Sina Weibo, one of China's most popular microblogging sites, introduced new rules for participation this week that discourage anonymous speech and punish spreading falsehoods based on the number of people that falsehood reached.

According to The International Business Times, Sina Weibo—which is something of a Twitter/Facebook hybrid and counts more than 300 million users—introduced new rules for its users on May 28 that give each person a credit rating of sorts. Users start out at 100 points if they sign up with their government-issued ID numbers (like American social security numbers) and a cell phone number; they start out with 80 points if they opt not to divulge that information.

From there, points are taken away if the user is responsible for telling any sort of "falsehood"—from falsified details and images to the exaggeration of events, giving incomplete data, or misquoting others. "The system also punishes those who use code words, homonyms, or abbreviations in their online messages to attempt to bypass Internet censors," reports Voice of America, a US-based radio program and blog for the Tibetan community.

An account with fewer than 60 points is flagged as a low-credit user; accounts with zero points will be closed by Sina Weibo. Users may be able to gain points by building a history of compliance.

According to Voice of America, Sina Weibo already uses a large "rumor control team" to keep user updates in compliance with the demands of the Chinese government. In March, the government made an official request that users of social networking sites re-register with their real names, but users have been slow to meet that request. The new rules are largely seen as an effort to gain control of social users' dialogue.

The beginning of 2012 saw the spread of scandalous rumors involving upper-level Chinese official Bo Xilai, and the Chinese government has done much to stop new information from making its way to the public. In April, one US-based human rights blogger who covered the scandals received a massive DDOS attack on his site. A few days later, several accounts on Sina Weibo were deleted for offering too many salacious details about the Bo Xilai scandals.