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I'm not really surprised it was rolled back given Musks political leanings. I am surprised it was even added in the first place though, surely this outcome was

by p1necone 11mo ago

I'm not really surprised it was rolled back given Musks political leanings. I am surprised it was even added in the first place though, surely this outcome was obvious?

abirch 11mo ago
Seems like they would have had the statistics. It's a shame that they rolled it back. I'm not necessarily an Elon fan but I respected this feature immensely.
- marginalia_nu 11mo ago
  Feature is online for me now. Maybe A/B test, or incomplete rollout?
agentifysh 11mo ago
I don't think so because it seems both sides were engaged with non-American IPs running hugely popular accounts and it makes sense, why wouldn't you play both sides when you are paid for attention? I'm thinking Nikita is falling out with Elon as they both seem to have diverging goals with the platform. Advertisement revenues on X isn't that great and neither are conversions on X so you can't really get consistent payouts that match Youtube. Premium subscriptions don't bring in as much dough as advertising did during Twitter days.
- SV_BubbleTime 11mo ago
  >I'm thinking Nikita is falling out with Elon Hmm, interesting insight, what did they each say when you talked to them?
- ceejayoz 11mo ago
  > I don't think so because it seems both sides were engaged… One side has largely left X.
  - pseudo0 11mo ago
    The stats don't bear that out. Bluesky has been losing momentum since the election, with its DAU dropping from around 3.5 million to under 1.5 million today. For comparison Twitter has over 100 million. Right-wing alternative platforms had similar issues sustaining momentum, despite a much stronger push factor (right-wing people kept getting banned). It's hard to overcome the power of Twitter's network effect. https://bluefacts.app/bluesky-user-growth?t=3m https://bluefacts.app/bluesky-user-growth?t=3m
    - ceejayoz 11mo ago
      > For comparison Twitter has over 100 million. We're on a thread about widespread fake/inauthentic users on Twitter right now. I see very little reason to trust those numbers.
      - stressback 11mo ago
        Is it any more trustworthy than you saying above that "one side has largely left X"?
        ceejayoz 11mo ago
        I like to consider myself more trustworthy than Musk, yes.
    - jeromegv 11mo ago
      The stats show that Twitter is going down overall. People can’t handle the amount of bots and discourse over there Threads is basically at the level of Twitter now. https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/11/03/threads-passes-x-in-key-monthly-metric-for-first-time-in-zuckerberg-vs-musk-battle/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/11/03/threads-...
  - mlrtime 11mo ago
    Correct, and taken over reddit which has the same issue as X.
bpodgursky 11mo ago
It was rolled back temporarily because the first version had an "account created in country [X]" indicator that was found to be unreliable. The new version (which is active now) just has the country the user is currently in.
- p1necone 11mo ago
  Sounds like this will stay useful for like a few days at best until these accounts work out what VPN to use to spoof the location properly.
- embedding-shape 11mo ago
  I'm seeing two locations fields, current country and what country's appstore they first signed up with, it any, otherwise it says "web".
energy123 11mo ago
It's less about political leanings and more about profits. There's a reason Jack Dorsey didn't do this, or FB or Reddit.
- awesome_dude 11mo ago
  And why IRC went from default showing IP information to cloaking
  - Zak 11mo ago
    I think that's mostly to do with script kiddies trying to DoS anyone they disagreed with.
    - mlrtime 11mo ago
      Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Anyone remember WinNuke?
  - mschuster91 11mo ago
    That was and still is a choice of the user. The problem with not using a cloak was that you'd stand a very real chance of getting DDoS'd or, worse, outright hacked (made easier by the fact that in ye olde modem days, your computer was directly exposed to the Internet with no firewall/NAT to protect you), and even with using a cloak and a NAT router you'd still have trolls sending "DCC SEND" [1] into channels, immediately yeeting a bunch of people with old shoddy middleboxes. [1] https://nullroute.lt/~grawity/startkeylogger.html https://nullroute.lt/~grawity/startkeylogger.html
    - awesome_dude 11mo ago
      Libera has a policy of just handing them out (to anyone that registers) > Accounts registered after March 2024 that have a verified email address are automatically assigned a generic user cloak. If your account does not currently have a cloak, you may contact staff to receive one. https://libera.chat/guides/cloaks https://libera.chat/guides/cloaks
api 11mo ago
I’d be willing to believe Musk was actually surprised. Like a lot of people into heavy political ideology he seems to vastly overestimate the number of people who think the same way about things. He seems to inhabit a serious echo chamber.
- lazide 11mo ago
  When you have that much money, it’s actually hard to find someone who will tell you something you don’t want to hear that is actually true and isn’t doing it just to ragebait you or the like. And I don’t think he’s been trying all that hard either.
  - api 11mo ago
    Good point. The same thing happens to heads of state. Putin thought he could take Ukraine in a few weeks because he is surrounded by yes men.
    - smnthermes 11mo ago
      If Putin was that stupid, he'd already have been ousted.
      - lazide 11mo ago
        The beauty of being rich/powerful enough is that when the yes man turns out to be wrong, you can throw them into the meat grinder too. Do it enough times, and you end up with yes men that also force other people into the meat grinder well enough you don’t have to care, directly. It’s a type of genius. It works best when you embrace that everyone wants to suck up to you anyway, and there are always more flunkies where they came from, so you’re really helping the world out by filtering down to the somewhat effective ones ASAP.
  - SmirkingRevenge 11mo ago
    The most valuable use case for AI might just be to roast billionaires surrounded by sycophants Instead they built better sycophants
p3rls 11mo ago
[dead]

