Beijing authorities said Tuesday that the city's users of Twitter-like microblog services who fail to register with their real names by March 16 will be banned from posting on those websites, Xinhua reported.

The ultimatum came nearly two months after the city introduced guidelines mandating real-name registration for microbloggers, according to a meeting held Tuesday by the Beijing Internet Information Office (BIIO).

Starting from March 16, unregistered users will no longer be able to post or repost on microblogging websites, though still able to read other people's postings, according to the announcement.

As per the guidelines, new users have been providing their real identities when registering microblog accounts since Jan. 1.

After Beijing's initiative, several other Chinese cities, including Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, adopted similar rules, as authorities believe microblogs help spread rumors and vulgarities.

Nearly half of China's 513 million Internet users frequent the microblog service to gather news and spread views.

(China.org.cn February 9, 2012)

新華社周二消息，3月16日起，北京市未以真實身份注冊的微博用戶將不能在微博上發帖。

北京市互聯網信息管理辦公室周二召開的會議透露，這是該市出臺微博用戶實名注冊管理制度近兩個月以來的最后通牒。

報道稱，3月16日起，未實名注冊的用戶將不能在微博上發言﹑轉貼，但是可以瀏覽他人的帖子。

依照該管理規定，1月1日起，新的微博用戶注冊時使用的都是真實身份。

有關方面認為，微博助長了謠言和粗俗信息的傳播。因此，繼北京之后，上海﹑廣州﹑深圳等城市也將施行類似規定。

據悉，中國5.13億網民中有一半的人常常使用微博來獲取新聞﹑散布觀點。