Before you start thinking "oh, those crazy Chinese...", remember that many people in the USA (and other western countries) fervently believe that we should do the same thing.

What really bugs me is that this is the same direction a lot of policy makers and even tech companies seem to want to go, all the while decrying the Chinese for the same actions. I hope we don't allow it to progress that far in the US, but we really need to step up to the debate when people start droning on about cybersecurity, trolling, libel, and defamation on the Internet. Perhaps I'm just in the minority that thinks free speech should include the right to offend and we should not allow everyone to get offended at anything they want and get it banned.

Youtube co-founder jawed's first youtube comment: "why the fuck do i need a google+ account to comment on a video?"

It is funny how american media is eager to depict China as a North-Korea, and how americans opinions end being formed by their partial media in the same way it happens under dictatorships. Have spent a decade in China, I have yet to see a cop carrying a gun. Cops in China are way more friendly than in US, and for me, way more trustable. people think they keep the chinese people under fear and draconian control, but if you spend some time in China and listen to the people, you see thats not the whole truth. American media call Mugabe a dictator and call Cameroon's President a "chief of state", but both countries hold the same kind of elections. Anyone saw the news about the recent death of the Arabian king? I didn't read any mention about him being a dictator, indeed he is, but he is an ally.

I fail to see how this is different from Facebook (and formerly Google+)'s real names policy which will flag unusual names and force you to give a valid Government ID to reactivate your account.

Facebook (along with Twitter) is often the gateway to commenting on a lot of popular sites in the US. Very few people stop and make the alternate account required.

References:

1. https://www.facebook.com/help/159096464162185

2. http://boingboing.net/2011/08/27/eric-schmidt-if-you-cant-us...

South Korea tried that several years ago. The outcome was (well, apart from gross restriction of freedom of expression) that every small and large websites were legally required to ask for people's personal identifying information and store it somewhere. There were several popular incidents where millions of people's information were hacked, and who knows how many incidents were there that wasn't publicized.

These days it's safe to assume that the name and Residential Registration Number of pretty much every South Korean is floating somewhere in China. (Well, at least the law is gone now...)

Glad that China is following our lead.</sarcasm>

Does this apply to Chinese commenters on overseas blogs and forums?

If so, they've just solved a huge chunk of the comment spam problem.

I don't think it will affect much, most of the sites are using qq/weibo/renren openids, and they have long been "real named" behind. And actually I don't care how the gov track my activities, just care about the leaks of personal information, which were kept safe most of the times for big names.

I wonder if this regulation will also apply to government sock puppets.

It may be hard to persecute you if we cannot easily identify you.

This isn't the craziest idea in the world. Trolls can be distracting and a ton of garbage to discussions. This isn't one of those "evil Chinese laws" in my opinion.

But I guess I'm posting this as someone using their legal name so there's that.