X’s messy About This Account rollout has caused utter chaos
- X’s new “About This Account” feature has been rolled out with inaccuracies, causing chaos among users.
- The feature, which includes country of origin and “based in,” has been criticized for its lack of accuracy, particularly for older accounts.
- Users have taken to X to accuse their political opponents of being foreign operatives, despite some having incorrect information on their own profiles.
- The inaccuracies could be due to various factors, including travel, VPN use, or outdated IP addresses, and may also be driven by a financial scheme to increase engagement.
- Many political rage-bait accounts are indeed not based in the US, but some users have taken this as an opportunity to spread misinformation and engage in bad-faith behavior.
Yesterday X started rolling out a new About This Account feature, which included what country the account was created from and what country the account is “based” in (which is different from “connected via”). Head of product at X, Nikita Bier, was quick to say that there were “a few rough edges,” but promised they’d be resolved by Tuesday.
There have definitely been complaints about inaccuracies. The company even ended up removing information about where an account was created, saying the data “was not 100 percent,” especially for older accounts.
The reaction from users on X was, of course, totally level-headed. They immediately recognized that the data was flawed and definitely didn’t spend the last 24 hours trying to score political points.
Just kidding.
People on X have done almost nothing but shout that accounts they disagree with are actually foreign operatives. Even users who have publicly complained that the information on their own profile was inaccurate continued on to make bad-faith posts about how their political opponents were running a foreign psyop.
The inaccurate data could have several causes. People who travel, or outlets with staff scattered around the globe, might appear to be “based” somewhere other than where they actually are, at least temporarily. If someone uses a VPN, it could affect where X shows their location. Some of it could just be old IP addresses. At the time of this writing, Hank Green’s account is listed as being based in Japan, MusicTech (a sister publication to the UK’s NME) is showing as based in the US, and AVID (Massachusetts-based maker of ProTools) is listed as being in Spain.
Of course, there is also a kernel of truth to some of this. Many political rage-bait accounts are not based in the US. We’ve long known that troll farms have been waging a foreign influence campaign on American politics. But some of it is also a financial scheme. Monetization on X is largely driven by engagement, and nothing gets people engaged like riling them up about politics.