Location information for posters?

[lljkk]

I feel it's a good move on X.com, that there is some location resolution on where people are posting from and/or where the originally registered. I believe that most IP addresses are still geographically linked, so not that technologically difficult; and MNHQ tracks that info alreadyl

I am thinking in UK the resolution could be by region (eg., all of West Midlands etc) and in USA the resolution could be by state. Not very specific.
Yeah I know people can use VPNs and so on... but if someone claims to live in Uk and actually posts from Russia... or if the fact they turned off their location-info is clearly published, I wonder if this would help people decide how much to agree with someone's claims.

I would not post at all if this happened.

Some of us are in groups where there are very few people like us where we live. Eg if you are a Jewish mum of twins one of whom is deaf. That would be very identifying.

I can't see what useful purpose this would serve. The site has managed for years without it.

It's not so good for people who live in oppressive countries. For sure, such folk will need a VPN to access the site anyway, but given that most VPN IPs will be known. Not good at all.

I thought Twitter had turned this off when the feature revealed how many accounts were from Russia or other undesirable states.

X feature reveals locations of some users. It could backfire. https://share.google/fPAhDCS1iBQZNJ3DB

This would make it very easy to track people across name changes and lead to IRL doxing. I don't agree with the Twitter version existing either but at least that is only giving a country not a specific region.

I have a fairly unique combination of disabilities, and had a fairly unique string of bereavements that I've posted about. Adding my city into that would make it quite obvious who I am to anyone who knows me. Including my irl stalker.

Why?

Morning @lljkk. We're always willing to give new ideas some thought but we have to say we would have some privacy concerns about this one, as other posters have mentioned. One of the useful things about Mumsnet is that it offers total anonymity and we wouldn't want to do anything that might compromise that, particularly for users posting about difficult or sensitive situations.

To make it more obvious if someone says they are a UK resident mum of 4 but their posting location says Uzbekistan: that they are telling lies. Because there are a lot of fake posts on every forum and every form of social media, including MN.

If you know your location being resolved to say, "West Midlands" is too identifying with other info you provide, you would then have option to be economical with your details. You'd have this choice.

I can see my idea won't be accepted. I guess I'll revert to believing that everything I read on here is probably a pack of lies. Is the only rational decision.

I wish MN would do something about the sock puppets with all their accounts pretending to be different people on the same thread.

Wow, talk about throwing your toys out of the pram OP.

Who cares if someone is lying about where they’re posting from? Does location really matter (unless their whole reason for posting is related to their location)?

They did - they prevented posters from name changing on a thread. Although doesn’t stop them having multiple accounts of course.

That’s what I said