X (Twitter) Now Shows Your Account's Country/Region

Last weekend, X released a new About This Account section, accessible by tapping the signup date on a profile, which reveals the location an account is based, among other information. Currently, government affiliated accounts (any with a gray verification check) are exempt from this new feature.

Your location appears to be determined by a number of factors, but primarily by geolocating your IP address. X seems to have a list of VPN and proxy affiliated IP addresses, and will display a warning that the location data may not be accurate if the user is using a VPN.

In a post to the platform, X's head of product Nikita Bier said the change was "an important first step to securing the integrity of the global town square." Shortly after the feature's launch it was temporarily taken down due to the data being "not 100% for old accounts" according to Bier. It has since returned, although it no longer publicly shows the location where an account was originally created.

The region disclosure feature has been labeled as "forced doxxing" by some X users. However, members of the Privacy Guides community largely felt that country-level information is not specific enough to qualify as personally-identifiable information and this new feature did not represent a significant risk.

Location tracking is a hot issue for X founder Elon Musk, who notoriously banned an account which re-shared publicly available records about his private jet flights in 2022. Bier claims that the update time for your profile's location is "randomized" to prevent the possibility of this being used to track someone while traveling.

According to NPR, very shortly after the feature was launched, many right-wing "American" political accounts were exposed to be based overseas, largely in Eastern Europe. 404 Media reported more details about these inauthentic accounts here:

America’s Polarization Has Become the World’s Side Hustle

The ‘psyops’ revealed by X are entirely the fault of the perverse incentives created by social media monetization programs.

404 MediaJason Koebler

Increased transparency seems to be a useful tool against misinformation, especially political disinformation, that is promoted by these algorithms. Ultimately, however, this data being publicized reveals that platforms like X have had this information all along, and simply chose not to use it in their algorithms to slow down the spread of this misinformation in the first place.

How to hide your location on X

We recommend X users change their location disclosure settings from the default "Use Country" level to the "Use Region / Continent" level, which will reveal an even broader location about yourself. For example, a profile from the U.K. will show "Europe" after making this change. While for many, revealing the country you are in represents a fairly low risk, it remains best practice to reveal as little information about yourself as possible, unless you have a compelling reason not to do so.

You can access this setting by tapping the join date on your own profile, then tapping the gear icon in the top right.

Some journalists have noted that the existence of a continent-level setting may help prevent misinformation in countries where there are few other neighboring countries, such as the United States in North America, but it does not help countries dealing with misinformation from their close neighbors, as occurs in South Asia and other parts of the world.