alt Hacker NewsX's move to show users' location is a great step toward online transparency
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I disagree that this is a great step towards anything, and thinking it is strictly just increasing transparency without other downsides feels naive.
The obvious issues: lots of people use VPNs for privacy reasons, even if they’re not in a country with serious risks from governments. Or they use the Internet while traveling and post from other locations. Or they may engage in discussions that affect them even if they don’t live in a particular area. Maybe they lived there previously or are going to move there.
But also, this has opened a whole new way to dismiss people and their ideas based on location. For example, I see lots of comments on X that have become outright racist, against people allegedly posting from China, or Pakistan, or India. People with politics on all sides are using the location info to claim their opponents are falling for foreign propaganda - the left people are posting examples of right accounts that are foreign, and right people are posting examples of left accounts that are foreign. But what’s common is when these posts are made, it encourages and brings out the most vile attacks against people of different ethnicities or countries.
> X’s recent bold decision, led by Head of Product Nikita Bier, to add country labels to accounts reflects an important shift: a recognition that geographic transparency is crucial context to help users understand whether a post is a firsthand account or distant commentary, whether it reflects genuine local sentiment or coordinated foreign messaging.
Nikita is wrong about this. The location is not transparency that is helping people understand whether a post is firsthand or distant. Most things can be discussed well without location playing a hand in what is being discussed. The actual real life usage of this is to perform shallow dismissals and racist attacks. Not to ascertain the veracity of some claim. Besides that, how would location help? Anything can be faked with AI. Even if someone genuinely lives in a particular location, they can fake content, or mislead readers, or spread misinformation.
I’ll also say I am not impressed by Nikita Bier, who is apparently leading X’s product. The way he communicates on social media makes him look like an immature troll rather than someone serious (example: https://xcancel.com/nikitabier/status/1991723005454741995). I guess it is fitting with the image carried by Elon and Twitter/X these days, though.
I'm a bit surprised how under-the-radar this story is in the mainstream press. It doesn't seem un-thinkable at all that in 5-10 years, countries will have digital borders to block certain countries from participating in their subset of the Internet. There's no way a Trump or Trump-like figure wouldn't love the ability to digitally block an entire country at their whim (like how he is doing with tariff rates now). And unlike a decade ago, it will be sold to the citizens with not much effort at all, especially if the current wave of protectionism/nationalism continues to hold.
Yay for X publishing this, but only because it helps address a problem that they created in the first place.
By paying a little bit of real cash money for hitting engagement stats, X created an incentive for people in other countries to fake the most engaging content they can find—which on X is right-wing rage bait. It has high emotional content and X’s algorithm was tweaked to prefer it.
It’s no different from the incentives that produced a flood of AI slop on Facebook, as thoroughly reported by 404 Media:
The point of early internet discussions was that "On the internet, no-one knows you're a dog".
One could discuss things without the usual silly accusations of sexism or racism or ageism or whatever because no-one knew the characteristics of the other interlocutors.
X now broadcasting everyone's location and people self-announcing their pronouns/race/age whatever are backward steps and make it way to easy for the silly people who want to be victims rather than argue the facts of an issue.
Having made the API incredibly hard to access & having attached incredibly harsh terms of service, both of which make X basically impervious to the kinds of academic research that the firehose there used to allow, there's really a feeling of X as Dark Forest. You never know what propoganda network is out there doing what, selling what, putting out whatever message it is you've happened to alone and naked in the dark X forest. You are but a (hu)man, with no ability to assess any background or context or behaviors over the things you run into.
This was such a wonderful & amazing move. It's a small move! But going from having nothing to having even a small breadcrumb of context gives users some understanding of the network around them with: at least it's something.
Thanks Sean & Zach for writing this up. Founder/executive types, putting their word down about what a phase change this was, from everyone just being utterly lost & adrift.
This is pretty easy to work around via vpns etc. Guess its another barrier…for now. But it forces escalating tactics by the other side to appear legit. So if ppl come to trust the “source” information. It might actually end up worse in the long run as the sources are all spoofed. Would need a more advanced system using signatures and real life verification to actually know a source. Similar to a ca with all of its drawbacks. Point being, this move is kind of a wash.