Imagine you're on Twitter, and every time you tweet, your location is broadcast to the world. That's what Chinese Weibo users are seeing today.
Weibo is essentially China's version of Twitter, and it's hugely popular, with over 570 million active users. However, once Weibo chose to start disclosing a user's location every time they submit a message, some users may reassess how active they are.
According to Reuters, Weibo made the change to "reduce bad behavior such as impersonating parties involved in hot topic issues, malicious disinformation, and traffic scraping, and to ensure the authenticity and transparency of the content disseminated," and to "ensure the authenticity and transparency of the content disseminated."
This new guideline implies that whenever a user publishes a new post on Weibo, the province or municipality where they were when they hit the publish button will be shown. Their IP address will be published on their account page as well. If a user posts from outside of China, the user's IP country will be shown instead.
Thankfully, the public location isn't too exact, but it's required information sharing and a permanent feature of the service. Weibo expects that it will contribute to the maintenance of "a healthy and orderly atmosphere of conversation" while also "respecting the rights and interests of users to receive true and effective information swiftly." Some users are upset that their location is being published, while others believe it is a good move toward limiting the spread of misinformation and "disgusting content."