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Fears surrounding foreign influence and the proliferation of misinformation have prompted social media companies and governments globally to implement measures aimed at restricting or flagging non-local users' participation on large-scale platforms. However, these efforts may inadvertently compromise user privacy and impede freedom of expression. In this study, I examine a sudden policy shift on the Chinese social media platform Weibo, which sought to curb foreign influence by disclosing users' locations at the time of posting. As anticipated, I observe that this decrease in anonymity engenders a chilling effect, leading to diminished public discussion and political criticism of the Chinese government. Intriguingly, I also discover that unveiling users' IP addresses heightens the prominence of geographical identity politics in China, fostering animosity among localities and reducing cross-cutting dialogue on local political issues. I offer an analysis of the broader implications of reducing online user anonymity on political discourse and identity politics.

In this study, we examine the moderation of comment sections by government-affiliated accounts on Sina Weibo, a popular social media platform in China. While previous research has examined the separate strategies of censorship and propaganda used by authoritarian regimes to control information, our work aims to bridge the gap by examining the intersection of these two tactics in China. Specifically, we focus on how government-affiliated accounts use propaganda content and censor undesirable comments under their posts. We utilize a unique, high-frequency dataset and conduct two survey experiments to answer three research questions. First, why and when government-affiliated accounts choose to moderate their comment sections? Second, what are the causal effects of comment section censorship on remaining content and user engagement. Third, how does comment section moderation influence public opinion by altering second-order beliefs.

Using a panel on the political turnovers of 1,201 prefecture leaders in China during 2002-2012, I find that, of all 1,816 serious coal mine accidents, even controlling for the number of deaths they caused, only those with exceptionally higher media coverage have the effect of significantly reducing the prospects of local leaders' promotion.

Analyzing a large corpus of central and local policy documents published by the Chinese government between 2006 and 2017, we identify a typology of three main patterns, top-down (central policy signal predates local diffusion), bottom-up (local diffusion predates central signal and is unperturbed by later central signals), and hybrid (limited local diffusion is significantly augmented by central signal). We find that truly bottom-up diffusion is quite rare in Hu’s or Xi’s administration. Under Xi, however, top-down surpassed hybrid as the dominant mode of diffusion.