![[DECODED] X’s geolocation characteristic is not excellent or clear, and that makes it problematic](https://i3.wp.com/www.rappler.com/tachyon/2025/11/X-GEOLOCATION-carousel.jpg?ssl=1 "[DECODED] X’s geolocation characteristic is not excellent or clear, and that makes it problematic")
On November 23, Nikita Bier, head of product at Elon Musk’s social media platform X, introduced that the platform could be introducing a characteristic that might let customers see the nation or area the place an account on X is predicated.
The characteristic, which follows within the footsteps of comparable ones on Fb and YouTube, is supposed as “an essential first step to securing the integrity of the worldwide city sq.” by serving to clamp down and monitor inauthentic engagement.
The query turns into a matter of figuring out whether or not it can work as marketed and what capabilities and limitations X’s geolocation characteristic could have for its customers.
Geolocation at a look
Geolocation is the method of figuring out the place a pc or different computing gadget is positioned utilizing one or quite a few knowledge assortment mechanisms.
In response to Google’s personal definition of geolocation, “most geolocation providers use community routing addresses or inner GPS chips to find out this location.”
Lack of readability on how X geolocation works
How does X’s geolocation work, although? It’s not completely clear.
In response to Jan Kammerath, who examined a few of the limits of the system, it seems the geolocation notices are achieved in batches as new accounts utilizing digital personal networks to base them in Vaduz in Liechtenstein didn’t instantly get tagged with geolocation.
Bier mentioned in a put up, “If any knowledge is inaccurate, it will likely be up to date periodically based mostly on greatest out there info. This occurs on a delayed and randomized schedule to protect privateness.”
This may imply that the geolocation checks are time-bound and will thus be totally different if an individual is, for instance, touring elsewhere when an replace to the geolocation checks happens.
Bier later mentioned on November 24 that in an replace by November 25, “accuracy might be practically 99.99%.”
On-line reactions to X’s new characteristic
The Nerve checked out public X posts from November 21 to twenty-eight mentioning the brand new X location characteristic, and located about 192,790 English posts.
Primarily based on the scan, the most important matter clusters (about 17%) contained a mixture of humor and outrage on the new characteristic. Many customers discovered it entertaining that the characteristic is exposing grifters, pretend Individuals, and misleading accounts, whereas others mocked X CEO and proprietor Elon Musk for utilizing it as a kind of guide bot purge; others, in the meantime, praised it as one among X’s greatest updates.
The scan additionally famous how there have been issues relating to the characteristic’s privateness dangers, points on accuracy, and the potential for political misuse, whereas warnings had been posted about potential xenophobia and points with consumer security and privateness. Some posts have additionally raised authorized and data-protection questions, with a name for stronger privacy-preserving alternate options.
In the meantime, about 4.9% of the posts within the scan had been about exposing pretend accounts and bot networks. Israel (1.46%) is talked about primarily in relation to controversy over US authorities accounts showing to be based mostly there. Gaza journalists (2.1%) are additionally talked about, largely within the context of confusion, false accusations, and disinformation triggered by the X geolocation replace.
The propensity for racist discourse
The Nerve’s scan of X posts confirmed racist discourse has additionally occurred following the discharge of the characteristic.
About 5% of the posts additionally level out that the characteristic has intensified xenophobia, country-based hate, and identification policing, with individuals all of the sudden treating X’s location characteristic as proof of ethnicity.
The characteristic has additionally surfaced racist narratives, with India as probably the most talked about nation within the dataset (5.8%), adopted by Nigeria and Bangladesh (1.4%), Pakistan (2.3%), Ukraine (2%), and the UK (0.39%).
Sowing doubt on authenticity
X’s geolocation replace, because of this, sows doubt on the authenticity of posts made by accounts on X. That is each seen as a possible accountability measure, in addition to a method of weaponizing geolocation outcomes to “show” individuals are liars.
How does sowing doubt on the authenticity of an account work as an accountability measure?
In The Nerve’s report on the Southport riots, we handled analyzing the UK’s anti-immigrant disinformation ecosystem.
Our transfer to catalogue these was an accountability measure meant to point out that actors exterior the areas being mentioned had been spurring on anti-immigrant discussions whereas asserting they had been from the UK whereas not being from there in any respect.
The Nerve recognized a minimum of 26 verified accounts posting anti-immigrant narratives. Of those, we discovered six accounts which are based mostly in international locations that aren’t the UK, in accordance with X’s new geolocation characteristic.
Three had been discovered to be based mostly in Europe (Netherlands, Italy, and Serbia), two within the US, and one in Thailand.
The accounts that bear UK-related flags on their show names (@HerdImmunity12 and @whitepilledpage), particularly, are based mostly in Thailand and america, respectively.
@HerdImmunity12 has each the UK and US flags in its show identify, and has a bio observe saying, “✝️ Professional SME, TRUMP, MAGA, minimal state interference, #LeaveWEF, inexpensive power.” The disclosed location it has on its account is Nice Britain. It’s nonetheless posting anti-immigrant content material as of November 2025.
In the meantime, @whitepilledpage bears the nationwide flag of England, often known as the St. George’s Cross, which has been related to the far proper. It’s also nonetheless posting anti-immigrant content material as of November 2025.
Weaponizing this characteristic nevertheless, works in a lot the identical approach — by asserting that somebody who’s clearly in a given location is definitely mendacity based mostly on X’s geolocation characteristic.
As an example, the Israel Overseas Ministry mentioned on X on November 23 that journalist Motasem Dalloul — reporting on the assaults in opposition to Gaza — was working out of Poland based mostly on the geolocation tag in his account.
Dalloul has already gone on the report with video exhibiting him in Gaza and has spoken about utilizing a world SIM card on his cellphone because of the destruction of Gaza’s telecommunications infrastructure.
Except for skepticism, ‘belief however confirm’ is paramount
As journalist Hala Jaber defined on X: “Gaza’s shattered web runs on donated eSIMs that route by means of Europe, together with Poland. VPNs, failovers, & community glitches solely make misidentification simpler. X itself mentioned the characteristic isn’t dependable & even paused its rollout.”
She went on to say that pro-Israeli accounts “aren’t making a good-faith mistake.”
“They’re weaponizing a recognized technical quirk to smear a Palestinian journalist & pro-Palestinian accounts as a result of their reporting is inconvenient.”
Whereas X’s geolocation characteristic is welcome in its bid to create transparency, there also needs to be clear notes detailing the way it operates and what its limitations are.
The geolocation characteristic, as a facet impact, finally ends up appearing as an enabler of engagement farming or clickbait as individuals talk about the characteristic and push again on perceived fakery or inauthenticity on X.
It’s arduous to belief what you can not confirm, and whereas black packing containers in massive tech are regular, they don’t seem to be at all times welcome. Having wholesome skepticism on this case often is the sensible transfer.
With out correct safeguards, X’s geolocation characteristic is a weapon to be wielded by unhealthy actors aiming to create confusion at its worst. At greatest, it may be a method of opening up the dialogue on how transparency and accountability are sorely wanted on social media. – with reviews from Pauline Macaraeg/Rappler.com
