India, Nov. 27 -- When Elon Musk acquired Twitter in October 2022, he promised to eliminate bots and restore trust. Within weeks, he fired half the workforce, slashed the trust and safety team that monitored hate speech and foreign influence operations, and dissolved the advisory council of civil rights organisations. By December, a single staffer was handling all child sexual abuse material for Asia-Pacific. The 150-person curation team that added context to trending news vanished. Then came paid verification. Previously free and reserved for confirmed identities, the blue check became available to anyone paying $7.99 monthly. The dismantled trust and safety team had warned in internal documents about impersonation risks. Their advice went unheeded. Within 48 hours of launch, fake accounts impersonating Eli Lilly, Tesla, and major brands flooded the platform. The chaos forced Musk to suspend the programme after just three days, but the damage was done - verification, once a mark of authenticity, became legitimacy for sale. But the programme returned, and in 2023, X launched a creator monetisation model. It began paying users based on engagement from other paid subscribers - typically $10 minimum every two weeks. For many, the math was compelling: A Nigerian creator earning $800 monthly via outrage content made a hefty income; a Bangladeshi farm earning $400 could fund an entire team. What had operated in the shadows - Russian troll farms, influence operations documented since the 2016 US polls - now had three advantages: Depleted oversight, purchased credibility through blue checks, and direct financial incentive. The Internet Research Agency's playbook from 2016, where operatives posed as Americans to organise rallies and spread disinformation, found fertile ground. Accounts that once struggled for reach could now buy verification, earn revenue from divisive content, and operate with minimal platform scrutiny. Last week, X rolled out an "About this account" feature showing where users operate from. Within hours, accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers claiming to represent American patriots or anti-India influencers were revealed to be operating from Turkey, Nigeria, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. The backlash was immediate as users and journalists began checking prominent accounts across the political spectrum, discovering how thoroughly X had been compromised by coordinated deception. Big tech platforms wield immense influence over public discourse. They bear a duty of care to the societies they shape. X's trajectory represents a failure of that responsibility - dismantling protections, monetising division, allowing foreign influence operations to thrive behind purchased legitimacy. The location feature wasn't about transparency triumphing; it was a platform accidentally exposing the rot its own decisions had cultivated....