X has begun adding an “Account based in” country label to profile pages—a modest but consequential tweak that is already exposing fake personas and foreign-run engagement farms. The new disclosure appears in the “About this account” panel, and for many users it is reframing debates over who is actually behind the posts that go viral each day.
The feature rollout, led by X product head Nikita Bier, was briefly paused while the company adjusted for VPN-related edge cases, then reintroduced platform-wide. Although X has not fully detailed the signals it uses, the label appears to rely on network and account metadata, and may show either a specific country or a broader region, depending on user settings.
How the new ‘Based in’ label works
Users can choose to display only a general region, such as North America or Europe, instead of a specific country. This option offers a privacy safeguard for people vulnerable to doxxing or living under repressive regimes. Behind the scenes, however, the system still infers a more precise location, giving everyone else a stronger signal about where posts might be originating.
That signal is not a GPS coordinate. Its accuracy is probabilistic: if you post in English and use a virtual private network to obscure your connection, it might be roughly 60% accurate; without a VPN, closer to 90%. VPNs and large corporate networks are inherently harder for such systems to interpret. Yet, when surfaced at scale, the label adds a layer of provenance that has long been opaque to regular users while remaining crucial for researchers studying manipulation.
Early clues about inauthentic networks
Within hours of launch, users were sharing screenshots of patriotic, U.S.-branded accounts that the label identified as posting from South Asia or West Africa. Others found “local news” personalities supposedly based in American cities that were, in reality, run from abroad. The tactic mirrors the classic engagement-farm playbook: latch onto polarizing issues, harvest attention, and monetize the resulting traffic.
This pattern fits into a longer history. Twitter’s former transparency efforts documented state-linked operations at scale, including a 32,242-account takedown tied to networks in China, Russia, and Turkey. Research organizations such as Graphika and the Stanford Internet Observatory have traced years of influence campaigns originating in Iran, Saudi Arabia, India, and Russia that blended authentic users with coordinated inauthentic behavior.
Private-sector analysts have seen similar fingerprints on X since its management overhaul. Case studies from firms like Cyabra and Alethea have found double-digit shares of suspected inauthentic accounts in some political conversations—often in the 10–20% range, depending on topic, timing, and sample. Meanwhile, the European Commission has flagged X as having a relatively high rate of disinformation in its risk assessments under the bloc’s content rules.
What the location label can and cannot prove
A listed country is not a value judgment. Diaspora communities, expatriates, and global marketing teams legitimately discuss politics and culture far from where they physically sit. At the same time, there are contexts where revealing a precise location can be dangerous, such as for journalists, activists, or contributors working in hostile environments. In those settings, allowing more general attribution or shared credit can be vital for protection. Conversely, organized influence networks can route traffic through residential proxies to make content appear as though it originates from a particular country.
Think of “based in” as a clue to help you verify an account, not as a verdict. Its significance grows when you combine it with behavioral signals: multiple accounts posting in lockstep, copying the same language verbatim, sudden spikes in engagement that defy a normal “this just went viral” explanation, or follower graphs dominated by newly created or low-quality profiles. On its own, the label should never be used as a pretext to dox or harass people.
Implications for moderation, policy, and transparency
For researchers and newsrooms, the feature lowers the barrier to basic provenance checks and could speed up the discovery of cross-border influence clusters. Advertisers gain a quick sanity check on brand safety in replies. Regulators can see X edging—however cautiously—toward the kind of transparency embedded in frameworks like the E.U.’s Digital Services Act, which requires very large platforms to identify and mitigate systemic risks.
The label also tests X’s commitment to combating bots and spam. A visible location tag invites community oversight, but adversaries adapt quickly. Expect to see shifts toward region-only labels, more sophisticated traffic routing, and domestically branded accounts designed to sidestep location cues altogether.
How to use the signal without overreaching
Before calling an account a bot or a foreign op, triangulate. Cross-check posting times against the claimed location; look for linguistic quirks and translation artifacts; reverse-image-search avatars; and review account age, prior handles, and repetitive engagement patterns. Academic tools such as Indiana University’s Botometer can offer probabilistic scores of inauthentic behavior, but none provide definitive answers.
Above all, focus on behavior, not nationality. Disinformation is a tactic, not an address. The “based in” label should help you weigh credibility and context, not serve as a shorthand for suspicion.
Bottom line: what this change means
X’s country label will not eliminate fake accounts, but it does raise the cost of running deceptive personas at scale. By surfacing where posts appear to come from, it helps users and researchers spot mismatches between claimed identity and observable activity. The remaining question is whether X will pair this new transparency with consistent enforcement and data-sharing that make the platform genuinely harder to game.
