Weibo’s Wang Gaofei Initiates Real-Name Policy on His Microblogging Platform
Wang Gaofei, CEO of China's top social media platform, Weibo, has initiated a new development tagged real-name policy on his platform. This move will require users to show their original identities on their accounts. Notably, it is part of China's efforts to eliminate online anonymity and increase transparency.
Weibo CEO Tests Real-Name Policy on His AccountWang confirmed this development on October 20 when he said the country is considering a policy that will remove anonymity for commentators discussing politics and finance.
The CEO personally exemplified this policy by revealing his real name on his own account, a move that was observed by one of the platform's users. He explained that Wang was testing this new function on his account when he stated that his long-term followers know how much he likes to try out new features himself.
Wang Gaofei, who boasts 957,000 followers on Weibo, also hinted that the real-name policy might eventually extend to users with half a million followers, excluding those with fewer followers. He suggested that users could unfollow others to avoid this policy.
Notably, the announcement has attracted much attention, particularly from local media and Weibo users. They believe that the Chinese government is attempting to oversee and increase censorship on the country's internet. Some influential Weibo users reported receiving information about the need to display their real names.
Notably, this prompt was mainly addressed to those with a million or more followers who often comment on entertainment, finance, and politics. Meanwhile, the reason for these instructions still needs to be clarified, and China's cyberspace regulator still needs to comment.
China's Media Industry and Internet UsageWhile the government heavily regulates China's media industry, famous bloggers and independent media groups, known as zimeiti, that defile these regulations recently emerged. These entities were involved in various sectors and amassing significant readership and influence.
Their vast influence has posed a significant challenge to China's cyberspace regulator controlling the activities. The regulator launched different forms of crackdown, including shutting down many blogs and imposing fines on social media platforms that fail to take adequate action.
The regulator did not respond immediately to requests for comments on the latest report. Regarding China's internet usage, a report from BBC revealed that the country held the world's largest internet-using population.
According to the data, China had 1.01 billion internet users as of July 2022, which was 69% of the country's population. A more recent report from Statista shows that in January 2023, China secured the top number of internet users globally.
With a staggering 1.05 billion individuals online, this populous nation outpaced the third-ranked United States by more than triple the number. The U.S. had approximately 311 million internet users compared to China's 1.05 billion.
Interestingly, all the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) boasted over 100 million internet users each, collectively making up four out of the nine countries with such a significant population of internet users.
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