The social network X, owned by the billionaire Elon Musk, launched a new feature that will appear in every user’s account, with the main goal being to display the information about the account and especially where the profile is based, how many times the account changed its username, the account’s joining date and when the user downloaded the application. The main goal behind the new feature is to create transparency and above all to reduce the inauthentic engagement on the platform. In other words – this feature actually reveals the activity of bots impersonating real people with the association of a geographical or social context. At the end of last week, Musk responded to the demand to show information about the residence of the accounts, writing “Give me 72 hours”.
The new mode allows users to make an informed decision if they are interacting with an authentic account or if it is a bot trying to spread fake news. For example, in a tweet from an account that presents itself as an Israeli citizen who votes for a certain party – it will be possible to see whether the account is indeed based in Israel or whether it is located abroad at all. In X, in principle, it is possible to present the country or only the geographical area, and according to her this is an option that will be available in areas where freedom of expression may lead to heavy penalties. To make the above change, you must enter the area defined “privacy and safety” and make the change from there. X is even working on a feature that will display a warning if the account uses a VPN to mask the location, with the aim of stopping those who try to obscure the location of the account.
The fake accounts in Gaza
Reports in the American media have already indicated the exposure of the “campaigns” of many right-wing users in the US who support the America First approach, who are identified with Trump, and thus discovered that these profiles are actually based outside the country. TechCrunch reported that in MAGA’s accounts it can be seen that many of them are generally located in Japan, New Zealand, Pakistan and Thailand.
The fakes and scams even reach the war in Gaza. For example, one of the users claims to be a journalist who lives in Gaza and goes by the name Motasm A Dalloul. His account name is AbujomaaGaza and he has more than 197 thousand followers, but according to the new feature he is actually based in Poland. The owner of the account rejected the claims about this and published a video to prove that he does live in Gaza. According to a Fox News report, there were claims that many users argued about the video and claimed that the video had been digitally altered. Another example that came up on Fox News is an account called QudsNen, which is a type of news network that defines itself as an independent youth news network and the network has over 600 thousand followers. The account states that its location is “Palestine”, but according to the new feature it is based outside of Egypt, which is in contrast to other accounts that are based in “Palestine” such as the Palestinian American Miriam Barghouti.
Various users have complained that the location listed in their profile is not accurate, and X has already said that the data will not be completely accurate with reference to old accounts, and that they will solve the problems in the coming days. The Verge reported that the locations are questionable due to travel, global teams, VPNs, or old IP addresses.
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