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Silenced? Does social-media real-name registration policy facilitate firm misconduct? Evidence from greenwashing in China

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Removing anonymity in social media may stimulate firm misconduct as it reduces social media’s monitoring effects. This paper employs China’s 2015 social media real-name registration policy as a quasi-natural experiment that requires internet users to register their real ID with the government. Results indicate that the policy caused a robust and economically meaningful increase in corporate greenwashing which is a classical misconduct. Results are robust with various robustness checks. Further analysis demonstrates that removing anonymity attenuates social media’s monitoring role in corporate greenwashing by mitigating three channels: reputation cost, market pressure from investors and regulation pressure that social media exerts on firms. Theoretically, our findings identify user anonymity as a key institutional condition enabling social media to function as an informal governance mechanism. The results also highlight a regulatory trade-off: identity-verification rules may curb online harm but can inadvertently weaken external oversight of firm misconduct.

Source: Humanities and Social Sciences Communications

DOI: 10.1057/s41599-026-08104-z

Authors: Chao Yuan, Junming Li, Youze Zhang, Weixing Cai

Institutions: Guangdong University Of Finances and Economics, Guangdong University of Finance

Language: English

Topic: Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting

Subfield: Strategy and Management

Field: Business, Management and Accounting

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Peace, justice, and strong institutions

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $1,890