WeChat starts enforcing real name registration as part of government's harsh new IM rules

Yesterday afternoon the central government's online information office released a new set of regulations entitled "Provisional Guidelines for the Management and Development of Public Instant Messaging Services."

The ten new guidelines included in the release stipulate that henceforth users of IM apps such as WeChat and QQ will have to register with their real names and that only public accounts registered as news services will be permitted to post and forward news related to "current politics."

Users will still be able to use whatever moniker they like on the application, but in order to register a new account would-be users need to offer their personal details.

Official statements declare that these provisions "protect national security and the public interest" and promote the "health and orderly development" of IM software.

These new restrictions come after China blocked popular non-Chinese IM apps Line and KakaoTalk around the time of Hong Kong's 1 July pro-democracy protests. Chinese authorities also explained yesterday that they blocked these and other foreign competitors in order to "fight terrorism" and not to eliminate WeChat's competitors or more effectively supervise and control its citizens at all, so good thing that's cleared up now.