• Salah Abdullah Al-attar - Editor-in-Chief

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Between transparency and chaos. The launch of the "About This Account" feature in X confuses users and sparks a global debate..

In an initiative described as one of the largest attempts by the X platform, formerly Twitter, to promote transparency and verify the identity of accounts, the platform has begun rolling out the About This Account feature on a global scale, sparking widespread debate.

While the feature aims to improve the reliability of digital identity and reduce misinformation, the launch did not go without controversy, as the data published through the feature revealed unexpected geolocations for many accounts, sparking controversy over the accuracy of the data and the implications of revealing the location of accounts.


Details of the new feature in X
A feature about this account
displays extensive information that includes the country where the account was first created, the country in which the account holder is currently resided, the number of times the username has been changed, and how to connect to the platform, whether on the web or through a specific app store.

The move comes in the context of similar efforts adopted by other platforms, such as Facebook's Page Transparency feature and Instagram's About this account.

Users can view their account data by clicking on the date option on the account page, with the option to view the country or (region/continent) to which the account belongs, with the country being the default option, and the data of other accounts can be viewed in the same way.

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Beer, head of product at X, admitted that the data shown by the new feature is not entirely accurate for older accounts, and that the company will address the initial vulnerabilities in the coming days.

A number of X users have complained that the apparent location of their accounts is illogical, with some possible reasons seemed to be due to the use of VPN services, travel and physical locations, having teams working from multiple locations within the company, or relying on outdated IP addresses.