The Impact of the “Show IP Location” Policy on Geographical Discrimination Based on the Comments on Mainstream Chinese Youth Video Websites “Bilibili”

Abstract

A new policy to show IP location is promulgated by the Chinese government in 2022. Since then, mainstream Chinese social media, including video sites and forums, has to display the provincial IP address of the person who posted the video or article, meaning social media users will be able to see where the article is posted from. This paper collects comments from “Bilibili”, a mainstream video site for young Chinese, and analyzes the content of each comment to determine whether they contain geographically discriminatory content. By comparing the number of geographically discriminatory comments on videos before and after the policy enactment, the author found that the new policy has increased the likelihood of geographic discrimination. In fact, users are more likely to notice the address of the commentator when viewing comments and respond to the commentator in a geographically discriminatory way in relation to the comment content. Looking at the downward trend in geographically discriminatory comments, the author concludes that the decline is partly due to a decline in the novelty of new features among Internet users. Meanwhile, the author summarizes four different types of geographic discrimination, including regional stereotypes, opposing viewpoints generated by unbalanced regional development, international stereotypes, and negative nationalist mentality that arises from political reasons.