Elon Musk’s social media platform, X (formerly Twitter), has officially launched a new feature that adds country of origin labels to all user profiles. The move aims to enhance transparency on the platform by clearly indicating the geographical origin of users.
This feature, once activated, can be viewed by going to any user’s bio and clicking on the date they joined Twitter. Once you click on it, it will display the account’s location and the App Store it is connected to.
The new update also unveils when the X account was created, its verification status, and the number of username changes. However, the feature is not yet visible for all users.
Fake accounts and AI bots in trouble
As reported by Cryptopolitan, X’s head of product, Nikita Bier, stated that the move was aimed at helping users verify content.
“When you read content on X, you should be able to verify its authenticity. This is critical to getting a pulse on important issues happening in the world. As part of that, we’re experimenting with displaying new information on profiles, including which country an account is based, among other details. Starting next week, we will surface this on a handful of profiles of X team members to get feedback,” Bier wrote.
Some users say that the long-awaited feature will help uncover accounts spreading misinformation, interfering in foreign affairs, farming engagement in unethical ways, or impersonating a user from another part of the world.
A user responded to critics, saying, “I’m tired of accounts from India and Russia meddling with American affairs. I’m tired of these people posing as citizens of our country and trying to influence what our country does.”
However, not all users are excited. Some users feel that this feature could increase racial or abuse based on region. This was previously impossible, as Twitter (X) users could easily impersonate others and post content freely.
One X user wrote, “I dislike this and think that it will be a regressive force that will end up suppressing people’s freedom of speech. I foresee this feature being weaponized to report a user’s speech to their government more easily.”
A survey reveals that X has stagnated under Musk
New survey results from the Pew Research Center have revealed stagnation as the long-term result of Musk’s control over the platform. Over the last year, the percentage of Americans who report using X has remained nearly flat, decreasing from 22% in 2024 to 21% today.
According to the report, the drop for X has been made up of mostly young users aged 18 through 29, who are far and away the largest users of social media. Between 2024 and 2025, the number of 18-to-29-year-olds using the platform decreased from 42% to 33%.
Another study revealed that the platform lost 10% of its users every year from the second quarter of 2024 to 2025. In comparison, TikTok has grown by 4% over the same period, while Instagram saw a 3% growth.
Meanwhile, users are giving up on Musk’s promises to turn the platform into the “Everything App” — a one-stop shop for short-form videos, messaging, and even banking. Instead, it is still struggling with outage issues.
For instance, the platform was down for thousands of users in the US on Friday. As of 10:51 a.m., there were more than 19,500 reports of issues with the social media platform. ET, according to Downdetector
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Source: https://www.cryptopolitan.com/x-launches-country-of-origin-labels/
