X just flipped the switch on a new “location label” feature, and the internet immediately did what it does best: panic, celebrate, and then panic again. The goal? Transparency. The result? A collective scramble as people realized half the platform is now accidentally role-playing as international spies.
Over the weekend, users cheered as accounts pretending to be everyday Americans were suddenly revealed as operating from places like India, Thailand, and Bangladesh. Cue applause. Cue screenshots. Cue victory laps.
And then, almost immediately, cue the experts: “Yeah… this can absolutely be wrong.”
The new labels appear in a user’s “about” section alongside things like:
X hasn’t officially confirmed the full data cocktail, but former employees say it likely includes things like IP addresses, GPS signals, phone numbers, and third-party location databases such as MaxMind. In other words, educated guesses dressed up as certainty.
At one point, X reportedly estimated location based on a user’s most common log-in spot over 30 days. Which sounds solid… until you remember airports exist.
And VPNs. Oh, sweet VPNs.
Security researchers were quick to point out the obvious: VPN software makes this whole system about as reliable as a fortune cookie. Anyone with five minutes and a free VPN app can bounce between countries like they’re on a budget airline world tour.
X even admits this on some profiles with a disclaimer that basically says: “This might be wrong. Also, their internet provider might be lying. Also, good luck.”
So yes, the feature technically unmasks some fake accounts. It also confidently mislabels real ones. Three journalists were already mis-tagged based on recent travel, not actual residence.
Here’s the fun twist: former X employees say this feature has been pitched internally since at least 2018. And every time, it got politely escorted to the exit.
Why?
In other words, if bad actors successfully pretend to be in the U.S., this label doesn’t expose them. It blesses them.
That’s not transparency. That’s an accidental trust badge.
This entire feature is X’s latest attempt to deal with what the industry calls “inauthentic behavior.” Normal people call it:
After the 2016 election, platforms scrambled to label state-backed accounts and foreign influence operations. Twitter once hired entire trust and safety teams to deal with this. Then Elon Musk bought the company in 2022, fired a large chunk of those teams, renamed it X, and decided vibes were a sufficient replacement for infrastructure.
Now we’re here.
Olga Belogolova, a former counter-influence lead at Meta, summed it up perfectly: transparency tools only work if the data behind them is accurate and consistent. If you’re relying on IP addresses and self-reporting, bad actors will walk around it like a puddle.
Another expert put it more bluntly: People will learn to dodge this feature very quickly.
And they will. Some already have.
Here’s the uncomfortable part: These labels don’t just risk being wrong. They risk being believed.
If users see a U.S. label, they may assume credibility. If they see a foreign label, they may assume deception. Neither assumption is automatically true. But that’s how the brain works when a platform presents something as a verified signal.
At worst, this feature doesn’t fight misinformation. It reorganizes it by country.
X wanted to boost transparency. What it delivered was a feature that:
It’s ambitious. It’s flawed. It’s extremely on brand.
Final Words
X didn’t just add a location label. It added another layer to the endless cat-and-mouse game between platforms and bad actors. The cats got a new bell. The mice already downloaded the update.
If this is the future of transparency, it’s going to need better math and fewer assumptions.
