China loves repression like the English love football riots, and today’s Communist smackdown comes courtesy of a new law requiring all online gamers to register with their real names online. No more hiding behind a screen name in China. From now on, everybody knows who everybody is, or at least the government knows who everybody is, and that’s the main thing.
Zhang Yijun, director of the General Administration of Press and Publication’s Technology and Digital Publication Department is cited as the source of this new rule. He also has a ridiculously extravagant job title.
According to a report in People’s Daily Online, this follows the suspense of operations of four online gaming companies who “did not have the mandatory anti-addiction system,” whatever that means. Either way, Chinese gamers now have a little bit more bollocks to contend with, so hooray for that.
