Related:
X begins rolling out 'About this account' location feature to users' profiles
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46024417
Top MAGA Influencers on X/Twitter Accidentally Unmasked as Foreign Trolls
X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run
171–180 of 328 posts
Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run
#172I 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.
Yes and no. It also shows which app store country the account is tied to, and that my friend is a little bit more work. It also shows an icon when it suspects VPN. A lot of these foreign run accounts are in fact not using VPN and their host country matches their app store country. Lots of "e-girl" type of accounts are foreign owned, and there's an insane number of racist accounts LARPing as American run from places like Turkey, and other countries. I think my favorite call out was some Canadian account that nobody realized was Canadian. I think if you're going to inject yourself in the politics of other countries your audience deserves to know if you're not even living there.
Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
You can but a lot of people use their phone and the official apps. It also shows if you primarily use a browser. :)
Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
I might have a very different reading of the parable of the cave to you? Can you elaborate? (At the risk of spoiling the joke)
I'm not author of parent. My impression of the joke is that intelligent and knowledgeable people willingly engage with social media and fall into treating what they see as truth, and then are shocked when they learn it's not truth. If the allegory of the cave is describing a journey from ignorant and incorrect beliefs to enlightened realizations, the parent is making a joke about people going in reverse. Perhaps they…
The number of otherwise intelligent folks I follow on twitter who occasionally brag or make note of their follower count without realizing 80%+ are bots is way too high.
I think that's by design though. Tolerate bots to get high-value users to participate more after they think real people are actually listening to them.
Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run
#175I 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.
Yes and no. It also shows which app store country the account is tied to, and that my friend is a little bit more work. It also shows an icon when it suspects VPN. A lot of these foreign run accounts are in fact not using VPN and their host country matches their app store country. Lots of "e-girl" type of accounts are foreign owned, and there's an insane number of racist accounts LARPing as American run from places l…
You don't need an app to use X though. I've been on X for over 5 years and never installed the app. In fact, X is far better with Firefox+uBlock on mobile.
Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run
#176This is happening all over US social media, even here. If you ever wonder why US hatred has permeated modern culture, this is why.
Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run
#177Walk willingly into platos cave, pay for platos cave verification, sit down, enjoy all the discourse on the wall. Spit your drink out when you figure out that the shadows on the wall are all fake.
I might have a very different reading of the parable of the cave to you? Can you elaborate? (At the risk of spoiling the joke)
I'll try with a Simpsons analogy:
> Walk willingly into platos cave, pay for platos cave verification, sit down, enjoy all the discourse on the wall.
Homer pays to get the crayon put back up his nose
> Spit your drink out when you figure out that the shadows on the wall are all fake.
Homer gets annoyed/surprised if someone calls him stupid.
Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run
#178I 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 ...
For a long time, I did not get twitter either. But it seems to be the only popular platform where the academics and intellectual class want to hangout. Economists, researchers, policy wonks prefer posting on twitter over any other social platform.
Many of those people have moved to Bluesky. Which has its own issues.
Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run
#179I 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.
I would suspect they are deducing country of origin via ad targeting, which is far more precise than just geolocating IP addresses.
Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run
#180This reminds me of WeChat doing similar things a few years ago: Tencent's WeChat to reveal user locations on public account posts. https://www.reuters.com/technology/tencents-wechat-reveal-us...
Wechat does not reveal "user location", it only applies to "public account". It's not what you'd imagine for an "account", it's more like an "news feed" where org can publish articles.
However if you comment on those articles, your provincial location would be attached. the Cyber Admin of CCP mandates every app to reveal the provincial location for author and commenter.