Yesterday X started rolling out a new About This Account feature, which included what country the account was created from and what country the account is “based” in (which is different from “connected via”). Head of product at X, Nikita Bier, was quick to say that there were “a few rough edges,” but promised they’d be resolved by Tuesday.
The reaction from users on X was, of course, totally level-headed. They immediately recognized that the data was flawed and definitely didn’t spend the last 24 hours trying to score political points.
People on X have done almost nothing but shout that accounts they disagree with are actually foreign operatives. Even users who have publicly complained that the information on their own profile was inaccurate continued on to make bad-faith posts about how their political opponents were running a foreign psyop.
The inaccurate data could have several causes. People who travel, or outlets with staff scattered around the globe, might appear to be “based” somewhere other than where they actually are, at least temporarily. If someone uses a VPN, it could affect where X shows their location. Some of it could just be old IP addresses. At the time of this writing, Hank Green’s account is listed as being based in Japan, MusicTech (a sister publication to the UK’s NME) is showing as based in the US, and AVID (Massachusetts-based maker of ProTools) is listed as being in Spain.
Of course, there is also a kernel of truth to some of this. Many political rage-bait accounts are not based in the US. We’ve long known that troll farms have been waging a foreign influence campaign on American politics. But some of it is also a financial scheme. Monetization on X is largely driven by engagement, and nothing gets people engaged like riling them up about politics.