The social platform X, owned by Elon Musk, has launched a new transparency feature that displays the country or region where users' accounts are registered. This information can be found in the «About This Account» section, which also shows the account creation date and name change history. This has been reported by The New York Times.
According to X's product leader Nikita Bir, this is the «first step toward ensuring the integrity of the global public square». The company plans to introduce more tools for verifying content authenticity.
The launch of this feature has elicited mixed reactions. Users noticed that many accounts actively commenting on political topics in the US were actually registered in other countries, including Japan, New Zealand, Pakistan, and Thailand. This raised suspicions about the origin and true ownership of such profiles.
Particular attention has been drawn to accounts frequently shared by Elon Musk himself, significantly increasing their audience.

Criticism and Risks

Critics emphasize that the new feature may pose risks to safety and privacy. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin warned that the system is easily manipulable: accounts can fake their location, posing as users from the US or the UK. This, in his view, opens the door for foreign trolls and political campaigns.
Some members of the crypto community called the initiative «psychotic», as it may expose real users to danger by revealing their locations without adequate protection.

Political Context

The feature has already sparked discussions in the US, where users began to check the origins of accounts spreading political messages. Notably, some accounts branded as MAGA (Make America Great Again) were found to be based outside the country. This raised new questions about foreign influence on American political discourse.
Additionally, a US lawsuit revealed internal documents where social media employees compared their platforms to drugs.