Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

ARTICLE: China Web Sites Seeking Users' Names, By JONATHAN ANSFIELD, New York Times, September 5, 2009

The struggle continues inside China regarding the regulation of netizen discourse. Real-name registration is being implemented at news sites for commenting. My guess is that this will only drive the discourse to other locations, depriving China of the feedback.

One opinion among many expressed in the article:

Hu Yong, a new media specialist at Peking University, said government-enforced registration requirements carried long-term side effects.

"Netizens will have less trust in the government, and to a certain extent, the development of the industry will be impeded," he said.

From a comparison of the most commented-on articles in July and August on a number of portals it was hard to determine whether the volume of posts had been affected so far.
But both editors at two of the major portals affected said their sites had shown marked drop-offs.

You can always chose control of content over freer forms of connectivity, but it always comes with a cost. As China's society--and thus its problems--grows more complex, the cost of suppressing free debate will skyrocket. What the blowback provides, when it is allowed, are hints about which paths shouldn't be taken. So the more Beijing suppresses, the more likely it will chose unwisely and pay the price in other forms of social instability.

This is form over substance, and it never works.