Recently, a new feature introduced by Elon Musk's social platform "X" that displays the location of an account has sparked heated discussions on foreign websites — many accounts under the "MAGA" banner were found to be located outside the United States, and even the U.S. Department of Homeland Security account was accused of being "located in Israel," leading to the immediate removal of the feature.

According to foreign media such as NBC News and the UK Daily Mail, during the recent weekend, the social platform X quietly launched a new function that allows users to view the IP address location of other users. This feature had been previously announced by the platform's product head, Nikita Bier. At that time, he claimed that this function aimed to help users verify the authenticity of the content they read and limit "trolls."

However, as soon as the feature was launched, many netizens were surprised to find that many "loyal supporters" of Trump or accounts promoting "MAGA" (Make America Great Again) were located overseas. For example, a user named "Trump is my president" was located in Macedonia; another account named "America First" was located in Bangladesh, and so on. Moreover, some netizens uncovered that the official account of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security showed its creation location and IP address as "Israel." The related screenshots have widely circulated on foreign websites.

Screenshots posted by foreign netizens

After this news was exposed, many American netizens criticized the U.S. government for placing "foreign entities above the country."

Regarding the question of "Why does an official account of a U.S. government department show its IP in Israel?" the AI large model Grok of the X platform responded that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security itself is based in the United States, but its subordinate agency, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has an international office in Tel Aviv, Israel. The account might have shown up in Israel due to login location reasons.

As the controversy escalated, the feature "suddenly disappeared," raising doubts about whether the X platform removed the feature to calm the dispute. On November 23 local time, Nikita Bier released a statement saying, "The feature was turned off because in a few old accounts, the country information registered was incorrect. This was due to changes in IP address ranges over time."

Although the statement did not mention the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, he later commented that the news about the U.S. Department of Homeland Security account being in Israel was "fake news." He claimed, "No official government account has ever provided location information at any time. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security account has only shown IPs from the United States since its creation."

On the other hand, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security initially posted a "memes-style" image of Trump looking very shocked, trying to "brush it off." However, as the public opinion continued to escalate, the account later posted a message stating, "The U.S. Department of Homeland Security account has always operated in the United States. Screenshots can easily be forged, and videos can also be easily altered. Thank you for paying attention to this matter."

However, this statement did not convince the netizens. Many netizens posted their unedited screen recordings and condemned it for using lies to "deceive Americans."

As of the local time on November 23, the IP address location display feature was once again available. After re-launching, the IP address location of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security account was displayed as "United States." Notably, according to foreign media reports, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security seems to be the only gray-marked government account showing its location, as other U.S. government accounts now only display the account creation date and verification date.

This article is an exclusive contribution from Observers, and any unauthorized reproduction is prohibited.

Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7576224612376248882/

Statement: This article represents the views of the author, and we welcome you to express your attitude by clicking on the [Upvote/Downvote] buttons below.