[HN Gopher] X begins rolling out 'About this account' location f...
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X begins rolling out 'About this account' location feature to
users' profiles
Author : xqcgrek2
Score : 42 points
Date : 2025-11-23 15:49 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (techcrunch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com)
| explodes wrote:
| I welcome this change. I wonder what the actual resulting impact
| will be, however.
| hbarka wrote:
| Don't wonder, it's obvious. When you turn on the light you see
| the cockroaches. Any transparency changes incentives. Look how
| the dynamics have changed overnight. Next, Twitter has to do
| something about the rage engagement payola.
|
| Why product managers overseeing any forum platform have not
| implemented something easy and obvious as account location
| metadata is something sociologists need to study.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > Why product managers overseeing any forum platform have not
| implemented something easy and obvious as account location
| metadata is something sociologists need to study.
|
| All social platforms of the last decade rely on "engagement"
| and bots/trolls/fake accounts/etc contribute to that, both
| directly and in terms of posting inflammatory content that
| the masses then "engage" with.
| karlgkk wrote:
| > Why product managers overseeing any forum platform have not
| implemented something easy and obvious as account location
| metadata is something sociologists need to study.
|
| This was a common-ish feature for a long time and major sites
| like 4chan have had it in one form or another I think for
| literally decades at this point.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Maybe because it is so easy to fake, that putting that signal
| on there lends undue credence to it.
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| In six months they'll make hiding your location a feature of
| the paid subscription.
| signatoremo wrote:
| Well, a hidden location would be a signal too
| verdverm wrote:
| Could become an in group signal, essential creating so much
| noise the signal is no longer valuable
|
| one can imagine the influencers saying they X is lying or I
| fear for my safety and them the whole bandwagon joining in
| genter wrote:
| We get to see this:
|
| https://www.threads.com/@timmy_tostada/post/DRaGc3PDwSh
| mc32 wrote:
| I think it's obvious these kinds of accounts were for
| engagement. Happy to see grifter accounts from two bit
| locales exposed for what they are.
| gryn wrote:
| so they'll pay for VPNs/Proxies with residential IPs in their
| desired location.
|
| heck twitter will probably later offer you an option to buy it
| themselves or an option to set your desired location if you just
| pay for X++ premium bot services.
| SmirkingRevenge wrote:
| I assume most accounts getting exposed now basically started
| with the assumption that this info would not be exposed
| publicly, but they will adapt.
|
| So this is like a one time shot of transparency, that will
| quickly be useless (although I've been hearing it has been
| rolled back already - some speculation is because it exposed
| that the majority of MAGA boosters were not US based)
| kardianos wrote:
| No, it exposed the groypers and racists masquerading as MAGA
| or conservatives who are from foreign countries.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Yeah, and they will delete their accounts and start over,
| only logging in when they're on a US terminated VPN.
|
| Whoever was following these people aren't taking a hard
| look at themselves in the mirror now. They're just
| searching out the same content that is "really" American.
| AuthAuth wrote:
| Whats the difference? Both groups are firmly MAGA and
| supported by MAGA.
| gradientsrneat wrote:
| Way too many social media CEOs claim that if they just force
| their users to dox themselves, that it will somehow prevent all
| the toxic engagement. You need look no further than Facebook to
| see where it goes. Not only does the toxicity not go away, but
| Facebook makes tons of money off political ads and "boosted"
| posts; they even have had an office of sorts in China, where
| Facebook is banned, for the purpose of making it easier for
| Chinese to sell ads/engagement on Facebook. And it's not just
| China doing this.
|
| I'd reckon Twitter's long-term goal isn't to make the trolls go
| away, but to pay for the privilege of visibility.
| paulddraper wrote:
| > You need look no further than Facebook to see where it goes.
|
| FB has required real identities for a long, long time.
|
| I don't think that case study provides a good before/after
| analysis.
|
| ----
|
| People are "toxic" in general. They kill each other.
|
| But removing anonymity reduces it.
| baiac wrote:
| I disagree. Knowing where an account is from helps gauge its
| authenticity.
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(page generated 2025-11-23 23:01 UTC)