2 posts and columns on Human Rights in China

News Byte

China to Require Real Names for Online Interactive Processes

in News on July 13, 2010 at 10:55 am PT

Chinese Internet regulator Wang Chen aims to radically reduce options for anonymity available to Web users in China, calling for a “real name registration system” that would make it impossible for people to post comments or access information anonymously. The fact that a full transcript of his comments, originally made in April, remained unavailable until unearthed this week by Human Rights In China, signals to some that Beijing is well aware of the unpopularity of its push for tighter regulation–a lesson learned well recently by World of Warcraft creator Blizzard, which abandoned its own real name system last week.

Good Effort, Moral Pygmies…

in News on October 28, 2008 at 8:09 am PT

Yahoo’s public shaming before the House Foreign Affairs Committee last November apparently had quite an effect on Internet companies cooperating with Chinese government censorship and demands for information on dissidents. Less than a year after that brutal Capitol Hill humiliation, during which Committee Chairman Tom Lantos (D., Calif.) lambasted Yahoo’s leadership as moral “pygmies,” Yahoo, along with Microsoft and Google, is introducing a code of conduct that will govern their business practices in repressive countries.