In a post to the site on Saturday (22 November), X’s head of product Nikita Bier announced the global rollout of ‘About This Account” – a feature found by tapping an account’s sign-up date to see where in a country or region the user is located.
“This is an important first step to securing the integrity of the global town square,” he wrote. “We plan to provide many more ways for users to verify the authenticity of the content they see on X.
“And for those in countries where speech has penalties, we’ve included privacy toggles to only show your region.”
And in addition to this exposing the actual locations of MAGA accounts on the platform, it also became a meme in its own right, with people editing in their own locations to crack jokes.
And when the White House decided to join in, it did so by changing the label to say the account was based in “Rent Free in Democrats’ Heads” (yes, the grammar is terrible).
Except many users responded with exactly the same thing:
— (@)
“Many are saying…,” responded progressive commentator Alex Cole:
Trump has consistently denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein and has said he was not aware of Epstein’s criminal behaviour.
Elsewhere, the Department of Homeland Security, ever weird with its social media posting, leant into the meme by reacting to a tweet which claimed the account is based in Tel Aviv, Israel and was created in the country in 2008:
— (@)
Bier has since branded the claim “fake news”, and said the location detail was “not available on any gray check account at any point” and that the department has only shown IP addresses from the US “since account creation”.
