Freedom of Expression
The following is a partial translation by CECC staff of an opinion piece reprinted on the Xinhua Web site indicating the debate within China about requiring Internet users to register on BBSs, news groups, and games using their real names. Click here for more CECC coverage of this issue.
Yu Guofu, legal consultant to the Internet Society of China, pointed out: "After there is a "real name system," if someone uses another person's name to commit a crime online, will it be the person with the real name who be responsible or the person passing themselves off who will be responsible? Yu Guofu believes that . . . it is unlikely that China will quickly implement a "real name system" in "one fell swoop . . ."
The following is a partial translation by CECC staff of an opinion piece reprinted on the People's Daily Web site indicating the debate within China about requiring Internet users to register on BBSs, news groups, and games using their real names. Click here for more CECC coverage of this issue.
The following is a partial translation by CECC staff of an opinion piece reprinted on the People's Daily Web site indicating the debate within China about requiring Internet users to register on BBSs, news groups, and games using their real names. Click here for more CECC coverage of this issue.
I believe that, if it is necessary to implement an Internet real name system, then it should be divided into different domains, especially the economic domain, for example signing contracts and online shopping, should be coordinated with an electronic signature law in order to affirmatively resolve the many problems that currently exist. With respect to such things as groups and BBSs, however, it would be best to let Internet users have freedom.
The following is a partial translation by CECC staff of an opinion piece reprinted on the People's Daily Web site indicating the debate within China about requiring Internet users to register on BBSs, news groups, and games using their real names. Click here for more CECC coverage of this issue.
Pro-Real Name Registration System
The following is a partial translation by CECC staff of an opinion piece reprinted on the People's Daily Web site indicating the debate within China about requiring Internet users to register on BBSs, news groups, and games using their real names. Click here for more CECC coverage of this issue.
The Internet real name system looks beautiful, but in fact its nothing more than the "fruit of the poisonous tree," which looks tempting and desirable, but in fact is more poisonous than the angel's trumpet flower. And what kind of poisonous result will the Internet real name system bring?
The following are excerpts from an article reprinted on the China Daily Web site indicating the debate within China about requiring Internet users to register on BBSs, news groups, and games using their real names. Click here for more CECC coverage of this issue.
The following is a partial translation by CECC staff of an opinion piece reprinted on the Xinhua Web site indicating the debate within China about requiring Internet users to register on BBSs, news groups, and games using their real names. Click here for more CECC coverage of this issue.
Xinhua reports that the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council have jointly issued a notice titled "Opinion Regarding Further Strengthening and Improving the Ideological and Political Education of College Students" (also referred to as "Document Number 16"). Some excerpts from the Xinhua report on the Opinion:
In recent months, Chinese authorities have closed down or tightened restrictions on the few forums where private Chinese citizens could express themselves without government restraints, including academic conferences, electronic bulletin boards, and personal Web sites. Hong Kong news media reports that officials have moved to silence "extra-territorial reporting," which one Chinese media professor called "the best hope for liberalizing the news media." Extra-territorial (yidi) reporting refers to the practice in which a newspaper from one area publishes critical investigative reports about another area, about matters that officials in the investigated area are preventing their local news media from reporting.
In January 2005, an official from the provincial Communist Party Propaganda Department of Shanxi province spoke to a "news work meeting," noting that in 2004 Shanxi officials confiscated 3,414 illegal political publications and shut down 21 illegal periodical publishers, offices, and news bureaus. He called on attendees to "persist in the principle that the Party supervises the media, and the Party supervises the news."
The official said that every type of news media "must make correct orientation the foundation of their life's work," and that no type of news media could be allowed to "have a different standard, or form a second public opinion forum." He called on attendees to focus their attention on three types of news media: