{"id":1743,"date":"2025-11-23T22:55:41","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T18:55:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/xs-messy-about-this-account-rollout-has-caused-utter-chaos\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T22:55:41","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T18:55:41","slug":"xs-messy-about-this-account-rollout-has-caused-utter-chaos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/xs-messy-about-this-account-rollout-has-caused-utter-chaos\/","title":{"rendered":"X\u2019s messy About This Account rollout has caused utter chaos"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Yesterday X started rolling out a new About This Account<\/a> feature, which included what country the account was created from and what country the account is \u201cbased\u201d in (which is different from \u201cconnected via\u201d). Head of product at X, Nikita Bier, was quick to say that there were \u201ca few rough edges<\/a>,\u201d but promised they\u2019d be resolved by Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There have definitely been complaints<\/a> about<\/a> inaccuracies<\/a>. The company even ended up removing information about where an account was created, saying the data \u201cwas not 100 percent<\/a>,\u201d especially for older accounts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The reaction from users on X was, of course, totally<\/em> level-headed. They immediately recognized that the data was flawed and definitely didn\u2019t spend the last 24 hours trying to score political points<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Just kidding.\u00a0<\/p>\n

People on X have done almost nothing but shout that accounts they disagree with are actually foreign operatives<\/a>. Even users who have publicly complained that the information on their own profile was inaccurate continued on to make bad-faith posts<\/a> about how their political opponents were running a foreign<\/a> psyop<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The inaccurate data could have several causes. People who travel, or outlets with staff scattered around the globe, might appear to be \u201cbased\u201d 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\u2019s account<\/a> is listed as being based in Japan, MusicTech<\/a> (a sister publication to the UK\u2019s NME<\/a>) is showing as based in the US, and AVID<\/a> (Massachusetts-based maker of ProTools) is listed as being in Spain.<\/p>\n

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\u2019ve long known that troll farms have been waging a foreign<\/a> influence<\/a> campaign<\/a> on American politics. But some of it is also a financial scheme. Monetization on X is largely driven by engagement<\/a>, and nothing gets people engaged like riling them up about politics.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday X started rolling out a new About This Account feature, which included what country the account was created from […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-classe"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1743\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}