New Feature

There was an uproar on X after a new feature showed users’ locations and exposed many accounts as not being in the countries where they claimed to be.

Context

While Elon Musk has promised to address fake accounts since taking over Twitter/X in 2022, foreign troll and bot accounts remain a recurring issue on the platform. In 2022, Washington University in St. Louis estimated fake accounts made up as many as 68% of X users that year, with subsequent reports finding that the share of fake accounts remains similarly high.

Feature Rollout

On Saturday, X launched a feature showing the country or region where an account is based. Users can find this information by clicking on an account's join date, which opens an "About this account" page.