[HN Gopher] X's move to show users' location is a great step tow...
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X's move to show users' location is a great step toward online
transparency
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 28 points
Date : 2025-11-30 18:17 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.washingtonpost.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonpost.com)
| damnitbuilds wrote:
| The point of early internet discussions was that "On the
| internet, no-one knows you're a dog".
|
| One could discuss things without the usual silly accusations of
| sexism or racism or ageism or whatever because no-one knew the
| characteristics of the other interlocutors.
|
| X now broadcasting everyone's location and people self-announcing
| their pronouns/race/age whatever are backward steps and make it
| way to easy for the silly people who want to be victims rather
| than argue the facts of an issue.
| techblueberry wrote:
| You're saying the great thing about the early internet is you
| could be sexist and racist without being called out? I thought
| the great thing about the early internet was the
| experimentation and discovery on consistently evolving
| technologies and ideas with like minded folks, but to each
| their own.
| zahlman wrote:
| No, the point was that criticizing someone else wouldn't get
| you wrongly accused of sexism or racism (as it commonly does
| now), simply because everyone would be able to see the
| accusation as absurd (it is logically impossible to
| discriminate on the basis of _information you don 't have_).
| toast0 wrote:
| At the same time, showing the IP/hostname you were connecting
| from was also an early internet norm. IRC, SMTP, Usenet, etc.
| tqi wrote:
| There is no reason why "the point" of the internet has to be
| dictated by people who happened to be online in 1995.
| SilverElfin wrote:
| Sure, it doesn't have to be dictated by anyone. But there is
| still value in what the GP said. Considering ideas for what
| they are, and evaluating them on their merits, is a better
| way to discuss things.
|
| In the least, showing locations (which can be faked), or
| implying that someone in certain geographies is more
| legitimate, is incorrect. If someone lives near me and is
| commenting on some local issue, they can still post fake AI-
| generated images, or spread misinformation, or mislead with
| missing context, or whatever. Those problems still exist, and
| the need to consider the information on its own merits still
| exists. So what do you really gain?
| wkat4242 wrote:
| The internet was one hell of a lot better place to be back
| then, just saying.
|
| Though it's commerce that really broke it.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| "On the Internet, no one knows you're a dog" was a joke in a
| New Yorker cartoon, and it was not written to be complimentary.
| It definitely was not "the point" of early Internet
| discussions.
| simondotau wrote:
| On the contrary, I read the cartoon as being _very_
| complimentary, as it espouses the virtue of egalitarianism.
| Why _should_ someone on the internet know that you 're a dog?
| If you're campaigning for the eradication of cats, perhaps.
| But even then, shouldn't we assume everyone is personally
| motivated and that a good argument is a good argument?
|
| There's an impossible balance to be found between total
| transparency and not having to reveal all truths about your
| being, such as your species.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| >On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_.
| ..
| wkat4242 wrote:
| True but I usually give all fake info. Except my pronouns
| because I want to support the LGBTIQ movement in this day of so
| much hate against us.
|
| But even when I sign to too a web shop or whatever I don't give
| them my real DOB because they have no legit reason to want to
| have it. I just randomise it and store it in my password
| manager.
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| Having made the API incredibly hard to access & having attached
| incredibly harsh terms of service, both of which make X basically
| impervious to the kinds of academic research that the firehose
| there used to allow, there's really a feeling of X as Dark
| Forest. You never know what propoganda network is out there doing
| what, selling what, putting out whatever message it is you've
| happened to alone and naked in the dark X forest. You are but a
| (hu)man, with no ability to assess any background or context or
| behaviors over the things you run into.
|
| This was such a wonderful & amazing move. It's a small move! But
| going from having nothing to having even a small breadcrumb of
| context gives users _some_ understanding of the network around
| them with: at least it 's _something_.
|
| Thanks Sean & Zach for writing this up. Founder/executive types,
| putting their word down about what a phase change this was, from
| everyone just being utterly lost & adrift.
| TZubiri wrote:
| I remember in the early days Twitter was pretty open which
| allowed a lot of hacking around hashtags, even in the
| mainstream (like hashtags for popular brands, or during news
| segments), I even saw twitter being used as a source for
| academic research given how easy it was.
|
| Eventually it was Embraced, Extended and, Extinguished by Elon.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| https://archive.ph/NnzuM
| OGEnthusiast wrote:
| I'm a bit surprised how under-the-radar this story is in the
| mainstream press. It doesn't seem un-thinkable at all that in
| 5-10 years, countries will have digital borders to block certain
| countries from participating in their subset of the Internet.
| There's no way a Trump or Trump-like figure wouldn't love the
| ability to digitally block an entire country at their whim (like
| how he is doing with tariff rates now). And unlike a decade ago,
| it will be sold to the citizens with not much effort at all,
| especially if the current wave of protectionism/nationalism
| continues to hold.
| homeonthemtn wrote:
| I would love that as an option in general. Yes it can be abused
| but that can be said for literally everything. The ability to
| actually have local networks as an option would be a blessing
| though.
| ebbi wrote:
| I can see a certain group of people that would be chomping at
| the bit to be able to digitally block news and media coming out
| of a certain place exposing war crimes for all to see.
