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.
I mean if it’s based on the time of creation it would to me that’s the idea of it though. IE the troll accounts that have spent 5 years building up a following, the only way to salvage them if their creation location was bad, is to delete them and start a new one from a VPN in the country they are supposed to be from. At which point smart people are going to note “the wave of accounts made in 2025-2026 and note that timing”.
Course unless Elon works to change that rule, not tie in the original country etc, or make a blue checkmark feature “anti-doxing” to protect your private information like country.