Elon Musk’s X has begun rolling out a new characteristic for consumer profiles that may show details about the account, together with the place it’s primarily based, what number of instances the account has modified its username, the account’s unique be part of date, and the way the consumer downloaded the X app. The brand new info is supposed to scale back inauthentic engagement on the platform, the place bots usually faux to be people — an issue that would get even more durable to police within the age of AI.
X’s plans for the characteristic have been first introduced in October, when X’s head of product Nikita Bier mentioned the corporate would experiment with displaying this info on profiles, beginning together with his personal account and people of X staff. The thought is that, by exposing these particulars, customers would be capable of make a extra knowledgeable determination about whether or not they’re interacting with an genuine account or if the account was a bot or dangerous actor, trying to sow discord or unfold misinformation.
As an example, if an X account’s bio claimed the consumer was from a U.S. state, however their account info reveals that they’re primarily based abroad, you may suspect that they had one other agenda.
Final weekend, Bier responded to a put up the place a consumer had requested Elon Musk to require accounts to show details about the place they’re primarily based by saying to the consumer, “Give me 72 hours.”
Within the days since, extra individuals have seen the “About this account” characteristic turn out to be obtainable on their very own profiles.
To view your account info on the internet or within the X cellular app, you’ll click on on the “Joined” date in your profile. From right here, you’re taken to a web page that reveals the date you joined Twitter/X, the place your account relies, what number of username modifications have been accomplished and when the final one was, and the way you’re related to X — like through the U.S. App Retailer or Google Play, for example.
However whereas some customers globally are reporting that the characteristic has appeared on their very own profiles, TechCrunch will not be in a position to entry this account info on different individuals’s profiles as of press time. That may very well be as a result of X desires to provide customers time to preview their info for accuracy and regulate their settings earlier than it rolls out extra broadly.
Particularly, X permits customers to regulate whether or not or not the characteristic shows their nation or if it solely shows their geographical area. Initially, the corporate had mentioned this may be an choice in areas the place free speech may have penalties, however we’re discovering that even U.S. customers can select to set their profile to show both their nation or their area/continent. (Nation is the default, nevertheless.)
To make the change, you’ll be able to entry the “About your account” setting underneath the X app’s “Privateness and Security” settings.
One reverse engineer digging via the app’s code (see under) additionally discovered that X seems to be engaged on a further characteristic that will show a warning in your account if you happen to have been utilizing a VPN to masks your location. It’s unclear if or when that characteristic would go stay, but when it does, it could flag to others that the consumer’s “nation or area is probably not correct.”
X didn’t reply to a request for remark concerning the rollout. Nonetheless, Bier joked about all of the current sightings, indicating that folks have been seeing the characteristic because it started to roll out.
X will not be the primary social community to supply this stage of transparency to customers. Instagram has lengthy provided an analogous “About this account” characteristic, for example.
