Over the weekend, Elon Musk’s X began rolling out a new feature called “About This Profile,” and chaos ensued.
With this feature, users are now able to see more information about other people’s accounts, like how many times they have changed their usernames, when they joined the platform, and where exactly they are based.
The last of those features has caused quite the stir. Users have increasingly found that a lot of the ostensibly America-loving MAGA influencer accounts were actually not even based anywhere in the United States.
Take, for example, @MAGANationX, an account with almost 400,000 followers. That account claims to be an “America First Patriot Voice” but the new feature reveals that it’s actually based in Eastern Europe. Another account called @1776General_, who in its bio claims to be “Ethnically American,” is actually based in Turkey.
The list goes on and on. Another account, with the username “America First” is actually based in Bangladesh. One account that has posted claiming that Trump was delivering “EXACTLY” what he voted for and claims to be based in Virginia was actually yet another Eastern European account, it turns out. Many fan accounts for the Trump family were also based abroad, from an Eastern European Barron Trump fan to a Nigerian account dedicated to Ivanka Trump and a Macedonian account for Kai Trump news.
It’s not just MAGA accounts. A now deleted account with more than 50 thousand followers that claimed in its bio to be a “proud democrat” and “professional MAGA hunter,” was actually based in Kenya.
The aim of the new feature, according to X’s head of product Nikita Bier, is to help users “verify the authenticity of the content they see on X.”
The accounts could also be using VPNs. But to help account for that, one reverse engineer has claimed that X can detect VPN connections and label the location information of that account as “Country or region may not be accurate.” Some accounts on X do show this labeling.
More often than not though, the feature could help users understand which accounts might have covert agendas.
For example, several accounts of similar content lying about their location and seemingly being based in the same region could indicate that they are all part of a bot farm.
Accounts that are lying about their location could also be tools used in a foreign influence campaign. Either through engaging AI-enhanced bot farm operations or paying off individual users, foreign entities could try to change public opinion or cause political polarization by pushing false narratives and seeding disinformation. Russia, China, Iran, Israel, and the United States themselves have all been accused of running foreign influence campaigns on social media. Russia was implicated in a pro-Trump foreign influence campaign in the run up to the 2024 presidential election.
