America outsourcing its rage is peak USA. McKinsey would be proud
Even their political commentary is an entertainment export.
X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run
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Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run
#42is 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
To a billionaire, hiring a few hundred Nigerians to upvote and share their propaganda is so cheap that it’s like you buying a cup of coffee. They use professional paid services from these low labour cost countries all the time for publicity or to control the narrative. By some estimates 20-60% of everything you see on social media is generated by a bot farm, depending on the forum in question. An analysis of Reddit s…
It doesn’t have to be and almost certainly isn't some billionaire. Formulaic spicy political nonsense is reliable engagement bait and it's easy to churn eyeballs into (small amounts of) money. It's not even unique, there are similar grinds about sports, religion, cute animals, subculture jokes, etc.
The "control the narrative" stuff is mostly a PR campaign by social media intelligence companies trying to make their services seem more valuable than they are.
Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run
#43I 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.
You can use X through your web browser, avoiding the app store.
Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run
#44America outsourcing its rage is peak USA. McKinsey would be proud
I think it's more like outsiders stoking US rage on both sides. That's a bit different than "outsourcing".
Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run
#45This is another piece of a mosaic that is going to reveal that grey zone warfare by Russia against the west has much larger scope than most people are aware of. The UK National Crime Agency uncovered a huge money laundering enterprise based on the kinds of crime that fly under the national security radar in most places.
> This is another piece of a mosaic that is going to reveal that grey zone warfare by Russia against the west has much larger scope than most people are aware of. Are you people ever going to let this idea go? Almost all of this activity is coming out of India, Israel, and Nigeria. Russia isn’t mentioned once in the article.
Russia hires people in Africa:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/mar/13/facebook-...
Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run
#46Earlier 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?
I don't think so because it seems both sides were engaged with non-American IPs running hugely popular accounts and it makes sense, why wouldn't you play both sides when you are paid for attention? I'm thinking Nikita is falling out with Elon as they both seem to have diverging goals with the platform. Advertisement revenues on X isn't that great and neither are conversions on X so you can't really get consistent pay…
>I'm thinking Nikita is falling out with Elon
Hmm, interesting insight, what did they each say when you talked to them?
Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run
#47Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run
#48I never quite "got" twitter, it was never fun for me to participate on. It's telling / disturbing that folks had such trust in random accounts ...
My main use case is to get up-to-date news on things that mainstream media doesn't cover accurately.
And to be fair, a lot of these accounts that are exposed as grifters were called out as such for a while now. And most of them were so obviously griftery that the only ones that followed them were those that were already so deeply entrenched in their echo chamber.
It's funny that they're explicitly being exposed now though!
Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run
#49It truly is the sewer of the internet.
Are you trying to make sure that any criticism of X can be shrugged off by supporters and detractors alike as cheap ideological attacks? Because if you are, excellent job.
Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run
#50X 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's less about political leanings and more about profits. There's a reason Jack Dorsey didn't do this, or FB or Reddit.