As AI makes it easier than ever to create bots that behave more like humans, Elon Musk’s X is developing new features that expose more information about users behind their X profiles to help users better understand who they’re talking to on the platform.
According to a new post from Nikita Via, head of product at X, the social network will begin experimenting with displaying more information about user profiles, including details such as date of account creation, location, number of username changes and usage of X’s services.
The idea is that by exposing some of these details, users can make more informed decisions about whether someone is operating a genuine account or whether it could be a bot or malicious person trying to spread false information.
For example, if your account profile claims to be based in a U.S. state, but your account information shows you’re based overseas, you might suspect that your account has another purpose.
Similarly, if an international app store shows you have downloaded the X app but pretends to be from the United States, you might question its legitimacy. (This isn’t to say that someone couldn’t start an account elsewhere and then immigrate to the US, but this is a sign that perhaps combined with other things, such as multiple username changes, could raise red flags.)
Beer said Company X will begin testing the feature next week on some Company X employee profiles to get feedback before rolling it out more broadly. He also said in response to questions about user privacy that people can opt out of seeing this information. However, he noted that “if a user sets[a privacy toggle]it will likely be highlighted on their profile.”
He also cited concerns about exposing people’s locations, given that there are some regions where speech can be penalized, and said that in such cases X could replace region with country.
The idea of displaying detailed information about social media accounts to help users understand who they’re engaging with on social media isn’t new. For example, in a recent interview at Bloomberg’s Screen Time conference, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri said that today’s users of the photo and video sharing app can access someone’s profile and see a similar set of information.
“If you go to my profile today, you can go to ‘About this profile,’ and you’ll see how long I’ve been using this profile, what country I’m based in, how many times I’ve changed my username. These sets of signals can be used to decide how much to trust or not trust,” he said, noting that Instagram may “do something more” to provide additional context in the future.
Public disclosure of changes to X may address trust issues to some extent, but scammers and spammers often have effective ways to circumvent exposure attempts.
This news follows a recent bot purge at X, where the company removed 1.7 million bots involved in reply spam.
