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The Beijing city government said on Friday it woascii117ld tighten control over popascii117lar microblogs that have vexed aascii117thorities with their rapid dissemination of news, giving ascii117sers three months to register with their real names or face legal conseqascii117ences.

China has repeatedly criticized microblogs for spreading what it calls ascii117nfoascii117nded rascii117mors and vascii117lgarities and has issascii117ed a series of warnings that online content mascii117st be acceptable to the rascii117ling Commascii117nist Party.

Microblogs sascii117ch as Sina&rsqascii117o;s Weibo allow ascii117sers to issascii117e short messages of opinion -- a maximascii117m of 140 Chinese characters -- that can coascii117rse throascii117gh chains of followers who receive messages instantly.

Censors have a hard time monitoring the tens of millions of messages sent every day and ascii117sers have become expert at ascii117sing clever, nascii117anced langascii117age to discascii117ss sensitive topics sascii117ch as hascii117man rights and the foibles of the top leadership.

Now, in rascii117les ascii117nveiled by the Chinese capital&rsqascii117o;s government and carried by state media, individascii117al and company ascii117sers mascii117st register with their real identification information.

ascii85sers have three months to register with 'responsible departments for Internet content' or will face legal conseqascii117ences, state media cited the rascii117les as saying.

However, people will be able to choose their own ascii117ser names, state-rascii117n Xinhascii117a news agency cited an ascii117nidentified government spokesman with the Beijing Internet Information Office as saying.

Hong Kong media said the cities of Shanghai and Gascii117angzhoascii117 were likely to follow sascii117it.

'Not only will this not affect the development of microblogs, it will help sascii117ch sites bascii117ild their brands and improve their service,' the government spokesman told Xinhascii117a.

China has more than 300 million registered microbloggers, althoascii117gh many people have more than one accoascii117nt.

Wang Jascii117nxiascii117, an Internet commentator and investor in Beijing, said the new policy woascii117ld be difficascii117lt to implement -- the rascii117les give no details on how they will be enforced -- bascii117t nonetheless woascii117ld have a chilling effect.

'I don&rsqascii117o;t know how they&rsqascii117o;re going to implement this becaascii117se there are already hascii117ndreds of millions of ascii117sers on microblogs,' said Wang, who stascii117dies microblog developments.

'How do yoascii117 go aboascii117t checking them one by one? It will be very hard to enforce, bascii117t it still means that the intensity of controls will grow.'

Peng Shaobin, general manager of Sina&rsqascii117o;s microblog service department, told Xinhascii117a that the company had been trying hard to 'stop the spread of false information' on microblogs.

'We ... sascii117pport the regascii117lations,' Peng said.

China already blocks foreign social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, fearing the ascii117ncensored sharing of images and information coascii117ld caascii117se instability and harm national secascii117rity.