Geo-location tags expose falsehoods peddled by CCP’s hypernationalistic social media brigade

Beijing, May 9 (FN Agency) The Chinese Communist Party’s social media brigade of pro-government opinion leaders and patriotic trolls are now under a dark cloud – thanks to app updates that reveal the users’ geo-location data. Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter-like social media platform, recently updated its application to show individual users’ geolocation data, citing the need to prevent disinformation and rumours. The location data has unexpectedly exposed the falsehoods being perpetrated by these pro-government trolls. The latest application upgrade launched on April 28 shows users’ locations whenever they publish on Weibo. Other social media platforms have also launched the geolocation tag feature. This has led to the discovery by netizens that a number of patriotic opinion leaders are actually residing outside China, while in their posts they exhort the Chinese nationals to stay in China. Among the most eye-catching ones is prominent blogger Lian Yue. The prominent patriotic blogger Lian Yue once urged people not to migrate to Japan. After the introduction of the new geolocation IP marking policy on various social media platforms, an article that Lian Yue published on April 29 indicated that his IP as in Japan. Lian Yue previously wrote on his WeChat and Weibo public accounts: “I told those who planned to migrate to Japan: don’t go, sooner or later you would be poisoned by organizations that resemble Amu Shinrikyo; I told those who planned to migrate to the US: don’t go, sooner or later you would be killed in terrorist attacks that resemble 911.”

Upon the exposure of his whereabouts, the patriotic opinion leader admitted that he is indeed in Japan for medical tourism. But netizens are not satisfied with his answer. On Weibo, many asked him to reveal his disease and why he had to travel all the way to Japan for treatment. More shocking exposure is the whereabouts of Diba, an online group which has built its reputation by organizing expeditions on Facebook and Twitter to spread patriotic messages overseas. Its geolocation data indicates that the account is posted from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan. Diba has become famous after organizing a Facebook expedition to troll the newly elected Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen in 2016. Though the geolocation tag can be explained by the use of VPN, a circumvention tool, there are also claims that two key members of Diba are indeed residing in Hualien city of Taiwan and allegedly both are active in spreading fake news about Taiwan on mainland Chinese social media outlets, reported Global Voices. Diba’s whereabouts prompted a flood of mockery on both Taiwanese and Chinese social media. Some mocked Diba as a “foreign force” or even a spy, others laughed at the new feature as it has unexpectedly exposed the overseas Chinese Tiny Pinks (a monomer for hyper-nationalistic Chinese citizens] and disinformation networks).

The following Weibo post summed up the nature of patriotic performance on Chinese social media reflected in the location data: “Upon the publication of IP geolocation data on Weibo, the ghosts and monsters are made visible. Lian Yue, a key patriotic opinion leader is having fun in Japan while attacking the US in his posts. Di Ba, which claims to liberate Taiwan, is based in Taiwan… They have been inciting netizens’ emotions will ill-intention, disrupting the order on the internet, and making a profit by attracting views from stupid people…” The geo-location tag has also exposed many Fake overseas news outlets. Many self-proclaimed overseas accounts are actually operating in China. For example, the geolocation of “Affairs in the UK”, a Weibo account with 12 million followers, is in fact based in Guangdong. The majority of social media accounts with an overseas image have built their media businesses by translating foreign news and viral content to attract views (such as “Affairs in the UK”) and advertising products and services (such as “Rabbit mom in the US” which publishes from Beijing). After their readers discovered, they were not residing overseas as they claimed, some of these bloggers shut down their comment functions to block sarcastic and angry comments. A few have stepped out to clarify. For example, video blogger “Anhan sister and her family are in the US” explained that her posts with the Xiamen geolocation tag were published by her sister. But not many people buy her explanation. Amid all the chaos, it is anticipated that more Chinese netizens will use VPNs to hide their geolocation.