Edit 3: The Daily Beast has now confirmed some locations in the tweet:
Dozens of major accounts masquerading as “America First” or “MAGA” proponents have been identified as originating in places such as Russia, India, and Nigeria.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/top-maga-influencers-accidentally-unmasked-as-foreign-actors/
Edit 2: Here is another one from a commenter in the comments. Again, take locations with a grain of salt:
A large number of MAGA social media influencers were exposed over the weekend as being being based in other countries.
Internet erupts as MAGA influencers exposed for being based in other countries
Edit: This was reported as having zero citations and they’re right. I haven’t had my coffee yet. Because I was interested, I did find this article about it saying that it was removed quickly. Please take this with a grain of salt as to the locations.
It’s unclear exactly why X quickly removed the feature shortly after rolling it out to the public. However, Bier replied to some X users who were reporting that their “About this account” was showing inaccurate information, which may be the reason why the feature was taken down.
We’ll soon find out if Musk’s social media platform reinstates the feature.
https://mashable.com/article/elon-musk-x-rolls-out-country-of-origin-profiles-then-removes-it
This is attracting a lot of trolls. I’m going to leave it up for a little while, but don’t take the bait please. If I see bait, I’m removing the chain, not just the OG comment.
I don’t live in america, nor want to, yet I’m also wanting to influence the americans…to do something about the orange kiddie fiddling rapist that they voted in, twice!
Same. Whatever happens in USA tends to rub off on Europe, either through cultural impact, or through propaganda.
There’s an old saying that when the USA sneezes the world catches a cold. What happens when it gets syphilis?
Sadly, as fucked up as it is, america has an influence on MANY cultures and societies. What happens in that barren wasteland affects soooo many other countries.
More like fear-ridden shithole. But potato tomato.
If america has a vold, the rest of the world gets sick. And right now, it’s bleeding out of the asshole.
We still have our lovely national parks… For now… Culturally though, eugh.
I’ve always wanted to visit yellowstone national park, but you couldn’t pay me to go to the USA.
It is a very pretty and strange place. I enjoyed the time I got to spend there.
Save yourself. That place is a lost cause.
Real, it’s like trying to save the Roman Empire at this point lol
Honestly, I don’t care what happens over there. I just want that disgusting piece of shit to feel some serious consequences before he dies (…of a painful and incurable disease, hopefully)
“Let’s hide everything in the midst of fog so we can continue with our fuckery.”. At least Elon learned something from the americans.
Hopefully news agencies run with it, but their CEOs and chairmen seem to be largely complicit.
Good to see Elon end up revealing this.
lol there’s a conspiracy going around that Muskrat did it on purpose to humiliate Trump. Something about something he said at the State dinner?
Shouldn’t the result humiliate Musk more than Trump? Musk is the one responsible for the integrity of his platform.
I don’t think he has this "integrity"concept we used tto value.
The fact that only Cambridge Analytica has been investigated for manipulation is a testament to how widespread it is, and that Elon Musk was able to buy Twitter without consequence was just reality smearing it all over our faces.
Is there any source for this huge accusation that isn’t a blurry picture of text from someone you’ve never heard of? Come on Lemmy, you’re better than this.
Thats what i usually come to the comments for but ive found a lot of comments are just riding the confirmation bias so I either have to check myself or forget about it because im tired boss
Grok is this real
…beep, boop … No, this can’t be real, because it would be stupid and utterly unscrupulous deception of users. So it can’t be real, since X is owned by Elon Musk, the most handsome, responsible, and intelligent person in the world. … boop, boop…
/s
See also:
Internet erupts as MAGA influencers exposed for being based in other countries
and
Elon Musk’s X rolls out feature that shows users’ country of origin – then suddenly removes it
Mashable said it’s because users were reporting innacuracies for their own locations, and Raw Story doesn’t have any metrics to support their claim… as usual. I couldn’t find anything on the number of maga accounts from other countries.
Not to say astroturfing isn’t happening, there’s foreign interference for sure and some of those screenshots are probably legit. It’s just more likely that Xitter’s broken and their new feature didn’t work.
