I’m sure everyone heard that X now publicly shows accounts location. I was wondering if there’s anything X users can do to improve the situation as much as possible?
I heard accounts created with a VPN will always show that location.
What about existing accounts not created with VPN? Anything can be done?
Is the location shown and updated constantly? Or the location at account creation?
Someone posted Snowden’s account not showing at all where he is and people were speculating how he did that (something about Whonix, Tor, etc.). Would love to know if someone can figure out how we can also do that.
Note: please don’t give me “just get off X” answers. I already know all that. I’m asking as specific question.
I don’t believe you know what doxing means. This isn’t doxing. It only shows where your account is from and/or how it is being accessed to get on the platform.
Start using a reputable VPN.
I’m not an X user so don’t know. This is a brand new development so not sure how X is doing this on their end.
Only the country is made public, but it is still doxing. If what X/Twitter is doing is not doxing, how do you define doxing? This being leaked would make some X/Twitter users concerned about their safety. Here I’m thinking activists, journalists and other high-risk actors who need to hide their location. Those people probably should already be taking countermeasures but that’s beside the point.
Which gets to the questions asked by OP. I wonder, can X/Twitter users just start using VPN or Tor or something to hide their real country/region, or will that not work retroactively (relates to question 2)? The X/Twitter settings screenshots in this article suggests it is possible, and when VPN use is detected X/Twitter also displays “Country or region may not be accurate.” Further, users can reveal just the continent/region and not the country.
I’m not a X/Twitter user but at this stage I would suggest that concerned users change the setting to continent/region and start using a VPN or Tor.
Aside, according to the same article I cited, other changes to user profiles include
how many times the account has changed its username
28 replies and you’re the only one who’s addressing my question lol. Appreciate the discussion but hope to get more focus on the actual question
Thank you. Will start using VPN and see if after a while it changes my location.
And to answer my self regarding the “Snowden” Twitter Account situation. Apparently it seems it’s b/c he hasn’t logged in in a long time. FYI
Even though it is a bit of a stretch, it’s also not completely untrue. There is nuance there cause it depends on context and addition of other PII that could (and in this case does imo cause we’re talking about Twitter, not a service that inherently and zero-trust respects users’ privacy) end up becoming a big privacy invasion. (in many countries and sensitive situations).
Please keep us posted And to other X/Twitter users here, please share what you know about details of this new location “doxing” thing especially about effectiveness of VPN, Tor etc.
Tangential topic: The word “doxing” was used in the thread’s title but was identified as incorrect. What is a word that means “intentionally (but regardless of purpose) publishing private information (not just PII) about someone without their consent,” for instance what X/Twitter is doing with users’ locations?
These reasons will become cause for governments to pressure all those sites to ban VPN usage.
It seems like a VPN and only using the web app is effective, but it will show the warning that you’re using a VPN to other users in your profile. If you’re fine with that then that’s fine. It indeed may take a while to update:
If you use an App Store or Play Store version of the app it will also show your app store region, which a VPN does not change on its own. The best case here is just to limit public exposure as much as X allows:
I moved this topic to Questions since you wanted answers and not discussion.
When you go on a profile, and it says “Connected via the United States app Store”, what does that mean?
Does it mean your location is based on the country of your app store and not your IP address?
If have been using a VPN 24/7 for years and I don’t use the Google App store despite not having a Graphene OS phone. I use the Aurora store.
If I delete Twitter, re-download it from the Aurora store, with my VPN on, and log in, will it change my location?
I know a lot of people who don’t engage with privacy issues, and yet use a different app store than the country they live in. For example, I have a European friend who used to live in the US when she was minor. And when her and her family moved back to Europe, they kept their American Apple App store accounts, because it gave them access to a much wider selection of content.
