Many of the MAGA influencers outed as living in countries like Nigeria and Bangladesh have since vanished from X.

The users, who had over a million followers between them, had their country of origin exposed over the weekend as part of a new X feature that now shows where accounts were created and how their owners downloaded the social platform’s app.

Four prominent accounts unmasked by the feature—DarkMAGA, MagaScope, WilliamAlbrech, and IvankaNews_—now show as being “suspended” for violating “X rules,” though it is unclear which. X’s website says it bars users who pretend to be someone they are not—something all the accounts appear to be guilty of.

  • demizerone@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    Twitter should be nationalized in the public interest and made the online public square like the national mall. Fully transparent and accountable.

  • billwashere@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    Did these X admins not realize the fallout or was there some other intended purpose?

    I can smell the outrage from here.

  • TomMasz@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    I’m not sure I can believe that Elon thought this wouldn’t have a downside. He had to know so many right-wing chud accounts weren’t US based.

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      I was assuming he did this as a way to expose the already-marginalized or something. Did he have a reason for doing this?

    • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      Maybe he just weighed the ups/downs for the moment. He didn’t have the bot farms up trying to convince people to vote for Trump and sway public opinion anymore maybe. Maybe he made the call that exposing accounts and introducing the idea he can expose them a threat to any political upstarts wanting to take the next monarchy grasp. He can expose the accounts he wants, while spending less money having to combat any political opposition that may want to run similar campaign tactics that they used.

      There are members who wanted to go further into “America first” bologna, maybe he realized that won’t be beneficial for him long term finally

  • taiyang@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    I wonder. People saying it isn’t VPNs aren’t necessarily wrong but I do want to say it’s likely they are using bot networks to mass create accounts and those might use IP rotation. Those IPs can come from any fucking place. I’ve only seen it from scraping operations, but I bet it’s necessary when mass operating bullshit accounts.

    US proxies exist, but they’re more expensive and wouldn’t make as much sense for mass creating if your goal is just to avoid getting blocked.

  • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    I wonder if this will actually affect some upcoming election outcomes.

    And now I think every other major commercial platform in use in the United States should do the same…

  • 2piradians@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    Maybe try not being followers who allow ourselves to be influenced. I think if you had described this social media situation to average people 20 years ago most would have seen it as dystopian, evil even. But because it happened so gradually it gained acceptance.

    I guess what I’m saying is we should get the hell rid of it all so eventually public opinion won’t be swayed by cheap foreign labor, bots, and people who just want to burn it all down.

    But we won’t because too many think all this is better than the world before it existed.

    /rant

    • Kirp123@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      That requires a population that is educated and can critically read and analyze media. Don’t think any country in the world has that.

    • atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works
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      10 days ago

      I mean… 20 years ago when we only had Xanga, MySpace, Friendster, LiveJournal, LinkedIn, and many others. Even Facebook is 21 years old now… though it didn’t become available for everyone for a couple years after that.

    • Iced Raktajino@startrek.website
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      10 days ago

      I guess what I’m saying is we should get the hell rid of it all so eventually public opinion won’t be swayed by cheap foreign labor, bots, and people who just want to burn it all down.

      I’ve blocked so many accounts on here that are clearly not Americans just straight up trying to incite shit in US news / politics communities. I don’t know what’s worse: the number of upvotes those get or how transparent they are.

      • Augustiner@lemmy.world
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        10 days ago

        Always feel conflicted blocking guys like this… I wanna keep seeing them so I can downvote, but they also are just fucking annoying and toxic.

  • Formfiller@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    If all else fails maybe he could try not being a morally bankrupt pos and get some therapy to get people to like him. in all honesty he’s irredeemable and needs to go to prison though