| Teever wrote:
| For a while now I've been toying with the idea of national
| governments creating official forums that require some sort of
| verification of national ID to post on.
|
| There are obviously a lot of other issues with social media
| sites like Reddit or HN but imagine how different local
| community subreddits would be if there was some way to know
| that the person you're talking to actually has some personal
| stake in the community and people there.
|
| Personally I'd still want to slum it up on the non-regulated
| social media sites but I'd post on the pseudo-anonymous
| community sites and take what others have to say more seriously
| on there.
| genericacct wrote:
| This is already happening in a number of countries in some way
| or another
| nwellinghoff wrote:
| This is pretty easy to work around via vpns etc. Guess its
| another barrier...for now. But it forces escalating tactics by
| the other side to appear legit. So if ppl come to trust the
| "source" information. It might actually end up worse in the long
| run as the sources are all spoofed. Would need a more advanced
| system using signatures and real life verification to actually
| know a source. Similar to a ca with all of its drawbacks. Point
| being, this move is kind of a wash.
| dvngnt_ wrote:
| I believe it also shows which country's app store the user
| downloaded from which might be harder
| TZubiri wrote:
| But it was not expected, it's a one trick pony, but it worked.
| There's a lot of accounts that were passing as being from one
| country, and they ended up being some content farmer from a
| third world country with a gdp per capita of 2000$.
|
| It was in part fueled by Twitter's idea of paying content
| creators, which made the whole thing an engagement bait party,
| it gave an economic incentive to countries with cheap and idle
| workforces to work 9 to 5 on posting whatever got likes without
| even understanding it, even it was political.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| Yay for X publishing this, but only because it helps address a
| problem that they created in the first place.
|
| By paying a little bit of real cash money for hitting engagement
| stats, X created an incentive for people in other countries to
| fake the most engaging content they can find--which on X is
| right-wing rage bait. It has high emotional content and X's
| algorithm was tweaked to prefer it.
|
| It's no different from the incentives that produced a flood of AI
| slop on Facebook, as thoroughly reported by 404 Media:
|
| https://www.404media.co/where-facebooks-ai-slop-comes-from/
| SilverElfin wrote:
| I disagree that this is a great step towards anything, and
| thinking it is strictly just increasing transparency without
| other downsides feels naive.
|
| The obvious issues: lots of people use VPNs for privacy reasons,
| even if they're not in a country with serious risks from
| governments. Or they use the Internet while traveling and post
| from other locations. Or they may engage in discussions that
| affect them even if they don't live in a particular area. Maybe
| they lived there previously or are going to move there.
|
| But also, this has opened a whole new way to dismiss people and
| their ideas based on location. For example, I see lots of
| comments on X that have become outright racist, against people
| allegedly posting from China, or Pakistan, or India. People with
| politics on all sides are using the location info to claim their
| opponents are falling for foreign propaganda - the left people
| are posting examples of right accounts that are foreign, and
| right people are posting examples of left accounts that are
| foreign. But what's common is when these posts are made, it
| encourages and brings out the most vile attacks against people of
| different ethnicities or countries.
|
| > X's recent bold decision, led by Head of Product Nikita Bier,
| to add country labels to accounts reflects an important shift: a
| recognition that geographic transparency is crucial context to
| help users understand whether a post is a firsthand account or
| distant commentary, whether it reflects genuine local sentiment
| or coordinated foreign messaging.
|
| Nikita is wrong about this. The location is not transparency that
| is helping people understand whether a post is firsthand or
| distant. Most things can be discussed well without location
| playing a hand in what is being discussed. The actual real life
| usage of this is to perform shallow dismissals and racist
| attacks. Not to ascertain the veracity of some claim. Besides
| that, how would location help? Anything can be faked with AI.
| Even if someone genuinely lives in a particular location, they
| can fake content, or mislead readers, or spread misinformation.
|
| I'll also say I am not impressed by Nikita Bier, who is
| apparently leading X's product. The way he communicates on social
| media makes him look like an immature troll rather than someone
| serious (example:
| https://xcancel.com/nikitabier/status/1991723005454741995). I
| guess it is fitting with the image carried by Elon and Twitter/X
| these days, though.
| milchek wrote:
| One major thing this has exposed is how many people from non US
| countries are grifting on the cultural war between the left and
| right in the US by pretending to be on either side.
|
| This kind of content still gets a lot of engagement and can be
| pretty profitable for people in third world countries.
|
| I think it's good that has been exposed. There is a difference
| between me, as an Aussie, commenting on affairs in other
| countries, vs straight up exploiting peoples fears by pretending
| to be left or right wing, in the US, and sharing content to
| further fan the flames between people on the political spectrum.
|
| You could argue they can still post this content, but it's
| already pretty clear people tend to disregard or ignore this kind
| of rage bait when they realise the users are disingenuous.
| gruez wrote:
| >This kind of content still gets a lot of engagement and can be
| pretty profitable for people in third world countries.
|
| How does monetization work in practice? You set up a twitter
| account saying that trans prisoners should get taxpayer funded
| care, and then what? You drop a link to your gofundme? Shill
| some betterhelp affiliate links?
| crimsoneer wrote:
| You just get paid per view on X posts now
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(page generated 2025-11-30 23:01 UTC)