China to extend real name registration rules

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, China is proposing updates to current internet censorship laws which could extend real name registration rules to all blogs and internet forums, tightening its control over user-generated content. Beijing already requires users of the country’s popular micro-blogging services to …

[Anonymous Coward]

Where China leads on internet freedoms the west shall follow.

[Anonymous Coward]

And then there begins the slippery slope of censorship, a little here, a little there, a block here a block there until the day when what we see on the Internet is what we are told we can see.

Sadly we may just be sleep walking into this and future generations will not even realise that the information they find is being served up to them is prepackaged censorship.

[Seb123]

It's like lobsters being cooked slowly so they don't even realise it.

[Anonymous Coward]

"The key, of course, is that the government decides what is ‘illegal’"

Why yes, that is generally what governments do. In that respect there's no difference between China, the USoA, Europe, or most any country. The veneer is a bit different, but looked at objectively, less than most of us would like to think.

[Gene Cash]

The Chinese are behind the times....

Google+ beat them to it at least a year ago.

[janimal]

So it's wrong for China

..but Ok for El Reg?

I'm thinking of the O2 pirate bay thread here.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: So it's wrong for China

The difference being that El Reg is not a goverment entity, only answerable to the government. They (El Reg) don't make the rules, but they have to obey (as they understand) them.