About This Account Exposes X Foreign Influence Problem

In news that shouldn’t surprise a soul, it turns out those MAGA troll accounts on X, formerly Twitter, are not even based in the United States.

Before Elon Musk reluctantly purchased Twitter and stupidly changed the name to X, it wasn’t a secret that the social media platform was a hotbed for foreign influence campaigns meddling in American politics. 

Russian troll farms, for example, were the focus of numerous credible reports and targeted by the United States government. 

After X rolled out a new feature called “About This Account,” it became even clearer that trolls are busier than ever on the platform and are probably making money from the political madness going on between Democrats and MAGA Republicans. 

Per The Verge: 

Almost immediately after the feature launched, people started noticing that many rage-bait accounts focused on US politics appeared to be based outside of the US. Profiles with names like ULTRAMAGA🇺🇸TRUMP🇺🇸2028 were revealed to be based in Nigeria. A verified account posing as border czar Tom Homan was traced to Eastern Europe. And America_First0? Apparently from Bangladesh. An entire network of “Trump-supporting independent women” claiming to be from America was really located in Thailand.

Social Media Began Sniffing Out Sketchy Accounts

It didn’t take long for users on the platform to start sniffing out other pro-MAGA accounts and exposing them as foreign influencers. 

Of course, the right-wing influencers are doing the same by pulling up left-leaning/progressive accounts as foreign agents. The back-and-forth is only adding to the political vitriol currently in this country.

Hilariously, as soon as X rolled out the feature, they promptly pulled it back, noting that locations could be inaccurate due to travel, VPNs, and proxies.

While that could be true, it’s also unlikely to be the case for so many accounts.

You can see more reactions to this eye-opening development below.