Several Chinese social platforms, including Quora-like Zhihu and the domestic version of
TikTok, Douyin, announced on Friday that they will soon display user locations based on internet protocol (IP) addresses, a feature that users cannot disable.
The platforms said the measure, which is not mandated by law, is meant to “prevent netizens from pretending to be locals and spreading rumours”. Other platforms implementing the change include TikTok owner
ByteDance’s news aggregator Jinri Toutiao, Douyin short video rival
Kuaishou, and lifestyle community
Xiaohongshu, which all said locations will be visible on user profiles. Zhihu, China’s popular question-and-answer site, said user locations will be displayed alongside each post.