Social Media Transparency Bolsters Geopolitical Stability in East Asia

Social media platforms in East Asia have begun implementing geographic transparency measures that are proving instrumental in combating cross-border scams and foreign information manipulation.

X (formerly Twitter) and Threads, two platforms with substantial user bases in East Asia, have recently unveiled features that display account-level location information. X has implemented indicators showing possible geographic origins and proxy service usage, while Threads has introduced location labels that users can optionally hide.

The impact of these changes became immediately apparent when numerous accounts posing as Japanese women conducting sexual scams targeting Taiwanese users were traced back to Cambodia and Bangladesh after Threads began displaying location data.

Beyond reducing fraud, these transparency measures have revealed coordinated information manipulation campaigns targeting East Asian societies. On X, which remains a central platform for political discourse in Japan, accounts aggressively promoting Ryukyu independence while claiming to be Okinawa locals were exposed as operating from China or Hong Kong.

Taiwan has experienced similar revelations on an even larger scale. As the country with the highest proportion of Threads users—accounting for nearly 20 percent of the platform’s total traffic—Taiwan has become a focal point for political debate and social mobilization online.

Following Threads’ introduction of location disclosure, Taiwanese users identified numerous accounts falsely claiming local residency that were actually based in mainland China. These accounts consistently targeted Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party with inflammatory rhetoric, labeling it “Nazi,” “authoritarian,” or “violent,” while simultaneously promoting narratives of American decline.

To enhance credibility, these inauthentic accounts often featured elaborate fabricated backgrounds, including specific townships of residence, claimed length of stay, or use of machine-translated Taiwanese dialect. Given that Threads is officially blocked in China, the scale of such activity suggests significant cross-border coordination.

Research indicates these operations risk distorting issue salience among Taiwanese voters and deepening political polarization—both having direct implications for cross-strait stability and regional security dynamics.

From a broader policy perspective, enhanced social media transparency yields several stabilizing effects on regional geopolitics. First, it improves democratic deliberation by allowing users to better assess where political messaging originates, making domestic discourse less vulnerable to external manipulation.

Second, transparency significantly undermines impersonation and false-flag operations. By raising the costs of posing as domestic voices, platforms reduce the ability of external actors to provoke social conflict or diplomatic tension between countries. This facilitates more genuine cross-society exchange and reduces misperception.

Third, many information manipulation networks overlap with transnational scams and financial crimes. Location disclosure provides governments with actionable intelligence that enables cross-border cooperation against these activities, ultimately strengthening trust and coordination between states.

Foreign information manipulation is increasingly recognized as a component of cognitive warfare. Studies of the Russia-Ukraine conflict suggest such operations are often deployed in pre-conflict phases to shape public perceptions and reduce the political costs of military operations. By empowering citizens to identify manipulation, transparency reduces the effectiveness of such tactics.

For social media companies, making geographic metadata visible to users imposes minimal additional costs, as this information is already collected. Although such data was previously kept hidden primarily for commercial reasons, transparency delivers broader strategic benefits by stabilizing political communication and reducing the effectiveness of foreign influence operations.

In geopolitically sensitive regions like East Asia, platform transparency should therefore be understood not merely as a business decision but as a low-cost, high-impact contribution to regional stability and an essential part of corporate social responsibility.