If this were 15 years ago, sure, I’d accept that “it’s just more likely that Xitter’s broken” but not now. Not after the shenanigans Musk has played over and over. The benefit of the doubt is gone for that fascist.
Yes, it may well be that they have once again released an unfinished, flawed feature far too early.
I’m not saying that it’s necessarily due to the possibly unintended transparency regarding right-wing extremist accounts. It’s just that it apparently led to some accounts being visible as being maintained from abroad, even though they insist so much on “America first” and so on. I just wanted to point out that it’s a strange coincidence that this feature was immediately withdrawn as soon as this apparently became visible to the users.
Of course, there may be other reasons for rolling back this feature, but with Musk, I wouldn’t be surprised if he did it with regards to his political allies, since he clearly has an agenda that aligns with this kind of ideology (astroturfing or not).
I can’t judge this myself because I stay as far away from xitter as possible. So I only know what I’ve seen in the media reports – and I don’t think there’s much reliable information out there.
So yes, it’s speculation, but it doesn’t seem impossible at all that the situation is as described in the post. I just wanted to back this up with some other sources that aren’t xitter.
My issue wasn’t with the claim, it was with the supporting evidence. Raw Story doesn’t have a great fact checking record, and I couldn’t find anything to support the number of maga accounts that turned out to be foreign.
Not saying I don’t believe it, just saying I’m skeptical until I see credible data.
I asked grok
Then I’m afraid you’re in the wrong place… here there are only unfunny comments from unfunny people like me :)
Looks like someone asked Grok and archived it for posterity. https://archive.is/kM8aq
Based
Cock is this real
Hard to say — let’s check Pornhub for relevant citations.
Bad news, everyone. We have detected cockroaches in the kitchen.
The good news is that we just turned off the lights, so now we can’t see them.
Holy moley, that’s a perfect metaphor, because we all know how cockroach behavior & numbers accelerate when they’re in the dark.
America did that for COVID, which is why we had such low numbers.
Oh and all those COVID deaths? Natural causes.
Turning the lights off does not matter anymore, because these accounts glow in the dark. Thats what they look like right now:
There need to be real consequences for this. This is mass propaganda that affects geopolitics, interferes in elections, undermines democracy and encourages people into a worldview that is destined for conflict.
Consequences imposed by whom? The US is currently ruled by the very powers who are employing these accounts.
ruled by
I’d say controlled by is more accurate, because the people who factually rule the US are not based outside of the US.
the people who factually rule the US are not based outside of the US.
Krasnov heartily agrees. As does his boss, Putin.
They are the boss, i agree, but the factually Trump is in the highest position and factually nobody rules over him. I’m not argueing that reality is different, because it’s obvious Trump is behaving as a russian asset.
I never said they were. I said they were employing these accounts. But anyway, the oligarchs who rule the US are not all based in the US.
I got your point, just tried to make the distinction between ruling and controlling, because in my eyes the verb ruling is for those who are factually in charge (the people in official positions) and controlling is a better fit for those that are de facto in charge (oligarchs, international corpo’s, foreign state actors etc).
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People should get motivated to force change.
That’s what happens when you monetize engagement…
If that is true then Musk & Twitter 100% knew about it before disclosing location to other users.
Only if they cared enough to analyse the data though
I don’t think Elmo has an ego small enough to independently even consider the idea that his sycophants might be largely fake.
No way in hell. Musk was probably like “let’s show location guys, think of how much more noticing we could do tehe!”
And then he got results that triggered him, so he had them turn it off
Musk is both stupid enough and narcissitic enough to have legitimately thought his charm and personality were making MAGA flock to him on his own personal “I need my ego stroked” site. It’s quite possible it never even occured to him that none of it was real.
That’s a good point.
Musk, Trump and other narcissist like them always look genuinely confused when a crowd boos them.
Is this real or satire? God I hate that I ask this at least once a week
Uh I thought we knew about MAGA being fuelled by Russian propaganda farms 9 years ago lol
This is real
