Chinese social media platforms are now showing your location
and no one is safe
Welcome to China Uncensored, I’m Chris Chappell.
This episode is sponsored by Surfshark.
You should be using a VPN like Surfshark to protect yourself whenever you go online.
And that’s especially important when social media platforms and the government
are tracking everything you do. Like what’s happening in China right now.
Because platforms like Weibo are now publicly displaying
users’ location based on their IP address.
Weibo is like China’s Twitter...if Twitter also displayed the city,
state, and country you’re logging in from, each time you post something.
Weibo announced this IP location feature as a measure for “maintaining a healthy and orderly
atmosphere for discussion” and to “ensure the authenticity and transparency of content.”
They do such a great job of making invasion of privacy sound like safety!
Living under the Chinese Communist Party is like living with a partner who demands
to know where you are and who you’re with at all times of the day. “It’s for your safety. Honey.”
Weibo’s new IP location function means your device’s location is on public display—on
all posts, comments, and even your personal profile page. And no, this is not optional.
Other major online platforms now have a similar location policy.
Like Zhihu, which is similar to Quora.
And WeChat, China’s most popular messaging service.
The changes rolled out in the last week of April.
You might think: “So what, big deal if they show your location? People check in at places on social
media all the time.” .
But this new IP location feature is glued to all of your internet activity. In other words,
you are literally being tracked around the clock.
Every breath you take, every move you make, every bond you break, every step you take,
they'll be watching you.
Hold on, was Sting writing about the Chinese Communist Party?
What’s that, Shelley?
Sting said Every Breath You Take was a nasty,
evil little song about jealousy, surveillance, and ownership.
Jealousy, surveillance, and ownership? So it *is* about the Communist Party!
Anyway, from the Communist Party’s perspective, this IP location tagging
isn’t about surveillance, it’s simply a way to prevent ‘bad behavior.’
“For users in China, the platform will display the province or municipality where they are posting
from... For those using Weibo overseas, the country of users’ IP addresses will be displayed.”
“The new feature works even when users post from mobile devices with location services disabled.”
Now I get why automatic geotagging could theoretically be helpful.
For example, if you want to get a sense of how people in a certain city or province feel about
an issue. Or if you want to verify that a video was actually posted by someone on the ground.
But there are also problems with that.
When there are protests or government abuses or other crises that Chinese citizens want
to talk about on social media, it’s too dangerous—because they’re being tracked.
Sometimes they’ll send the information to their contacts elsewhere to repost anonymously.
Let’s say for instance someone in Hangzhou heard about their friend starving in Shanghai.
They can attempt to spread the message on their social media platforms, but because
their IP tag says Hangzhou and not Shanghai,
no one will believe them—or worse, they can face punishment for ‘spreading rumors’.
But now with this IP location tagging, Chinese state media can easily write
off those sources as uncredible. They can claim it’s all misinformation. Especially
if it’s reposted by someone overseas. Then it’s from hostile foreign forces.
However, this policy was also bound to have some bugs.
For example, on Weibo, Bill Gates’ location shows up as Henan province.
And Elon Musk shows up as being in Beijing.
And that’s because—and this may shock you—these billionaires actually
hire other people to run their Chinese social media accounts for them.
I mean, when you see a vanilla message like this from Elon Musk that’s not
trolling anyone, you know it’s written by someone else.
But like many policies made by the Chinese Communist Party,
the IP location feature has now backfired. I’ll explain more after the break.
Welcome back.
Soon after the IP location feature began, a trending discussion broke out under the hashtag,
“What’s The Meaning Behind the IP Function?” It attracted over 200 million views.
One user defended the feature, writing:
1. It helps to distinguish between domestic and foreign posts.
2. It helps to focus on the collective voice of a province.
3. It helps to identify criminal relations while combating Internet violence.
4. It helps to tie together the virtual world and real society.
Now in some cases, these are actually true.
Several accounts who claim to live abroad in places like Russia and are posting about
their on-the-ground experiences in the Ukraine war have been revealed to be based in...China.
Oops.
Another example involves a user named Lianyue who is a well-known pro-Beijing blogger.
He makes nationalistic posts supporting Shanghai’s Covid prevention efforts—saying
things like, “China’s zero-covid policy is proven
to be the most scientific, most humane, and most cost-effective prevention measure.”
“The West is suffering from their own arrogance by refusing to learn from China.” And
“The whole world might have to deal with the pandemic for several years,
but China will surely stabilize, not to worry.”
In other recent posts, Lianyue would write articles saying,
“I tell the people who want to immigrate to Japan: Don’t go,
you’ll end up getting poisoned by a doomsday cult like Aum Shinrikyo.”
That’s the group that attacked the Tokyo subway with sarin gas in 1995.
Lianyue also wrote, “I tell the people who want to
immigrate to the United States: Don’t go, you’ll end up dying in a terrorist attack like 9/11.”
But now this new IP location feature has revealed where Lianyue was posting from: Japan.
So ‘spreading rumors’ works both ways, doesn’t it?
Lianyue isn’t the only extremely nationalistic influencer who prefers to live outside of China.
People were even more shocked when Weibo revealed the location of the Diba
Expedition.. It’s an online group that’s built its reputation artificially amplifying pro-China
voices in Facebook groups and Twitter to spread patriotic messages overseas.
Domestically, the official Diba account on Weibo has more than 1.5 million followers.
And it has a reputation of spreading fake news about Taiwan.
Well, can you guess the location of the person who runs that account? They’re based in Taiwan.
And if you think that was a big embarrassment for Chinese nationalists, imagine the look on their
faces when they found out Wu Jing, the lead actor in the Wolf Warrior movies, is based in Thailand!
So in the end, the Chinese Communist Party’s policy to track everyone may backfire.
Wu Jing’s big mistake, of course,
is that he didn’t use a VPN like Surfshark to hide his location.
With Surfshark, you can log in using servers from any place you choose, like China or Hong
Kong. That way, when you’re enjoying the good life overseas, you can post about how terrible
life is overseas. You can up your social credit score, and no one will be the wiser.
That’s not the only reason to get Surfshark, of course.
If you’re inside China, you can use Surfshark to route yourself through an overseas server.
That way, you can access the real internet, not the Chinese Communist Party’s censored version.
And it makes it much, much harder for the authorities to track your online activity.
Because in China, they’re always watching you.
Like Sting said.
And Surfshark has some great new features that they’ve just rolled out.
Like a browser extension with a cookie pop-up blocker and Website Safety warnings. And you
can use those features even when you’re not logged in with a VPN connection.
And with the new update, you’ll be seeing fewer of those CAPTCHAS we all hate.
Yes, I know what a fire hydrant is, and THIS IS NOT IT!
The point is, whether you’re in China or pretty much any other country,
your online activity is being constantly monitored. Which is why you should be keeping
your internet activity private by using a VPN, like Surfshark.
It keeps you safe with top of the line,
uncrackable encryption. So if you haven’t yet, check out Surfshark.
And Surfshark has a special deal that includes 83% off of a 2-year plan plus 3 extra months for free.
You can protect yourself for just $2.21 a month.
Go to surfshark.com/uncensored and use the code UNCENSORED to lock it in.
The link is in the description down below.
Once again, I’m Chris Chappell. Thanks for watching China Uncensored.