Over the weekend, Elon Musk’s X has rolled out a highly controversial feature that shows every account’s country of residence.
The roll out didn’t exactly go smoothly, with the company seemingly pulling then re-instating the feature which was shown to be very imprecise.
Still, many users are worried. While some used it for “detective,” work, revealing where this or that account is based in, others expressed concern that they can now effectively be stalked, as the feature shows which country they’re currently in.
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If you don’t like the idea of everyone knowing which country you reside in at the moment, X currently offers the way to make this feature less precise. Go to Settings and Privacy – Privacy and Safety – About your account.
Not the perfect fix, but better than nothing.
Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable/X
There, you can choose whether X will show the country you’re in, or a broader region or continent.
Alternatively and additionally, you can use a VPN while connecting to X, which might be able to throw it off (but it also may result in a random location showing for you, which could result in some misunderstanding, such as explaining to your boss why you’re in Bali when you should be working from your home office in Boston).
