Crypto Community Alarmed as Buterin Flags Security Risks in X’s Latest Location Tool
- X has recently introduced a feature that displays user location details on profiles.
- Vitalik highlights that the feature enhances transparency and raises potential privacy concerns.
During the weekend, X introduced a function that enables users to see the country where any account is located. Before the features’ launch, Nikita Bier, the product lead at X, attempted to present it as a move to tidy up the platform and enhance transparency. He said,
According to Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s Co-founder, the new features offer clear benefits. These include increased transparency about users, enhancing confidence in the platform’s credibility as a social app. However, he said that these gains are unlikely to last once more sophisticated actors begin adapting to the system.
According to Buterin, some groups will almost certainly figure out ways to disguise their true origins, renting passports, phone numbers, IP addresses, or even entire identities.
He predicts that, in a matter of months, politically motivated troll accounts from random Eurasian countries could masquerade as U.S. or U.K. users, adopting names like “Defend Western Civilization” to push targeted narratives under the guise of local legitimacy.
Notably, several MAGA-themed accounts that claim to be patriotic American voices are, in fact, posting from places like Eastern Europe, Thailand, Nigeria, and Bangladesh.
For example, “ULTRAMAGA TRUMP2028” claims Washington, D.C., as its home, but X’s new location tag shows Africa. Another account, @American, with a bald eagle over an American flag for its profile picture, is actually based in Pakistan.
Buterin concludes by predicting that the new feature could allow for a greater understanding of how different communities think about different issues, in a way that is not easy to spoof. In a follow-up post, the founder noted that the new feature exposes users to privacy risks, stating “they should not have their privacy retroactively rugpulled with no recourse.”
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