Nikita Bear, head of product at Yesterday
The reaction from users on X was definitely, Completely Level-headed. He immediately recognized that the data was flawed and he certainly did not spend the last 24 hours scoring political points.
The people on X have done almost nothing except shout that the accounts they disagree with are actually foreign operators. Even users who publicly complained that the information on their own profiles was inaccurate continued to post malicious posts about how their political rivals were running a foreign psyop.
There can be many reasons for incorrect data. Those who travel, or have outlets with employees scattered around the world, may appear to be “based” somewhere other than where they actually are, at least temporarily. If someone uses a VPN, this may affect where X shows its location. Some of these may be old IP addresses. At the time of this writing, Hank Green’s account is listed as being based in Japan, MusicTech (a sister publication of the UK’s NME) is listed as being based in the US, and Avid (the Massachusetts-based manufacturer of ProTools) is listed as being based in Spain.
Of course, there is a grain of truth in some of this. Many Political Rage-Four accounts are not based in the US. We have long known that troll farms are running foreign influence campaigns on American politics. But some of it is also financial planning. Monetization on X is largely driven by engagement, and there’s nothing like provoking people about politics.
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