I'm not sure how they are getting the info but it's not as simple as logged in IP, mine says I'm based in Costa Rica, I was on vacation there 2/3 months ago, but it's not primarily where I use my x account and I've logged in from a phone and a computer from other countries since, and CR would be a relatively small amount of time in my total usage, so I find it strange it thinks my account is based there.
Interesting. Maybe gps location data snapshots factor into it. You could probably defeat that with app permissions though. GPS spoofing is also possible, but a lot more friction for troll accounts.
Or maybe they are able to link carrier-sourced cellphone location datasets to particular twitter accounts. Those aren't going to be real-time though, so something like that could explain the lag.
I was thinking about it a bit more this morning, in Costa Rica I used a local sim from a local carrier, but since then I've been traveling but using esims from Airalo, they still use a local carrier, but I wonder if it's kinda like how the 2 factor auth stuff often won't let you use a VOIP/twilio number it needs to be from a real carrier, I wonder if x has a matrix of signals they use to decide to switch it or not, and within the carrier metric, esim re-seller is deprioritized over a real telco or something? Who knows, but it's kinda fun to think about! :)
