The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is selectively and non-uniformly implementing Real-Name Registration (RNR) policies that are designed to chill discourse and encourage self-censorship on digital platforms. In the new report Blocked by Numbers: The Impact of Real-Name Registration Policies on Transnational Access to Chinese Social Media Apps, ICFP Fellow Sam Ju, in collaboration with host organization GreatFire, shows how these policies are creating an “ideological security firewall” as part of China’s larger socio-technological project to reshape its population’s behavior online. He argues that RNR’s varying enforcement for international users enables the CCP to draw new digital borders between spheres of influence.
The Chinese government has become increasingly assertive in its efforts to gain undisputed control over its domestic cyberspace. This pursuit of “Cyber Sovereignty” includes using information technologies to support the regime, controlling which information can be exchanged in China and by whom. Key to enabling such pervasive control online is the enforcement of ubiquitous identifiability—requiring identification as a condition of internet access.
At root then, it appears as though China is not only reshaping online discourse rooms to its advantage—it is also drawing a new digital border between a sphere it seeks to influence and a sphere of ‘harmful,’ non-aligned political ideas.
– Sam Ju, “The Impact of Real-Name Registration (RNR) Policies on Transnational Access Barriers to Chinese Social Media Apps”
RNR policies mandate personal identifiability for virtually all online activities, including apps developed by Chinese internet companies such as WeChat, which has over one billion monthly active users. The Chinese government views these social media apps as critical components of an ideological security firewall to stop potentially “harmful” foreign ideas from entering China’s domestic online sphere. Driven by RNR policies, phone number-based registration systems enable platforms to go so far as to limit access to users from only China or other specified geographic regions (with corresponding and isolating impacts on excluded users/regions).
Ju’s research illustrates the startling breadth of restrictions and examines their impact on transnational communities. His Digital Access Barriers Dashboard (below) allows you to explore which Chinese social media platforms are blocked where, and how blocks have impacted downloads.
Key Findings
- Identifiability requirements are now common for transnational users of Chinese-developed social media apps (roughly 75% of such apps now enforce identifiability requirements for overseas users).
- The implementation and enforcement of RNR policies mandated by the Chinese government has created significant barriers to access for both domestic and international audiences.
- From 2015 to 2023, apps influenced by RNR-related access barriers experienced a pronounced decline in global downloads (with an estimated 14.1 million downloads prevented during the period).
- RNR-related access barriers on Chinese social media platforms are not uniformly enforced across geographies—enabling China to draw new digital borders between spheres of influence.
- The regional variability of access barrier enforcement potentially reflects an ongoing calibration of China’s political and economic calculation of the risks/gains associated with an open exchange of online information for a given region or user base.
Read the Full Report:
- Web Report (English and Simplified Chinese)
- PDF (English)
- PDF (Simplified Chinese)
Digital Access Barriers Dashboards
Explore which Chinese social media platforms are blocked where and how blocks have impacted downloads.
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About the program: OTF’s Information Controls Fellowship Program (ICFP) supports examination into how governments in countries, regions, or areas of OTF’s core focus are restricting the free flow of information, impeding access to the open internet, and implementing censorship mechanisms, thereby threatening the ability of global citizens to exercise basic human rights and democracy. The program supports fellows to work within host organizations that are established centers of expertise by offering competitively paid fellowships for three, six, nine, or twelve months in duration.