The CEO of China’s Weibo acknowledged on Friday that the country may start compelling online commentators on politics and finance to reveal their names on their profiles, effectively robbing them of their right to anonymity.
Concerns over escalating internet censorship and increased government oversight of the nation’s internet led local media and a number of Weibo users to pay attention to Wang Gaofei’s comments, which were made on the Chinese counterpart of X.
In recent days, a number of Weibo influencers have claimed that they received instructions that users who comment on politics, entertainment, and financial topics and have one million followers or more would need to start using their real identities.
In Wang’s case, a user first pointed out that his name was displayed on his account, prompting him to respond that he is testing the policy on his account.
“Long-time followers all know that try to first use functions myself,” he wrote.
The new real-name restriction may eventually be extended to individuals with 500,000 followers or more, but not less, according to Wang, who has 957,000 followers on the platform.
In order to avoid being subject to the rules, he additionally urged people to delete followers.
While the majority of China’s media business is subject to strict government regulation, in recent years there has been an increase in the number of well-known bloggers and tiny, independent media organisations, or “zimeiti,” that frequently focus on certain industries and have grown significantly in popularity and influence.
