4 ms·
X begins rolling out 'About this account' location feature to users' profiles
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- explodes 11mo agoI welcome this change. I wonder what the actual resulting impact will be, however.
- hbarka 11mo agoDon’t wonder, it’s obvious. When you turn on the light you see the cockroaches. Any transparency changes incentives. Look how the dynamics have changed overnight. Next, Twitter has to do something about the rage engagement payola. Why product managers overseeing any forum platform have not implemented something easy and obvious as account location metadata is something sociologists need to study.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- Nextgrid 11mo ago> Why product managers overseeing any forum platform have not implemented something easy and obvious as account location metadata is something sociologists need to study. All social platforms of the last decade rely on "engagement" and bots/trolls/fake accounts/etc contribute to that, both directly and in terms of posting inflammatory content that the masses then "engage" with.
- karlgkk 11mo ago> Why product managers overseeing any forum platform have not implemented something easy and obvious as account location metadata is something sociologists need to study. This was a common-ish feature for a long time and major sites like 4chan have had it in one form or another I think for literally decades at this point.
- IncreasePosts 11mo agoMaybe because it is so easy to fake, that putting that signal on there lends undue credence to it.
- add-sub-mul-div 11mo agoIn six months they'll make hiding your location a feature of the paid subscription.
- signatoremo 11mo agoWell, a hidden location would be a signal too
- verdverm 11mo agoCould become an in group signal, essential creating so much noise the signal is no longer valuable one can imagine the influencers saying they X is lying or I fear for my safety and them the whole bandwagon joining in
- genter 11mo agoWe get to see this: https://www.threads.com/@timmy_tostada/post/DRaGc3PDwSh https://www.threads.com/@timmy_tostada/post/DRaGc3PDwSh
- mc32 11mo agoI think it’s obvious these kinds of accounts were for engagement. Happy to see grifter accounts from two bit locales exposed for what they are.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- gryn 11mo agoso they'll pay for VPNs/Proxies with residential IPs in their desired location. heck twitter will probably later offer you an option to buy it themselves or an option to set your desired location if you just pay for X++ premium bot services.
- SmirkingRevenge 11mo agoI assume most accounts getting exposed now basically started with the assumption that this info would not be exposed publicly, but they will adapt. So this is like a one time shot of transparency, that will quickly be useless (although I’ve been hearing it has been rolled back already - some speculation is because it exposed that the majority of MAGA boosters were not US based)
- kardianos 11mo agoNo, it exposed the groypers and racists masquerading as MAGA or conservatives who are from foreign countries.
- IncreasePosts 11mo agoYeah, and they will delete their accounts and start over, only logging in when they're on a US terminated VPN. Whoever was following these people aren't taking a hard look at themselves in the mirror now. They're just searching out the same content that is "really" American.
- decremental 11mo ago[dead]
- AuthAuth 11mo agoWhats the difference? Both groups are firmly MAGA and supported by MAGA.
- Seattle3503 11mo agoSome sort of mdl scheme where people can verify their location without disclosing their entire identity would be nice.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- gradientsrneat 11mo agoWay too many social media CEOs claim that if they just force their users to dox themselves, that it will somehow prevent all the toxic engagement. You need look no further than Facebook to see where it goes. Not only does the toxicity not go away, but Facebook makes tons of money off political ads and "boosted" posts; they even have had an office of sorts in China, where Facebook is banned, for the purpose of making it easier for Chinese to sell ads/engagement on Facebook. And it's not just China doing this. I'd reckon Twitter's long-term goal isn't to make the trolls go away, but to pay for the privilege of visibility.
- cindyllm 11mo ago[dead]
- paulddraper 11mo ago> You need look no further than Facebook to see where it goes. FB has required real identities for a long, long time. I don’t think that case study provides a good before/after analysis. —— People are “toxic” in general. They kill each other. But removing anonymity reduces it.
- worthless-trash 11mo agoThen you can just find the enemy easier to kill.
- baiac 11mo agoI disagree. Knowing where an account is from helps gauge its authenticity.
- thrwaway55 11mo agoAll it does is open second order businesses faking the authenticity
- bcrl 11mo agoIt is telling that none of the online ad platforms engage with the advertising standard council type organizations that defined the standards that old school media use to self regulate. Most people don't realize that this was once a solved problem.
- NedF 11mo ago[dead]
- ChrisArchitect 11mo agoRelated: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46028422 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46028422