A new update on Since the platform enabled the “About This Account” feature, it has become clear that several accounts with thousands of followers devoted to President Donald Trump’s movement are actually located outside the country.
Among the accounts that have raised alarm are @MAGANationX, run from Eastern Europe; @DarkMagaCoin, which publishes content from Thailand; @MAGA100X, active in Germany; @ScopeMaga_ in Nigeria; and @RightScopee in Egypt. Following this update, attention also shifted to other accounts with a significant presence on
The controversy over pro-Trump profiles managed from abroad resurfaced years after the first judicial and journalistic investigations revealed armies of Russia-linked bots that had waged a massive social media campaign against Hillary Clinton during the 2016 US elections. In the months leading up to the vote, the so-called Internet Research Agency, a nominally independent company based in St. Petersburg but closely linked to the Putin regime, posed as US citizens to spread fake news in support of Trump’s candidacy. The case led to an FBI investigation and orders to arrest 12 Russian military intelligence officers accused of conspiracy.
Since then, the presence of bots on social networks has been almost taken for granted and their impact, both commercial and political, has become almost impossible to measure. In the current situation, however, no investigation into the possible involvement of foreign governments has been launched.
The new transparency feature of the social network, formerly known as Twitter, has also sparked fake news. In the first hours after the story was published, an image circulated claiming that the account of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would be managed by Israel. “I can’t believe we have to say this, but this account has always been operated and operated only by the United States. Screenshots are easy to fake,” the DHS account posted.
Nikita Bier, the platform’s head of product, debunked these reports and explained that government organizations operating with gray checkmark verification are exempt from this measure to avoid the risk of doxxing, which is the online disclosure of private data without the consent of a person or entity. “DHS has only shown US IPs since account creation,” he shared
The platform announced the measure as a way to help users evaluate the authenticity of the content they consume and to reduce the presence of bots that spread spam or fake news. The problem of automated accounts producing mass messages has been one of the issues Elon Musk has put at the center of his agenda since he acquired Twitter in 2022. Just last month, X executives announced they had removed 1.7 million accounts that responded to posts with irrelevant content, such as promotional links, scams and nonsense phrases. In the coming months, efforts will focus on limiting bot content in direct messages.
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