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X’s New Account-Origin Labels Put Some High-Profile Pro‑Trump Accounts Outside the U.S.

Users report errors, privacy concerns following X’s rollout of account‑origin labels.

Overview

  • X activated an “About this account” tool that shows the country or broader region where a profile originated when users click the account’s creation date.
  • Journalists and researchers found multiple large pro‑MAGA profiles presenting as U.S. voices that display origins in Eastern Europe, South Asia or Africa, including examples flagged by NewsGuard.
  • Nikita Bier, X’s product lead, cautioned that VPNs, proxies and travel can misstate origin and touted a future 99.99% accuracy level, a claim not independently verified.
  • Users are reporting incorrect country assignments and raising privacy complaints, and CNN and others say they cannot independently verify the locations shown.
  • X says accounts can swap a country for a region and some users can disable country visibility, as investigators continue assessing whether financially incentivized political content is being run from abroad.