Anonymity just a paper shield

Hiding real identities online does not protect citizens from abuses of power and creates inequality among citizens

On Dec 16, the Beijing municipal government issued a new regulation on micro blog (weibo) management, which says that besides an e-mail address, any applicant for a weibo account must provide verifiable proof of their identity, which will be known to the service provider but not available to the public.

This, together with some fresh regulations introduced by other cities with a similar requirement, has been widely opposed by netizens and scholars alike. Many hold the opinion that such a move will make it easier for local governments to suppress criticism, thus violating freedom of speech. They claim that anonymity gives people a sense of security that allows them to express their true opinions about the work of government officials, while the requirement to provide evidence of their real identity will invoke caution and prevent differing voices being heard.

I do not agree with this view. While there have been some officials who have instigated arrests because a citizen said something on the Web they did not like, these officials have abused their power. But this has nothing to do with anonymity. In fact, several innocent people who have been thrown into prison by local officials were speaking behind an assumed identity on the Web, but the local officials still found them. Anonymity is only a paper shield against those with power. If there is risk in speaking out against officials then the risk is the same, whether anonymous or not.

On the contrary, it is ordinary citizens that are hurt most by anonymity. In our modern society, a micro-blogger with enough followers can express opinions and spread news, whether true or not, about government officials and ordinary citizens alike.

The difference is the officials can respond by causing the micro-blogger trouble, even if the information is true, while the ordinary citizen can only stand idly by even if the information is false. An ordinary citizen who is the victim of false information cannot even sue for slander.

So anonymity does not protect citizens from the abuse of power and creates inequality among citizens.

And that inequality runs contrary to the values of modern society, in which an ordinary citizen should be protected not only from government officials if necessary, but also from other citizens as well.

Anonymity offers netizens only a false sense of security. The way to promote freedom of speech is not by hiding the speaker's identity, but ensuring citizens are not afraid to exercise their right to speak.

It is written in the Constitution of the People's Republic of China that an ordinary citizen has the right to criticize the government, but many local courts simply forget this right when sentencing citizens that have spoken out against local governments. Thus the key to freedom of speech lies in the government honoring its promise by faithfully implementing the constitution.

Requiring a verifiable identity is in fact a step in the right direction, because it will help people gain the bravery to criticize government officials where necessary. It is only if people are bold enough to criticize officials without the cloak of anonymity, and officials respond to the criticism in a reasonable and sincere way, that freedom of speech and the right to criticize the government will be protected.

So we should not oppose the new regulation, but improve it so that the companies running the online platforms can protect our true identities from being abused by those in power. To this end, the companies should never reveal the information about people's identities to anybody except at the request of the judicial departments following strict legal procedures.

This will be a test for both local governments and the companies, and we hope they will pass it.

The author is a professor with China University of Political Science and Law. The Chinese edition of the comment first appeared in Southern Weekly.

(China Daily 12/28/2011 page8)