Everything we know about X’s new “Account based in” country labels

X (formerly Twitter) has always been a chaotic place. It is where ideas clash and people from all over the world shout their opinions. But over the years, it became too easy for people to hide where they were coming from. This allowed bots and bad actors to cause trouble without being noticed. And that’s where the new “Account based in” disclosure comes into play. It shows the country or region where an account is based.

It’s a simple change, but it has got almost all of X talking about it for days. The feature started rolling out late last Saturday, November 22, for everyone. The announcement came from X’s product head, Nikia Bier.

He said they were rolling out “About This Account” globally, and thanked his engineering team for the hard work. The goal is to make the platform more trustworthy. Bier wants users to verify who is behind the words. This is just the first step to stop suspicious activity.

The label works by using IP data from when the account was created, and then it checks this against current activity to find a location. This stops people from pretending to be locals when they are actually posting from a server farm in another country.

X knows this comes with risks. In places where sharing a location is dangerous, users can use a privacy setting. They can choose to show a broad region like “Europe” instead of a specific country, as we previously highlighted. This protects free speech without putting people in danger.

Of course, nothing this straightforward launches without a few hiccups. Some users saw wildly incorrect locations at first, like one person who appeared to be in India but was actually in England.

Bier jumped into the replies to address some bugs on the fly, including routing issues for Starlink users.

The team was also working on tweaks to identify accounts trying to use VPNs to trick the system. So now, if the system detects that a person is likely using a VPN, you’ll see an exclamation icon appear beside the “Account based in” info, alerting users about possible VPN usage.

Nikita also revealed that they decided to skip the label entirely on government accounts to “prevent acts of terrorism against government leaders.”

One major issue was the original registration country detail, which vanished from the feature almost immediately. Bier explained that the data was inaccurate for very old accounts because IP ranges shift over time. He promised a fix would arrive by Tuesday.

In the meantime, the “based in” label updates on a randomized delay to protect privacy. If you are traveling, the label might lag a bit, but it generally corrects itself within 30 days.

Bier has been responding to dozens of people over the weekend. He addressed complaints and fake news videos. One rumor claimed the DHS account was created in Israel, but that was false. All its IPs trace to the US.

He even promised a database upgrade a few hours ago to improve accuracy to near perfection.

This label is a big step for trust on X. It helps to know where someone is based when you see a doubtful post. Bier called it an important first step, but only time will tell if this controversial feature was worth it or not.