Wall Street Journal - Beijing Orders Micro-Bloggers to Register

 Friday, December 16, 2011 As of 2:38 PM

By Loretta Chao And Aaron Back

 

 

BEIJING - The Beijing city government published rules Friday requiring users of popular Twitter-like microblogging services in China to register their real names with service operators, according to state-run media, in the government's strongest official measure to control the fast-growing industry.

China's government is in the midst of a campaign to crack down on false and "harmful" information on the Internet, and officials are stepping up their oversight of the Internet sector, which is led by private-sector companies.

According to the Xinhua news agency, the rules will require new users of microblogging services to register their real names with website administrators before they can post, though they will be able to choose their own screen names.

The requirement covers companies based in Beijing, a city government spokeswoman said on Friday. At a news conference, spokeswoman Wang Hui said existing members of such microblogging services must begin registering in three months. But she said a final deadline hasn't been established because the services have a large number of members.

Services likely to be affected include Sina Corp.'s Sina Weibo service. Sina, which analysts say operates one of the most active of such services in China, had nearly 230 million registered accounts as of September. Sina lists its headquarters as Shanghai but said in filings that its principal place of operations is in Beijing.

The company didn't immediately responded to requests for comment. Sina's Nasdaq-traded shares were down 4.8% in premarket trading Friday.

The new rules also ban posting state secrets and material that could hurt national security, as well as material that spurs ethnic resentment or discrimination or illegal rallies "that disrupt social order," Xinhua said. The news agency quoted an official with Beijing's Internet information office as saying the new rules were intended to help microbloggijng companies enhance trustworthiness and improve their services.

It's unclear whether other local governments will follow.

The microblogging services, called weibo in Chinese, allow users to publish short text messages, photos and video. Over the past two years they have become platforms for vibrant public discussion about everything from entertainment to sensitive political topics—a development unprecedented in China, where the government controls media and the flow of information.

Though weibo operators are still struggling to find ways to make the services profitable, their popularity has attracted investor interest—and created a conflict for authorities, who have publicly expressed both support for the growth of the country's Internet sector and concern that it's insufficiently regulated.

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