A new feature meant to boost transparency on Elon Musk’s platform relies on data that researchers say can be inaccurate or easily spoofed.
Advocates for transparency on social media cheered this weekend when X, the app owned by tech billionaire Elon Musk, rolled out a new feature that disclosed what the company said were the country locations of accounts.
The feature appeared to unmask a number of accounts that were portraying themselves as belonging to Americans but in reality were based in countries such as India, Thailand and Bangladesh.
But by Monday, the effectiveness and accuracy of the feature were already in question, as security experts, social media researchers and two former X employees said the location information could be inaccurate or spoofed using widely available technology, such as virtual private networks (VPNs), to hide their locations.
Anyone have a theory for why he’s doing this now?
My theory: I doubt Musk had any hands on direct control in the decision. If he did, the feature would probably still be active. My guess is one of the developers quietly pushed the update because, looks around, reasons. It was reversed so quickly I have a feeling Musk was blindsided like most of us.
I bet, musk demanded a thing, was told it would be a bad idea, he fired that guy, the next guy just does what he says, musk is completely shocked that the entire movement telling him he’s cool were just foreign psyops and he ordered it shut off. Fired the guy who listened to him, for good measure.
I have a feeling he would never approve it to begin with.
Exactly my point. Once he found out about the change it was squashed.
Oh shit, I didn’t realize they reversed it. That makes sense now.
“oops I accidentally introduced a bug that caused it show up, my bad, I’ll fix it riiiiiiiiiight after my break”