Since taking over Twitter in 2022, Elon Musk has taken drastic steps to change the political climate on the platform, which has since been renamed X.
It began with the reinstatement of suspended accounts of prominent right-wing conspiracy theorists and extremists, which led to a sharp rise in disinformation and hate speech, especiallysome of which were also shared by Musk himself.
He also weakened the app’s moderation policies, allowing such content to spread even further. And he did away with the original verification system, instead introducing a subscription that allows users to increase their reach and receive payments for posts that generate engagement.
A business model of provocation
This final move fostered a culture of provocation rather than discussion: verified blue-tick users flooding the platform with inflammatory comments and replies to gain as much attention as possible for higher payouts. While Musk aligned himself with Donald Trump, MAGA influencers willingly jumped into this system to advance their agenda and troll liberals for financial gain.
But while some of these commentators were already well-known, the vast majority remained anonymous. Thanks to a new feature, it’s now clear how many of these people don’t even live in the United States.
Over the weekend, X product chief Nikita Bier announced the launch of “About This Account” profile pages, which provide details about when an account was opened, how often the username has been changed and where the owner lives. “This is an important first step in ensuring the integrity of the global marketplace of ideas,” Bier wrote on the site Saturday.
New transparency brings unrest
“We plan to provide many more ways for users to verify the authenticity of content on X.” To protect users in countries without free speech protections, he added that they are “implementing privacy switches to only show the region rather than the exact country.”
As soon as this new information became available, people began checking the location data of accounts that are primarily used to stoke political tensions in the US through largely misleading or outright false far-right narratives.
Many were immediately revealed to be living abroad, suggesting they were posting this content less for ideological reasons than for money – accelerating the polarization of the American electorate.
Examples: “Florida Guy” from India
For example, a user with the handle @AmericanGuyX, who claims to be a “Florida guy,” regularly posts in support of Trump and Musk, while attacking figures like George Soros and stoking fears about the U.S. national debt. His location according to X: India.
On Saturday, Trump shared an X post from @TRUMP_ARMY_ on Truth Social about a Supreme Court ruling; This account with over half a million followers also lives in India. And a now-suspended account with the handle @American and a profile picture of a bald eagle on a US flag led to Pakistan.
Other accounts with MAGA slogans, US flag emojis, references to the American Revolution and Trump favorites like “patriot” were located in Nigeria, Turkey, Ukraine, Thailand and the United Kingdom.
Artificial identities, fake voters
Many of these accounts have significant followings and at some point mentioned voting for Trump in 2024 – despite apparently not being US citizens. There has also been evidence that more of these fake profiles are popping up every day, often renaming themselves to reach a larger audience.
The MAGA account “Charlie’s Voice Rising,” or @CharlieK_news, which uses an avatar image of murdered right-wing activist Charlie Kirk and has nearly 200,000 followers, was created less than a year ago by someone in Eastern Europe and the username has been changed several times.
Musk is silent – revelations speak for themselves
Musk has yet to comment on the About This Account feature, although she did reveal that @cb_doge — a pro-Trump user with 1.7 million followers that Musk regularly boosts — is based in India.
There is a certain irony in how a billionaire immigrant continues to rail daily against immigration, portraying it as a threat to American culture, while at the same time paying X users abroad to poison the domestic political debate.
Chaos – and damage control
Bier, on the other hand, seemed to have been aware of the unrest he was causing. In the meantime, he posted a meme of a hand about to press a large button. In his next post he wrote: “I need a drink.”
As for the users who were exposed as non-Americans, some had to do damage control. After it was revealed that @honeymoon250 – a major MAGA account with an AI-generated avatar of a white woman – was based in Nigeria, the operator edited the bio to say he was a registered nurse who had worked with a non-governmental organization in Africa for the past six years.
Rules against artificial identities – but no enforcement
Although Musk is hardly inclined to suppress right-wing voices.
Trolls remain – despite revelations
This will continue to encourage the trolls to spread their engagement bait material, doing their best to ignore or block critics who point out that they are cosplaying a MAGA voter on the other side of the globe. Your right-wing fans probably don’t care where the content that confirms their views comes from.
And the tone of the “debates” on X is unlikely to improve. But in each case, a senior Musk employee has shown how much of Trump’s online coalition is incapable of voting for him. Musk himself should perhaps consider where his own talking points come from.