According to TechCrunch, X recently began rolling out a new “About This Account” feature that displays user information including geographic location. The feature revealed that many right-wing “America First” accounts appear to be based outside the United States, with locations showing in Japan, New Zealand, Pakistan, and Thailand. Left-wing influencer Micah Erfan posted a gallery of these accounts calling it “total armageddon for the online right.” X’s director of product Nikita Bier acknowledged Saturday that the “data was not 100% for old accounts” and suggested technical issues would be resolved by Tuesday. The Verge noted that while some accounts might actually be foreign operations, many listed locations seem questionable due to travel, VPNs, or old IP addresses.
The location chaos continues
Here’s the thing about location data – it’s notoriously unreliable. People travel. They use VPNs for privacy. Companies have global teams. And platforms often cache old IP addresses that haven’t been updated in years. So when X suddenly starts displaying location information that contradicts an account’s stated identity, you get exactly the kind of chaos we’re seeing now. Some users are reporting their location shows as countries they’ve never even visited. Basically, this feels like another half-baked X feature rollout that creates more problems than it solves.
Political firestorm meets technical reality
Now, let’s be honest – there absolutely are foreign actors and troll farms operating across social media. The Daily Beast covered this phenomenon extensively. But when your detection system flags what appears to be every other MAGA account as foreign-based, you have to wonder about the accuracy. X’s product director called this “an important first step to securing the integrity of the global town square,” which sounds great until you realize the data might be completely wrong. So we’re left with political accusations based on potentially flawed information. Not exactly the “integrity” anyone was hoping for.
The bigger picture here
This whole situation raises a fundamental question: Should platforms even be displaying location data this way? When the information is unreliable, you’re essentially handing people ammunition for misinformation. The initial viral posts claiming widespread foreign influence operations were based entirely on this questionable data. And while X acknowledges the issues, the damage to individual accounts’ reputations might already be done. It’s another reminder that in the rush to add “transparency” features, platforms often create new problems while solving old ones. Sometimes the cure really is worse than the disease.
