Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has said a new feature rolled out by X revealing an account holder’s country was “risky,” agreeing with crypto users who flagged privacy concerns over the feature.
X director of product Nikita Bier announced the feature was rolled out on Saturday, framing it as a way to ensure the integrity of the platform and allow users to verify information.
Buterin said on Sunday that some accounts will eventually “find ways to pretend to be from countries that they are not,” but initially thought the change could have positive effects, such as increased visibility into how people from different communities feel about various issues.
Multiple crypto users aired concerns that bad actors could use the feature to more easily track high-worth investors to attack them in person, among other concerns over privacy.
“I thought about this more and I think responders are right that revealing the country non- ‘consensually without offering any opt-out option, not even stop using your account, is wrong,” Buterin later said.
“In most cases, revealing country still leaves a very large anonymity set, but there are some people for whom even a few bits of leakage are risky, and they should not have their privacy retroactively rugpulled with no recourse.”
Crypto executives cite privacy concerns too
Uniswap founder Hayden Adams was also firmly against the new feature and said “I hate it. Opt-in doxing is fine, mandatory doxing is psychotic.”
Andrei David, the chief technology officer at decentralized finance platform Summer.fi, was also concerned about the privacy implications.
“The problem isn’t showing country; it’s forcing everyone into visibility without notice. A privacy-sensitive feature should always start with the least revealing setting,” he said.
Crypto users share how to opt out
Bier said that there was a privacy toggle to only show an account’s region, “for those in countries where speech has penalties.”
The X user “Langerius,” a lead at Web3 community and consulting group Hunters of Web3, said there is a way for concerned users to opt out of the new feature.
“If you want to hide it: 1- turn it off: settings & privacy → privacy & safety → disable country visibility 2- or switch from country to region/continent in same menu,” they explained.
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Some less concerned about the feature
Other X users were more positive about the new feature. Some argued that revealing an account location in a country the size of the US, with a population of around 350 million, was unlikely to leave anyone easily identifiable.
More still, including crypto venture capitalist Nic Carter, said the feature was necessary to prevent accounts linked to overseas users from attempting to interfere in politics by masquerading as being from a particular country.
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