India, Nov. 29 -- On November 16, Katie Pavlich, an American media personality, urged Elon Musk to have X display where its users are based because "foreign bots are tearing America apart". To this plea, Nikita Bier of X replied: "Give me 72 hours." Since X had already been testing this feature internally, Bier was able to deliver on his promise. But the roll-out of this feature over the past week has upended the "global public square" because it has revealed that a sizeable number of X users are, in fact, impersonators. In recent days, X users have been entertaining each other by exposing how, for instance, "handles" expressing support for white nationalism or outrage at Trump's support for Israel, which purported to be operated by homespun white Americans, are, in fact, operated by users based in countries like Pakistan and Turkey. The irony is profound: For the past decade, Americans have criticised Russia for seeking to undermine their democracy even as some of their precious Major Non-NATO Allies (MNNAs) allies have been running circles around them. To be sure, much of the impersonation on X seems banal. Since X monetises engagement - by rewarding posts that receive attention - it encourages "grifters" to feign identities that will attract viewers. An embarrassing number of these accounts seem to originate in India, a disgrace that the government ought to address. But once we finish snickering at the chutzpah of burly Punjabis earning their daily bread by pretending to be lightly clad blonde vegans from Texas, there is a more sobering lesson to reflect upon. These revelations about "inauthentic engagement" uncovered by X's new policy bring into focus a brewing crisis in democratic politics. Until recently, citizens of democracies received their information from established sources such as newspapers or channels. This allowed them to estimate the credibility of the source and process the information they received accordingly. But with the emergence of social media platforms, citizens are now constantly exposed to messaging from "handles" that may not be what they seem. This malign form of impersonation can have far-reaching effects. Historically, anonymity served as a means of defence, to protect the speaker against the wrath of the powerful. But it has now become a means of offence - a form of information warfare. The modus operandi goes like this. A State-sponsored network from Pakistan will impersonate an American and an Indian and initiate a "social media war" that drags unsuspecting users - actual Americans and Indians - into the fray. Having fouled moods and saddled diplomats in both countries with a headache, the Pakistani network may then take up a new role, impersonating Chinese users who ask irritated Indians to "join them" in the fight against "American imperialism," thereby unleashing a new cycle of recriminations. Since impersonation allows malicious actors to easily sow division between countries and dissension within societies, X's decision to reveal user locations deserves to be celebrated. But this win for transparency may prove short-lived. X's new policy has, conveniently enough, helped Musk deflate the ethno-nationalist wing of the MAGA movement by showing that a good number of the flag-waving posts actually emanate from "inauthentic" actors. The risk is that, having made his point, Musk may be tempted to retract the new policy. Transparency reduces the scope for sensationalism on X and thus imperils user engagement, a metric Musk cares deeply about. So, perhaps, in a few weeks the algorithms at X will magically boost complaints about "user privacy" and set the stage for the rolling back of X's new policy. There is already some slippage, with users being allowed to display their location as a region rather than a country, for instance as "West Asia" instead of Turkey or as "East Asia" instead of China. Naturally, that great con-job, "South Asia," is becoming the location of choice for users based in Pakistan and Bangladesh. For this reason, the Government of India should consider amending the Information Technology Act to require social media companies to display basic user information. This should include the country they are based in and, perhaps, even the state they reside in (as this would make it harder for malicious domestic actors to stir up regional divisions). This remedy is not foolproof, however. Since social media has such immense power to shape narrative and generate conflict, foreign actors will have a strong incentive to find a workaround. Some rabble-rousing accounts have already responded to X's new policy by using VPNs to disguise their locations. For now, X is flagging the use of VPNs, which helps alert users to suspicious accounts. But it is not clear whether X will keep this policy in place - or whether any of the other social media platforms will follow suit. Therefore, the ministry of electronics and information technology should develop a rapid-response unit that can expose particularly malicious actors or posts that have foreign IP addresses. Even this may not be enough. The harder India makes it for its vicious actors to disguise their locations, the more likely it becomes that they will turn to proxies to operate X handles for them from inside India. For instance, a malicious actor based out of "West Asia" may choose to recruit a person based in, say, Kerala, to operate an X account at their behest (or to provide them with remote access to their device). In the event, merely knowing the geographic location of a user will not help Indians realise they are being targeted by a foreign influence operation. Thus to pre-empt such conduct India should sharpen the Information Technology Act to punish the facilitation of impersonation. X's new policy, and the proposals outlined above, may be criticised as infringing on privacy and thereby limiting speech. But such criticism ignores the fact that citizens also have a demonstrable interest in transparency - in knowing that they are actually speaking to and hearing from genuine persons rather than bots from "East Asia." In this sense, to demand broad details about users - such as their geographic location - does not undercut speech but, in fact, rescues it from the malign effects of impersonation....