I think one can think both that the Chinese government is exceptionally repressive and be scared how many people in the West might be willing to follow their lead.

Thankfully, I don't think a real names policy has much chance in the US for the time being.

Most Norwegian newspapers enforce a full-name policy in their comments sections. Which is frankly ridiculous; anyone who seriously wants to troll just comes up with a fake name. But it's very worrying that this is taken seriously by people in our own society.

Don't know the quality of Norwegian comments on newspapers, but if it's anything like what happens in my country, I can understand them asking for full names. In short, stupid and mean, really mean, YouTube-style. Of course, a full name policy doesn't help. Even when the comments section is powered by Facebook, with most users having real names and being sort of trackable, you still get the same stupid and mean comments, because let's face it, a majority of us on the web are stupid and mean.

I'm really against nation wide policies, but on the other hand here we're talking about web properties. Personally I don't care when those shitty newspapers that I don't even read demanding full names. For one it's their right to do so. And also, as long as this isn't by law, it means that you always have alternatives and that's what competition is about. I mean, really, Reddit has 10 times more users than the population of your country and my country combined.

So they basically just has a full-name policy, but don't actually enforce it.

The difference is in who is requiring this. The site operator/company (such as blog,newspaper,social network) or the central govt. It makes a big difference.

As US custom (e.g. the Federalist Papers) and jurisprudence has anonymity so strongly established, it's hard for me to see such a thing here without a simultaneous hot civil war. It would tread on a very important part of our Constitutionally enshrined core political free speech.

Your federal government is conducting warrantless searches without any claim of probable cause, at every airport and on public transportation systems in your cities.

There is no hot civil war.

And lots of us have replied by no longer using airports (I believe you grossly overstate the searches in public transportation system. Or my sources on VIPR etc. are woefully inadequate, not to mention my friends and my own personal experiences on the DC Metro and the Boston MBTA systems). It is possible, it's even convenient or required for many people.

That's very different from a nationwide, you can't escape this without breaking the law, outlawing of anonymous speech in one or more media.

And I bet if this new Chinese policy were implemented in the US, a lot of you would reply by no longer posting comments. And not much else would happen.

And you base this on what?

Americans' famously peaceful and agreeable nature? Our still having the ingrained habit of tugging our forelocks that was required from where we emigrated?

That our response to the response of our ruling class to Sandy Hook was to buy every weapon of military utility that was available, finishing the last stock of surplus military bolt action rifles (the Russian and Soviet Mosin-Nagants): http://www.bob-owens.com/2012/12/something-funny-happened-on... Look at the adjusted NSSF NICS retail gun purchase figures, all during the grinding Great Recession. We aren't buying these weapons to just polish and admire, as the perpetual post-Obama election ammunition supply problems attests.

Percentage of Americans who know what the Federalist Papers are: <20%

However the percentage who currently care about freedom of speech and of the press jurisprudence will tend to do so (any guesses on ACLU members?), and if this became an issue that started affecting the other >80% that would change real fast. Or maybe just our cultural "DNA" is sufficient, you don't need to know the details if you know and follow the principles.

You know, that is probably true. And if so, that is incredibly depressing and disappointing.

You'd be surprised at what laws could get pushed through should there be another major terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

I don't believe anywhere in my statement that I denied such a thing. I'm just, among other things, stating consequences, assuming of course that e.g. the Supremes don't slap it down as they have other threats to anonymous political speech, or we don't "throw the bums out" as happened after the passage and use of the Alien and Sedition acts, etc. etc.

It's often formulated at soap box, jury box, ballot box, and bullet box. Preclude the use of the first 3 and we're left with the last.

Oh we can get anything pushed through as long as you buy the right politicians. The "will of the people" means very little these days.

Perhaps. But our current ruling class should remember that we are slow to anger, and I see plenty of evidence of they do.

It's weird how everytime there is criticism of some country people pop up to say that the US is also bad in some way. It's a non sequitur. China is fucked up, full stop. Is the US fucked up too? Yes. That doesn't mean China should not be criticized for their fuckupery.

Oh, those crazy Americans...

You made it sound as if we shouldn't call the Chinese crazy over this. When in fact we should call both crazy.

I've even seen support for such measures here on HN. The most popular justification is "to fight cyber-bullying".

Yes, and those people in the USA that believe we should do the same are called net neutrality supporters.