Effects of users’province disclosure in social platforms on their behavior: take Weibo as an example

Abstract

On April 28, the information of the user's province is publicly displayed in Weibo, but whether this move can effectively improve the network environment has not been verified. Through a questionnaire survey, we studies the changes of users' verbal aggression and willingness to express under three Weibo states: not displaying users’ information, displaying users’ province and displaying users’ province and age simultaneously. We find that the measure to show users' provinces is conducive to reducing the aggressiveness of comments and improving the network environment, but it leads to a significant decline in users' willingness to express. However, the impact on users’ behavior is small if user's age is further disclosed on the basis of displaying province. This study provides a new idea for purifying the network environment, and gives a warning for social platforms to pay attention to the loss of users due to the opening of user information.