Recent fires outside Beijing and in Tianjin caused stirs in Chinese internet and criticism of safety violations, non performance of local officials, and the resulting hasty eviction of migrant workers in unsafe buildings. There was also the uproar of kindergarten abuse of children and swirling of rumors. Those incidences are the results of growing pains of urbanization. Even in West we have the London tower fire killing 70 people, and the Oakland converted warehouse fire killing more than 30 people, resulting blames and the Fire Department started evicting artists from other converted warehouses whom were forced out to Oakland because of the high rents from San Francisco.
Yet the controversies died out pretty quickly as those who spread false rumors were arrested or forced to confess their mistaken reports, while those correct reports were addressed by officials showing transparency and promises better services. The true name requirement serves its purpose by limiting unfound rumors while still protecting the privacy of those whistle blowers showing true short comings.
Looking at all the Russian bots interference in 2016 U.S. election, with false stories of Clinton wrong doings permeated in social media. With a cost of only a few hundred thousands of dollars, reaching tens of millions of U.S. netizens. The true cost to U.S. society and the world will not be known yet for years to come. Even in Hong Kong today, U.S. is still paying to stir the pot of independence movement there while claiming it’s all for democracy.
Of course the GFW will slow down true exchange of ideas, but for those who need scientific exchanges I don’t think it’s that difficult to circumvent it, and China is willing to pay the price for Cyber Sovereignty to prevent the chaos like in U.S. still not resolved from the Mueller investigation.