The function, which shows that a slew of MAGA-branded accounts are apparently based outside the U.S., also stirred speculative outrage over where the Department of Homeland Security account was created.
A new feature on X has stirred confusion, anger and a wave of online sleuthing after users discovered that the platform was suddenly displaying the surprising locations where certain accounts are based.
Over the weekend, users noticed that clicking on an account’s join date now opens a tab that shows the country or region in which the account is located.
X’s head of product, Nikita Bier, teased the feature last month as a way to help users verify the authenticity of content they read and limit the influence of troll farms, which often run political accounts from outside the countries they target.
The issue of inauthentic or "bot" accounts has plagued the platform, formerly Twitter, and other social media sites for over a decade. Perhaps most notably, inauthentic accounts on Twitter and other social media platforms were allegedly used by a Russian government operation in the run-up to the 2016 election in an attempt to influence the outcome. The incident set off a wave of concern online about the persistent presence of inauthentic accounts, but detection methods to sniff out such accounts remained unreliable for years.
When tech billionaire Elon Musk took over Twitter in 2022, he promised to address the issues of "bots" on the platform, conducting several purges early in his ownership of the company that took down many accounts. Several studies have shown, however, that suspected inauthentic activity on the platform has remained at persistent levels since Musk bought Twitter.
The new location-revealing feature is a different approach to the issue.
As soon as it appeared live for users, X was flooded with viral posts showing that numerous high-engagement, MAGA-branded accounts that present themselves as those of patriotic Americans appear to instead be based overseas, including in Eastern Europe, Thailand, Nigeria and Bangladesh.
An account that calls itself “ULTRAMAGA 🇺🇸 TRUMP🇺🇸2028,” claiming to be based in Washington, D.C., is listed as being based in Africa. Another now-deleted account with a President Donald Trump-inspired username — “Trump Is My President” — was listed as being based in Macedonia. And an account with the username @American, complete with a profile picture featuring a bald eagle over an American flag, is apparently based in South Asia.
Users also attempted to target left-leaning accounts.
Some pointed to an unofficial account with several hundred followers that purported to represent the Democratic Socialists of America, which X listed as being based in Portugal. However, the real account for the political party has over 300,000 followers and is verified.
Some users pushed back against the locations listed on their account. Three accounts belonging to NBC News journalists showed locations that did not correlate to where they are based but to where they had traveled to recently instead.
X also placed a warning that popped up when a user's location is clicked on: "The country or region that an account is based can be impacted by recent travel or temporary relocation. This data may not be accurate and can change periodically."
While it's not clear exactly how X was determining users' locations, Bier posted Sunday night that the system was still evolving. In response to a post asking if the company had taken a shortcut and questioning its accuracy, Bier wrote that an upgrade would happen the next day.
"Accuracy will be nearly 99.99%," he wrote.
But the posts that stirred the biggest frenzy came Friday morning, when screenshots and screen recordings claiming that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security account was listed as being based in Israel quickly went viral. The department and Bier have both denied the speculation, claiming the posts are spreading misinformation.
X users circulated images and videos that alleged to show the location field displaying “Tel Aviv, Israel.” The account information feature abruptly disappeared Friday night.
NBC News did not view the account’s location before the feature went away Friday and has not confirmed the authenticity of the posts.
The situation comes amid mounting backlash from across the political spectrum to U.S. officials’ support for Israel, which many commentators have lamented as appearing to prioritize a foreign entity over America.
DHS initially responded with a meme-like image of Trump, looking stunned, which neither confirmed nor denied the discourse about its account location.
On Sunday, it followed up with an official denial.
“I can’t believe we have to say this, but this account has only ever been run and operated from the United States,” DHS posted. “Screenshots are easy to forge, videos are easy to manipulate. Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
Reached for comment, a spokesperson for DHS pointed NBC News to the same social media statement.
The account information feature returned soon after Friday’s brief shutoff, with Bier announcing a global rollout Saturday. But the feature, which previously listed both an account’s current location and its location on the date of its creation, no longer shows the latter.
Bier also responded to the speculation by telling a user to “stop spreading misinformation,” saying X’s account information feature was temporarily shut off “because the account creation country was incorrect on a very small subset of old accounts, due to IP ranges changing over time.” He did not clarify whether such an error was present on DHS’ account specifically.
Still, he responded to some of the posts showing the DHS account as being based in Israel, calling the claim “fake news.”
“Location was not available on any gray check [government] account at any point,” he wrote in response to one screen recording, which X has now labeled as “manipulated media.” “Furthermore, the DHS has only shown IPs from the United States since account creation.”
As of Sunday morning, however, the location information is available again on the DHS account. This time, it reads: “United States.” But DHS appears to be the only gray-check government account that displays the location where it is based, as other government accounts now display only their dates of account creation and account verification.
Bier and X did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Bier said in a post that there are still “a few rough edges” around the feature that should be resolved by Tuesday.
“If any data is incorrect, it will be updated periodically based on best available information,” he wrote. “This happens on a delayed and randomized schedule to preserve privacy.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...estions-origins-maga-accounts-rcna245487
