China's Weibo to Implement Real-Name Policy for Popular Users Amid Censorship Concerns

Real-name policy will apply to users with over one million followers engaging in politics, finance, and entertainment discussions; CEO Wang Gaofei tests new function on his own account, hinting at possible future extension to accounts with half a million followers.

• Weibo, China's popular social media platform, plans to enforce a real-name policy. The platform's CEO, Wang Gaofei, stated that this policy would apply to users who have over one million followers and regularly engage in discussions on topics such as politics, finance, and entertainment.
• CEO Wang Gaofei has been testing this new policy on his own account. Having almost a million followers himself, Gaofei has hinted that the policy could be extended to include users with half a million followers in the future.
• The introduction of this policy has sparked concerns over rising censorship and government oversight of China's internet. Prominent Weibo users made it known that they were told to display their real names when commenting on politics, entertainment, and finance.
• There is speculation that users might be able to evade the new policy by restricting their follower counts to fewer than 500,000. Moreover, Gaofei suggested that users could delete followers to avoid the policy enactment.
• With the Chinese government's stringent regulation of the media industry, popular bloggers and small independent media groups referred to as 'zimeiti' have grown increasingly influential. China's cyberspace regulator has launched a multi-faceted crackdown in an attempt to control this activity, which has resulted in the shutdown of many bloggers and caused social media platforms to be fined for insufficient action.

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