Khaberni - The X platform, owned by Elon Musk, has sparked widespread controversy after launching a feature that allows users to see the original country or region of the accounts, revealing what users describe as global phishing factories and influence operations on the platform, including support for Donald Trump.
Nikita Per, Head of Product at X, launched this feature last weekend, which lets users "know the country or region where the account is located," in an effort to boost transparency on a platform that tech experts say is filled with misinformation.
Per wrote on X, "This is an important first step to ensure the safety of the global arena," igniting a wave of research and investigation on the internet.
The platform quickly filled with posts revealing that dozens of right-wing online figures, such as supporters of Trump's political slogan "Make America Great Again" or "America First," had geographical locations indicating they were in Nigeria, Bangladesh, or Eastern Europe.
Influential pro-Trump accounts posing as based in the US but actually operating abroad, published 31 pieces of false content over the past 15 months, including false posts about corruption in the Democratic Party, according to an analysis by NewsGuard, a specialist in assessing online news sources and media sites, using the location feature.
This feature apparently confirmed warnings by researchers during last year's US presidential elections that a network of "MAGA" accounts posing as "independent women supporting Trump" and using stolen pictures of models and European influencers, operated overseas.
The new feature in X accounts showed that many of these women were actually residing in Thailand and some were linked to Myanmar, according to Benjamin Strick, Director of Investigations at the London-based Centre for Information Resilience, speaking to AFP.
Strick added, "Before this change, we were able to prove that these accounts were fake, but we almost did not know their source. We usually depended on account slip-ups, posting timing patterns, and linguistic differences. Now, we see that many of the accounts in this network are specifically linked to Southeast Asia, which brings us closer to knowing who is behind them," according to Strick.
In a highly polarized political climate, some right-wing figures have pointed fingers at left-wing users posting content from suspicious sites, yet X warned that location data "may not be accurate and may change periodically."
When clicking on an account's location, a warning box appears stating: "The country or region where the account is located may be affected by recent travel or temporary relocation," and some users might use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to hide their real locations.
Per wrote after launching the feature, "There are some unfinalized aspects and these will be addressed by Tuesday," and Per mentioned late Sunday that a "new update" will ensure "an accuracy of almost 99.99%."
Some users criticized the launch of the feature, warning that it could reveal the locations of opponents and protestors in authoritarian countries, but Per explained that for users in countries that "punish freedom of expression," the feature offers privacy options that reveal the location on a regional level only.
Shortly after the feature's launch, some fake accounts that had amassed a large number of followers were suddenly removed, and an account on X posing as a fan of Ivanka Trump, the US president's daughter, was suspended after users noticed its listed location was in Nigeria.
This account, which had gained a million followers, was regularly posting content supportive of Trump as well as messages against Islam and immigration. As technology platforms reduce content monitoring and rely less on human fact-checkers, misinformation researchers warn of an increasing threat from Russian and Chinese entities seeking to spread political chaos in Western countries, as well as from foreign influencers motivated by the idea of financial gain.
Professor Amy Brockman from the Georgia Institute of Technology told AFP that the new feature "highlights a fundamental problem in social media today, as paid entities deliberately stir up controversial issues to attract attention."
She added, "The situation is difficult, and I think we need trustworthy platforms that prevent bad behaviors."
In October last year, X laid off half of its engineering team responsible for combating harmful influences, spam, and unlawful content, reflecting a trend towards replacing staff with artificial intelligence, as reported by "The Information" yesterday, Monday.
