NOWHERE TO HIDE? ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF IP ADDRESSES REVEALING POLICY ON POLITICAL EXPRESSION IN CHINA

Abstract

Could the Chinese party-state achieve public opinion guidance without censorship and surveillance? The study assessed the impact of IP addresses revealing policy on people’s online political expression. The new policy in cyberspace management, which required online platforms to reveal users’ IP addresses to others, was not a direct intervention in people’s political expression. Using the data of online discussion about the zero-COVID policy and the Russia-Ukraine War from Weibo, as well as the deep learning algorithm Chinese BERT-wwm-ext and a Difference-in-Differences strategy, I found that the policy suppressed expression of dissents in the case of zero-COVID policy while had no impact on discussion about the Russia-Ukraine War. The differences in the intensity of government preference, the intensity of public to impose pressure on government decisions, and the importance of users’ location to their credibility among the two cases may lead to the difference in impact. I argue that the impact of the policy relies primarily on mutual monitoring and self-censorship. Users could recognize and report disinformation that is not favorable to the government posted by other users based on IP addresses information, thus enhancing mutual monitoring. And users misperceive the policy as a signal to strengthen censorship and individual tracing, also enhancing self-censorship. The research made contribution to the studies of how the Chinese party-state suppresses expression of dissents through enhancing mutual monitoring and self-censorship. Even if the policy was implemented in an indirect and soft way, the intervention can still have an impact on people’s political expression.