networking website in China, Sina Weibo, to use their real name.
As reported by Telegraph, the Chinese government requires that 250 million of Weibo users to re-register and include their real name, phone number and identity card numbers. If users doesn’t obey this, then they certainly can not write or updates their status.
Only 19 million users who make this change. Until closing on Friday night (18/03/2012), the number was not increased.
This step taken by the government of China to enable them to find and arrest the owner of the account, if writing anything negative against the government. As we know, the Chinese online social networking Weibo has growth fast and rapidly.
Just like other social networking websites, Weibo also a place to share news, gossip, entertainment, scandal and opinion. Influence on government policies is also quite pronounced. For example the fast train accident in July last year Wenzhou. Thousands of Weibo users demanding a transparent investigation, forcing the government several times to change the information that they convey.
Weibo is considered as an alternative for online social networking in China, after they officially blocking internet access to Twitter and Facebook since a few years ago. Not only is civil society, about 50,000 civil servants, partisans of the communist party, and officials have their accounts in this social networking websites.
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