Musk’s X erupts over location feature

Elon Musk’s X platform erupted in controversy after the rollout of a new feature revealing an account’s country of origin, exposing what users describe as global troll farms and coordinated influence operations — including those supporting former US President Donald Trump.

X head of product Nikita Bier unveiled the feature over the weekend, saying it would let users “see the country or region where an account is based,” a move he described as a step toward transparency on a platform long criticized for hosting disinformation.

“This is an important first step to securing the integrity of the global town square,” Bier wrote. The update quickly sparked widespread online sleuthing.

Almost immediately, users flagged dozens of right-wing personalities — promoters of the “Make America Great Again” and “America First” slogans — whose accounts indicated locations in Nigeria, Bangladesh or Eastern Europe.

According to an analysis by NewsGuard, these overseas accounts posing as US-based disseminated 31 false claims over the past 15 months, including allegations of Democratic corruption.

The new feature also appeared to confirm earlier warnings from researchers about MAGA-branded profiles posing as “Trump-supporting independent women” whose photos were lifted from European models. Many of these accounts, investigators found, were operating from Thailand and Myanmar.

“Before this change, we could show these profiles were fake, but we had almost no visibility on where they were run from,” said Benjamin Strick, director of investigations at the Centre for Information Resilience. “Now we can see that many of the accounts in this specific network are linked to Southeast Asia.”

X warned, however, that the displayed locations “may not be accurate,” noting that VPN use, travel or temporary relocation can affect the data.

Bier conceded there were “rough edges” but later said an upgrade would bring “99.99 percent” accuracy.

Some critics said the feature could endanger dissidents in authoritarian states. Bier responded that users in countries “where speech has penalties” can restrict their displayed location to a broader region.

Shortly after launch, several high-followed accounts were suspended, including an Ivanka Trump fan account later revealed to be operating from Nigeria. The account had amassed one million followers while posting pro-Trump, anti-immigration and Islamophobic content.