I'm not really surprised it was rolled back given Musks political leanings. I am surprised it was even added in the first place though, surely this outcome was obvious?

abirch 11mo ago

Seems like they would have had the statistics. It's a shame that they rolled it back. I'm not necessarily an Elon fan but I respected this feature immensely.

marginalia_nu 11mo ago
Feature is online for me now. Maybe A/B test, or incomplete rollout?

agentifysh 11mo ago

I don't think so because it seems both sides were engaged with non-American IPs running hugely popular accounts and it makes sense, why wouldn't you play both sides when you are paid for attention? I'm thinking Nikita is falling out with Elon as they both seem to have diverging goals with the platform. Advertisement revenues on X isn't that great and neither are conversions on X so you can't really get consistent payouts that match Youtube. Premium subscriptions don't bring in as much dough as advertising did during Twitter days.

SV_BubbleTime 11mo ago
>I'm thinking Nikita is falling out with Elon Hmm, interesting insight, what did they each say when you talked to them?
ceejayoz 11mo ago
> I don't think so because it seems both sides were engaged… One side has largely left X.
- pseudo0 11mo ago
  The stats don't bear that out. Bluesky has been losing momentum since the election, with its DAU dropping from around 3.5 million to under 1.5 million today. For comparison Twitter has over 100 million. Right-wing alternative platforms had similar issues sustaining momentum, despite a much stronger push factor (right-wing people kept getting banned). It's hard to overcome the power of Twitter's network effect. https://bluefacts.app/bluesky-user-growth?t=3m https://bluefacts.app/bluesky-user-growth?t=3m
  - ceejayoz 11mo ago
    > For comparison Twitter has over 100 million. We're on a thread about widespread fake/inauthentic users on Twitter right now. I see very little reason to trust those numbers.
    - stressback 11mo ago
      Is it any more trustworthy than you saying above that "one side has largely left X"?
      - ceejayoz 11mo ago
        I like to consider myself more trustworthy than Musk, yes.
  - jeromegv 11mo ago
    The stats show that Twitter is going down overall. People can’t handle the amount of bots and discourse over there Threads is basically at the level of Twitter now. https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/11/03/threads-passes-x-in-key-monthly-metric-for-first-time-in-zuckerberg-vs-musk-battle/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/11/03/threads-...
- mlrtime 11mo ago
  Correct, and taken over reddit which has the same issue as X.

bpodgursky 11mo ago

It was rolled back temporarily because the first version had an "account created in country [X]" indicator that was found to be unreliable. The new version (which is active now) just has the country the user is currently in.

p1necone 11mo ago
Sounds like this will stay useful for like a few days at best until these accounts work out what VPN to use to spoof the location properly.
embedding-shape 11mo ago
I'm seeing two locations fields, current country and what country's appstore they first signed up with, it any, otherwise it says "web".

energy123 11mo ago

It's less about political leanings and more about profits. There's a reason Jack Dorsey didn't do this, or FB or Reddit.

awesome_dude 11mo ago
And why IRC went from default showing IP information to cloaking
- Zak 11mo ago
  I think that's mostly to do with script kiddies trying to DoS anyone they disagreed with.
  - mlrtime 11mo ago
    Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Anyone remember WinNuke?
- mschuster91 11mo ago
  That was and still is a choice of the user. The problem with not using a cloak was that you'd stand a very real chance of getting DDoS'd or, worse, outright hacked (made easier by the fact that in ye olde modem days, your computer was directly exposed to the Internet with no firewall/NAT to protect you), and even with using a cloak and a NAT router you'd still have trolls sending "DCC SEND" [1] into channels, immediately yeeting a bunch of people with old shoddy middleboxes. [1] https://nullroute.lt/~grawity/startkeylogger.html https://nullroute.lt/~grawity/startkeylogger.html
  - awesome_dude 11mo ago
    Libera has a policy of just handing them out (to anyone that registers) > Accounts registered after March 2024 that have a verified email address are automatically assigned a generic user cloak. If your account does not currently have a cloak, you may contact staff to receive one. https://libera.chat/guides/cloaks https://libera.chat/guides/cloaks

api 11mo ago

I’d be willing to believe Musk was actually surprised. Like a lot of people into heavy political ideology he seems to vastly overestimate the number of people who think the same way about things. He seems to inhabit a serious echo chamber.

lazide 11mo ago
When you have that much money, it’s actually hard to find someone who will tell you something you don’t want to hear that is actually true and isn’t doing it just to ragebait you or the like. And I don’t think he’s been trying all that hard either.
- api 11mo ago
  Good point. The same thing happens to heads of state. Putin thought he could take Ukraine in a few weeks because he is surrounded by yes men.
  - smnthermes 11mo ago
    If Putin was that stupid, he'd already have been ousted.
    - lazide 11mo ago
      The beauty of being rich/powerful enough is that when the yes man turns out to be wrong, you can throw them into the meat grinder too. Do it enough times, and you end up with yes men that also force other people into the meat grinder well enough you don’t have to care, directly. It’s a type of genius. It works best when you embrace that everyone wants to suck up to you anyway, and there are always more flunkies where they came from, so you’re really helping the world out by filtering down to the somewhat effective ones ASAP.
- SmirkingRevenge 11mo ago
  The most valuable use case for AI might just be to roast billionaires surrounded by sycophants Instead they built better sycophants

p3rls 11mo ago

[dead]