Offensive nicknames pulled from the Internet   

国家网信办：对互联网账号、头像等信息加强审核

2月4日电 今日国家互联网信息办公室发布《互联网用户账号名称管理规定》(以下简称《规定》)。《规定》中明确指出，互联网用户账号名称，是指机构或个人在博客、微博客、即时通信工具、论坛、贴吧、跟帖评论等互联网信息服务中注册或使用的账号名称。《规定》要求互联网信息服务提供者按照“后台实名、前台自愿”的原则，落实安全管理责任，配备与服务规模相适应的专业人员，对互联网用户提交的账号名称、头像和简介等注册信息进行审核，对含有违法和不良信息的，不予注册；保护用户信息及公民个人隐私，自觉接受社会监督，及时处理公众举报的账号名称、头像和简介等注册信息中的违法和不良信息。该《规定》将于2015年3月1日正式施行。[查看全文]

Companies asked to verify true identities of netizens and to clean up online accounts

Nicknames in cyberspace such as "Obama" and "Putin" are no longer available for netizens in China as the country vows to crack down on inappropriate and unlawful screen names, an industry regulator said on Wednesday.

Accounts pretending to be government organizations, celebrities and officials are also banned, the Cyberspace Administration of China said, as are nicknames that appear to advertise cults or pornography, or that damage State security.

The new rule requires netizens to use registered account names on virtually all platforms, including blogs, social networking tools and messaging applications, said Xu Feng, director of the administration's mobile network management bureau.

The authority promised to set up a complaint mechanism, giving users a chance to reapply for their accounts if they were shut down.

The rule will take effect on March 1.

Website operators and Internet companies have been asked to verify accounts and clean up those that are unqualified, the administration said.

Since last year, the administration has repeatedly asked Internet firms to vet accounts to keep cyberspace "clean and tidy".

Internet companies were asked by the administration to collect the real identities of its users last year.

Operators of forums, micro blogs and messaging platforms were also ordered to hire a monitoring team to take down illegal information.

"We found some accounts used names of the Central disciplinary inspector or well-known economic specialists to publish false information. Such behavior threatens the healthy development of the Web," said Xu.

Wang Sixin, a law professor at Communication University of China, said a tighter grip on illegal Internet information is very necessary.

"The account registration policy has been loose since the Internet came to China," Wang said. "Poor account management triggered an array of problems such as online fraud and an overflow of pornography."

"Now that there are more than 2 billion online accounts, it is time to shut down malicious accounts."

He added that Internet companies need to bear much of the responsibility to stop illegal activity because they are the biggest beneficiaries of China's booming cybereconomy.