Elon Musk has finally come good on his promise to “make comedy legal again” on X, though probably not in the way that he intended.
Over the weekend, X flipped the switch on its new “About this account” info display, which provides an overview of key details about every X account.
As you can see in this example, X’s new account info panel displays information on when the account joined X, the number of times it’s changed its username, etc.
It also notes where an account is based, which has inadvertently revealed that some of the more prominent American political commentary accounts are actually not based in America, nor even anywhere close by.
As you can see, among the various MAGA-themed profiles with hundreds of thousands of followers that are not based in the U.S., there are also some profiles that are regularly amplified by Elon Musk through reposts on his own profile.
And given that Elon Musk is the most followed user in the app, Musk is effectively giving these accounts a massive reach boost, further enabling foreign-operated accounts to spark unrest and division within American politics.
Which is not a huge surprise. The issue of prominent U.S. political commentary accounts being based in other regions has been raised before, while Musk’s own amplification of such has also been highlighted many times.
As such, it’s unlikely to make a huge difference. MAGA supporters will simply take this as an indication of America’s dominance of global cultural discussion, while opponents will point to this being clear manipulation by foreign entities. They’ll both go back and forth for a bit, then Trump will say or do something else crazy, and we’ll all move on.
But this type of exposure is, at least to some degree, the whole point of this new account info panel.
When he first announced the coming feature last month, X’s Head of Product Nikita Bier explained that:
“When you read content on X, you should be able to verify its authenticity. This is critical to getting a pulse on important issues happening in the world.”
So again, this is the exact point, that people will now be able to see whether an account that’s posting political rage bait is actually involved in that nation’s political process, or if it’s a foreign-based agitator seeking to provoke a response, for whatever purpose.
That should mean that these accounts will now have less influence, because X users will be able to see that it’s a non-local profile, then ignore their comments. Though whether that happens in practice is another thing.
In any event, X says that it’s still working out the kinks in the new system, and some profiles, particularly those that have used a VPN, are currently displaying the wrong location.
But ideally, this will eventually provide another vector to qualify and vet political commentary, which could reduce the influence of foreign accounts.
Maybe.
