China’s Cyberspace Administration has unveiled rules and regulations for managing blockchain technology that require real name verification and registration.
After it becomes effective on 15 February, fines and/or prison sentence will be given to those who violate the rules. The Chinese government have increasingly scrutinized and enforced legislative changes on the hundreds of millions of World Wide Web users in the country.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has created a powerful Internet censorship infrastructure, while adopting progressively restrictive cybersecurity legislation to ban political dissidents online. Blockchain or Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) has been created as an completely anonymous and evenhanded way to record trades through Bitcoin.
Since it saves data in a tamper proof manner, the technology poses a formidable challenge for the authoritarianism of the Party. Internet users in China have been using blockchain to unmask and disseminate information about major scandals.
In April, Proof of the rape of a 19-year-old Beijing University student by her professor that led her to suicide was brought to notice by one of her friends.
The account of the friend was protected with blockchain technology against censorship of the internet. The professor was expelled and punished after the public backlash. Likewise, with blockchain, several Chinese internet users exposed a government agency scandal involving child vaccination with totally fake or defective vaccines.
According to the Central News Agency of Taiwan, the new regulations governing blockchain usually appear to deter people from publishing information about debacles that the authorities find disgusting. Last October, a draft version of the blockchain oversight was published. The new document issued on 10 January is the last amended version.
Under the new rule, all blockchain operators must submit an application with the organization code of their company, identify their legitimate personal representatives, company name, mobile phone number, application area, nature of service, service type and IP server address. Following deployment, blockchain operators must ensure that the online content complies with the laws of the government, tracks all user data and so on.
The rule dictates that operators running blockchain platform must compulsorily register with the Cyberspace Administration’s regional office within 10 days of starting a new service; inform within 5 days of modifying a service; and provide notice to the authorities within 30 days of halting a service. Any blockchain operator who breaches the laws is subject to penalties of up to 30,000 yuan ($4,450) by the Cyberspace Administration or imprisonment if the misdemeanour is considered serious.
The rules governing the operation of the blockchain are the recent regulations embraced by the CCP in a series of efforts to limit the right to free speech in recent times. The Chinese government released an Internet security law in November 2016, which was enacted on 1 June 2017. In May, the officials unveiled their provisions for the Administration of Internet News Information Services, which were enacted on the same day as the Internet Security Law.
In January 2011, CCP amended its Internet Information Service Administration Procedures, which first appeared in September 2000.
The Communist Party mobilized considerable resources and officers to actively monitor the use of the Internet in China to impose these rules and regulations. The liberal press cannot post any vital information the communist regime perceives unfavorable and people were penalized for doing so.
VPNs that effectively allow netizens to gain access to blocked sites like Google, Facebook and Twitter are policed even now. Two social media platform users were recently prosecuted for using VPNs.
Latest reports indicate that the Party officials, including the police, hacked and ordered Twitter accounts of notable activists to post incriminating news content in their names, cook up evidence and build a case with distorted truths in court.
