A new feature meant to boost transparency on Elon Musk’s platform relies on data that researchers say can be inaccurate or easily spoofed.
Advocates for transparency on social media cheered this weekend when X, the app owned by tech billionaire Elon Musk, rolled out a new feature that disclosed what the company said were the country locations of accounts.
The feature appeared to unmask a number of accounts that were portraying themselves as belonging to Americans but in reality were based in countries such as India, Thailand and Bangladesh.
But by Monday, the effectiveness and accuracy of the feature were already in question, as security experts, social media researchers and two former X employees said the location information could be inaccurate or spoofed using widely available technology, such as virtual private networks (VPNs), to hide their locations.
So what? So for every 1 in 100 times an “American” account is revealed to be posting from overseas it’s actually an American? 1% false positives, I’ll take that, fine. This still seems useful to me.
I already said it is useful to know. It isn’t useful to take drastic action with, however.
“That it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer.”