Topline<\/p>\n
A new update to X that shows the country or region where a user is based has revealed some popular accounts\u2014many of which post wildly partisan support for President Donald Trump\u2014aren\u2019t even United States-based, though some claim to be American. <\/p>\n
X began displaying a user’s country or region over the weekend. (Photo by Beata Zawrzel\/NurPhoto via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
NurPhoto via Getty ImagesKey Facts<\/p>\n
X rolled out a new update over the weekend that displays a user\u2019s location by clicking on the join date on their profile, and users can elect to have their location displayed either as a country or as a region. <\/p>\n
Right-wing poster Ian Miles Cheong, who has previously admitted to his 1.2 million followers that he is not U.S.-based, is based in the United Arab Emirates, according to his X profile, and he has since slammed<\/a> the update as a privacy violation. <\/p>\n Pro-Trump account with 1 million followers @IvankaNews_\u2014which is not affiliated with Ivanka Trump\u2014appears to be based out of Nigeria, even though the user comments almost exclusively on American politics and has claimed<\/a> to have voted for Trump in previous posts (and the user admitted in a post Sunday \u201csome of us living outside the USA genuinely support President Trump\u2019s movement\u201d).<\/p>\n An account called \u201cMAGA NATION\u201d with nearly 400,000 followers appears to be Eastern European, according to its X profile, though the account is dedicated to pro-Trump content and claimed<\/a> to have voted for Republicans.<\/p>\n An account called \u201cAmerica First,\u201d (67,000 followers) who said<\/a> \u201cI am a former liberal who voted Trump\u201d in a post in May, is apparently based in Bangladesh, according to its X profile.<\/p>\n Screenshots<\/a> circulating X claim Republicans Against Trump, an anti-Trump account with nearly 1 million followers, is Austria-based, though the account\u2019s location now says United States with a disclaimer that it may be using a VPN to alter its location. <\/p>\n Some accounts that appear to have been outed as non-U.S. based no longer exist: NBC News<\/a> reported an account called \u201cTrump Is My President\u201d was listed as Macedonia-based and is now deactivated, while an account called \u201cULTRAMAGA \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 TRUMP\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf82028,\u201d which claimed to U.S.-based, was listed as African and is now suspended for unknown reasons.<\/p>\n Why Did X Implement The Location Update\u2014and Is It Accurate?<\/p>\n Nikita Bier, head of product at X, announced the new update in a post<\/a> on Saturday. He said displaying a user\u2019s location is an \u201cimportant first step to securing the integrity of the global town square,\u201d a key branding<\/a> goal under Elon Musk\u2019s ownership. Bier said<\/a> in another post the update has \u201ca few rough edges that will be resolved by Tuesday,\u201d and acknowledged<\/a> the update was briefly shut off over the weekend because \u201cthe data was not 100% for old accounts.\u201d The location feature includes a disclaimer that the \u201ccountry or region that an account is based can be impacted by recent travel or temporary relocation,\u201d and that the \u201cdata may not be accurate and can change periodically.\u201d X displays another disclaimer for accounts that appear to use a VPN, or a virtual private network, which can mask a user\u2019s IP address and allow people to connect to servers from other countries. The VPN disclaimer says: \u201cOne of our partners has indicated that this account may be connecting via a proxy \u2014 such as a VPN, which may change the country or region that is displayed on their profile,\u201d also noting the data may not be inaccurate and that \u201csome internet providers may use proxies automatically without action by the user.\u201d <\/p>\n Read More<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Topline A new update to X that shows the country or region where a user is based has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150632,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[350,42,91927,63429,58811,91928,43,40,38,41,39,627,9537],"class_list":["post-150631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-elon-musk","tag-headlines","tag-ian-miles-cheong","tag-location","tag-maga","tag-maga-nation","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-trump","tag-x"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}