Professor Ping Xu, along with coauthors Sirui Li and Yue Guo, recently published the article “Location, Location, Reaction: How Mandatory IP Disclosure Silences Critics and Sparks Backlash” in Policy & Internet (Journal Impact Factor: 3.6 (2025)). The study examines how displaying users’ IP locations on social media platforms shapes online political expression and public criticism.

Using more than 160,000 comments collected before and after a 2022 Sina Weibo policy requiring uses’ provincial IP locations to be publicly displayed, it was  foud that mandatory IP disclosures changes where and how users express criticism online. Users become less likely to post negative comments under government-run accounts after the policy change, while criticism intensified in repositing sections and peer-to-peer discussions under non-government accounts. The findings suggest that increased visibility does not eliminate dissent, but instead redistributes it into less monitored online spaces where criticism may become even more amplified.

This research is especially important as governments and social media platforms around the world increasingly experiment with identity and location disclosure policies to improve transparency, authenticity and trust online. The study highlights how these policies can produce unintended consequences for political expression and public discourse, offering important insights for policymakers, technology companies,and scholars studying digital governance and online communication.

Link to Article: https://doi.org/10.1002/poi3.70034