Posted on 05/03/2022 11:55:12 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Weibo showed Bill Gates as being in Henan, Messi in Shanghai
Chinese social media platforms began rolling out geolocation features in late April, triggering heated discussion among the country’s netizens.
Using their IP address, Weibo started displaying the location of users from Thursday, April 28, for the sake of creating a “healthy online environment,” according to WhatsonWeibo. In the days that followed, Douyin, Toutiao, Xiaohongshu and Zhihu all followed.
The user’s location is not only visible on account pages, but also alongside any comments or posts they make. The function cannot be turned off in the settings section.
The new feature has generated mixed reactions from users on the platforms. Some commented that knowing whether a user is in China or abroad is useful and the feature allows greater visibility of trending topics that are catching on within one particular region of the country.
Yet many users expressed concern that the function is another tool for monitoring, while others said it is relatively meaningless since the IP location can be changed with a Virtual Private Network (VPN). Other netizens pointed out that celebrity accounts were often not run by the person they represent, but a hired social media manager.
Some were amused to note that, according to Weibo, Bill Gates is actually living in China’s Henan province, while Argentinian soccer legend Lionel Messi showed up as being in Shanghai.
china and the us trying to ‘out-tyranny’ each other-
next the us will say they are gonna require that everyone have alexa devises ‘for the good of the country and safety of everyone”
China is openly tyrannical. Our federal agencies will use geotracking and not tell us.
They’ll be tracking our thoughts from space.
they do it here too.
Do all the bots have the same address?
I’m from the government and I’m here to help.
Cuck Fhina
A savvy person could have some fun with this.
If I tried to mask my location....I might find a way to do it but I’d also probably do it in such a way to leave evidence of my masking and thus would definitely be on a watch list.
If I was young & bored under such conditions - with just a handful of resources - it would be great entertainment to film the ‘shock troops’ descending upon the wrong building.
Sounds like nothing's changed.
Coming here, seeing the lack of reaction here to biden’s DGB.
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