America outsourcing its rage is peak USA. McKinsey would be proud
X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run
31–40 of 328 posts
Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run
#32It should be noted that this has not revealed anywhere near as much as was being eagerly anticipated. So far nearly all the screenshots I've seen passed around are relatively low-follower barely-known accounts even in each one's own aligned political sphere.
Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run
#33I assume the country of origin is detected based on IP address. These fakers will now create Azure VMs hosted in the US, then login to those VMs and use X from the VM. A lot of scammers disguise their location using this method.
Blocking datacenter IPs it is then.
Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not really surprised it was rolled back given Musks political leanings. I am surprised it was even added in the first place though, surely this outcome was obvious?
Seems like they would have had the statistics. It's a shame that they rolled it back. I'm not necessarily an Elon fan but I respected this feature immensely.
Feature is online for me now. Maybe A/B test, or incomplete rollout?
Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run
#35X obviously isn't the only platform where this is taking place and it is curious as to why they rolled it back. how open are you to a US citizen verified town square online? You'd have to scan your passport or driver license to post memes and stuff.
I'm not really surprised it was rolled back given Musks political leanings. I am surprised it was even added in the first place though, surely this outcome was obvious?
It was rolled back temporarily because the first version had an "account created in country [X]" indicator that was found to be unreliable. The new version (which is active now) just has the country the user is currently in.
Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run
#36I assume the country of origin is detected based on IP address. These fakers will now create Azure VMs hosted in the US, then login to those VMs and use X from the VM. A lot of scammers disguise their location using this method.
Are Azure VMs different to a VPN? Sorry I'm not the most technical.
Reason I ask is because there are few people I follow that use VPNs but their location is accurate on X.
Also, X also shows where you downloaded the app from, e.g. [Country] App Store, so that one might be a bit more difficult to get around.
Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run
#37is there any technical reason why us accounts might be identified as foreign or is this really a foreign play or us people hiring ppl outside the country
Maybe most of these accounts are managed by a offshore'd social media company?
Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run
#38Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run
#39First, allow anyone to sign up for the blue check mark for $8. Verified accounts loses its value and Twitter gets flooded with fake accounts and foreign run accounts. Now, try to fix it with by showing users country of origin. Now, these users will try to figure out ways to bypass it.
After this change, accounts created in US will be sought after. Operate them through a US VPN. Voracious appetite for consuming content will be filled by outsiders. US effs up the world with violence, now world is riling up Americans with similarly worded content of their own politicians.
Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run
#40Anyone who follows the space closely has known about this for at least the last year. It was quite common for these accounts to make slip-ups that revealed their country of origin and to subsequently be doxxed by ideological enemies or rival influencers (they all want to be the leader and they all absolutely hate each other).
Almost all of these accounts are operating out of India or Israel. The Indians are usually in it for the money (though there’s probably some Israeli outsourcing going on there, too), whereas the Israelis were riding off 2010s Islamophobia to prime American Evangelicals for their activities in Gaza.