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X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run

hindustantimes.com

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Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run

#211

Post by sunaookami »

afavour wrote: post #74

People will read all kinds of political implications into this but IMO it reflects something simpler and perhaps more damning for X: that paying users for the engagement their posts make is a fundamentally bad idea. If you’re looking to make some money on X you want engagement. If you want engagement you want to say controversial things people will argue about. What better than right wing US politics, especially when…

Reminds me of a japanese news article about that topic where they exposed some of these accounts - these are mostly from India and other poor countries were posting fake engagement makes them a LOT more money than any other job. In this case there were some accounts that searched for Japanese earthquake news and posted condolences etc to drive up their numbers (this was after the 2023 Noto earthquake).

Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run

#212

Post by sunaookami »

est wrote: post #180
rguiscard wrote: post #52

This 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.

It does for other social networks like Weibo, Douyin and Xiaohongshu though, you can see the location of the user (province-level for China, country-level for anyone else) on their profile.

Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run

#213

Post by ffsm8 »

brookst wrote: post #202
throwaway48476 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Country of origin is based on IP. Many British accounts are using VPNs due to the online safety act and this is noted by X. X also shows the country of the app store the app was downloaded from which is more accurate. Ironically many of the people in favor of banning VPNs are themselves using a VPN.

> Ironically many of the people in favor of banning VPNs are themselves using a VPN. It’s ironic but also completely typical. Same way so many people publicly freaking out about homosexuality turn out to be gay. There’s something in human nature that makes people shout about the dangers of the things they themselves do, some kind of camouflage instinct I guess.

Okay, I came across another video talking about Roblox and it's pedo problems, and I think that's problematic. And I might talk about that if the topic goes toward "problematic things that are currently on my mind".

And with that statement you ironically insinuate that I'm a pedo

You're not the first person that made that argument (that the people talking about a problem actually are the real perps!), but from my perspective it feels more like an easy way to make it socially unacceptable to talk about categories of issues. Which is likely intended by the person making this argument, likely because... You see were this is going?

Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run

#215

Post by FloorEgg »

intended wrote: post #204
FloorEgg wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that hope is naive and irresponsible?

What you are hoping for will not occur. Do hope. But hoping for a unicorn is magic thinking. For other people, they can either count this as a reason to despair, or figure out a way to get to the next best option. The world sucks, so what ? In the end all problems get solved if you can figure them out.

For decades I have continuously studied physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, history, management science, market research, economics, religion, finance, and computer science among many other things. I study for 4-5 hours on average every day, and the rest of my working hours are spent practicing my craft.

The reason I say this is that blind hope and informed hope are two different things.

Media has always relied on novel fear to attract attention. It's always "dramatized"; sacrificing truth for what sells. However AI is like electricity or computation. People make it to get things done. Some of those things may be media, but it will also be applied to everything else people want to get done. The thing about tools is that if they don't work people won't keep using them. And the thing about lies is that they don't work.

For all of human history people have become more informed and capable. More conveniences, more capabilities, more ideas, more access to knowledge, tools, etc.

What makes you think that AI is somehow different than all other human invention that came before it?

It's just more automation. Bad people will automate bad things, good people will automate good things.

I don't have a problem with people pointing out risks and wanting to mitigate them, but I do have a problem with invalid presuppositions that the future will be worse than the past.

So no, I don't think I'm hoping for a unicorn. I think I'm hoping that my intuition for how the universe works is close enough, and the persistent pessimism that seems to permeate from social media is wrong.

Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run

#216

Post by FloorEgg »

gdulli wrote: post #207
FloorEgg wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that hope is naive and irresponsible?

Hoping that the tech giants will put truth over profit is folly. Hoping that audiences will reject this is viable.

> Hoping that the tech giants will put truth over profit is folly.

I never said that though?

> Hoping that audiences will reject this is viable.

I have no clue what you mean. What is "this" refering to?

Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run

#217

Post by defrost »

FloorEgg wrote: post #215
intended wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you are hoping for will not occur. Do hope. But hoping for a unicorn is magic thinking. For other people, they can either count this as a reason to despair, or figure out a way to get to the next best option. The world sucks, so what ? In the end all problems get solved if you can figure them out.

For decades I have continuously studied physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, history, management science, market research, economics, religion, finance, and computer science among many other things. I study for 4-5 hours on average every day, and the rest of my working hours are spent practicing my craft. The reason I say this is that blind hope and informed hope are two different things. Media has always relied…

Speaking as someone who has also spent decades both studying and applying STEM and social sciences my commentary is this:

> The thing about tools is that if they don't work people won't use them.

People will and do use tools that don't work. Over time fewer people use bad tools as word spreads. Often "new" bad tools have a halo uptake of popularity.

> And the thing about lies is that they don't work.

History tells us that lies work in the short term, and that is sufficient to force bad decisions that have long shadows.

Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run

#218

Post by p3rls »

p1necone wrote: post #14
agentifysh wrote: post #7

X 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?

[dead]

Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run

#219

Post by p3rls »

sunaookami wrote: post #211
afavour wrote: post #74

People will read all kinds of political implications into this but IMO it reflects something simpler and perhaps more damning for X: that paying users for the engagement their posts make is a fundamentally bad idea. If you’re looking to make some money on X you want engagement. If you want engagement you want to say controversial things people will argue about. What better than right wing US politics, especially when…

Reminds me of a japanese news article about that topic where they exposed some of these accounts - these are mostly from India and other poor countries were posting fake engagement makes them a LOT more money than any other job. In this case there were some accounts that searched for Japanese earthquake news and posted condolences etc to drive up their numbers (this was after the 2023 Noto earthquake).

[dead]

Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run

#220

Post by agentifysh »

iamnothere wrote: post #84
agentifysh wrote: post #7

X 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.

> 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 had this same idea before and it’s not terrible. If it guaranteed user privacy by using an external identification service (ID.me?), it might get some attention. You would likely have to reverify accounts every 6 months or so to limit sales of accounts, and you would need to pr…

wouldn't that happen with this too if you require people to sign up with their US passport because then now everything you type is going to have much more weight I guess facebook in a sense is already like this with all the verification required.

the linkedin effect seems more due to the nature of corporate culture where everyone's profile is an extension of their persona optimized for monetary/career outcomes so you get this vapid superficial fakeness to it that turns people off.

this X feature does make it interesting like for example engaging with US politics while shouldnt stop commentary from foreigners it definitely should contain the limits of perception meddling

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