I had stopped using reddit and will soon vanish again, but this is too egregious to not say anything.

175 comments, 2400 upvotes and not a single one noticing (or caring) that it's OP who's bullshitting the public here. The screenshot with

Account based in: Mumbai, India

is a fake. If the wrong icon didn't already give it away:

The recently introduced location feature on X does not and has never displayed cities. Only countries or, if you opt out in the settings, wider regions. Neither do I know nor do I care where the person behind that account was born, lives and tweets from, in any case OP's claim

in that exact case it first was India, then they started to use VPN and show it as Poland

is made up. The presented "evidence" is a meme used all over the internet in different contexts. Ironically, the only use of it relating to "Based Poland" I could find – and where I assume OP took it from – is an account "Fortress of Europe". Which is run from Canada.

Conveniently, to not hurt the rage-baiting scoop, the second screenshot omits the

Connected via: Poland Android App

at the bottom, which to my understanding is a much more reliable and harder to manipulate indicator of the actual location than "Account based in".

Now, does that prove the opposite, that "Based Poland" lives in Poland, is Pole (if they ever claimed that, which I don't know)? Of course not. It might be an Indian in India, one of many genuine Indians living in Poland, an Indian living in Poland paid by the FSB, a Russian behind a VPN, or even a Nigerian who only cares about the bimonthly X payout.

Whatever it is, the quoted reddit post is a lie. And without exception, everyone fell for it. That's concerning.

Especially since at least some of the commenters claimed to be well familiar with what's happening on X, yet failed to spot that this is very obviously not a genuine screenshot, because it can't be.

Confirmation bias is dangeorous, guys. I understand OP's story sounds good, but if you're worried about disinformation online, working on that, being critical even if something aligns with your expectations, is the best protection.

by opolsce

11 comments

  1. This whole fiasco is probably funded by Moss-Go and is just another cog in the disinformation wheel

  2. this thing gonna be more layered than fucking lasagne

  5. Why it even matters? Doesn’t matter if the sabotagers were Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles or Martians. They were obviously paid by some intelligence agency, most likely by the ones that could earn the most out of it, which would be Russians in this case (costs that now Poland have to pay to secure XXX km of railways). X feature may give some idea about account but real bot farms will simply build their own VPN network to find other ways to overcome the problem.

  6. May be india is more believable target for such propaganda as many of the scam centres are running from India and Russia – India have good relations, and from past couple of years everybody hate India.

    I also pointed out same fact to OP but he choose to ignore my comments.

    I am against any kind of false propaganda, even OP’s story is true, people should do due diligence on such post.

  7. Crowd mentality can be terrifying, especially on platforms like this and X.

  8. I don’t have Twitter (which explains a bit why I fell for it), and I’m not from Poland, I’m just heavily interested in the culture and what’s happening so I can give some fair development to a character of mine, but that’s topic for another summer. I’m surprised how a post calling attention to something misinforming had the same purpose of spreading misinformation, and we fell for it like pigeons being stoned, both Poles and non-Poles

    Honestly, what goes through the mind of someone who spreads misinformation? This meme?:

    https://preview.redd.it/jd94t1kp8g3g1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=270619bcefb106c49ae8edb581b2c9b9d6fe53ba

  9. We should all remember that we live in a time when EVERY piece of information shared on platforms like X or reddit must be verified independently, using several different sources. It doesn’t matter whether the information is published by a well-known politician, a popular news agency, or a random private account: verify everything before forming your own judgment, because sometimes a source that seems trustworthy can spread disinformation and sometimes a source that seems unreliable may be telling the truth.

  10. Bro, the dead internet theory was wrong, We have Indian/Bangladesh/Pakistan internet theory.

  11. OMG even if it tells your the country, what guarantees that it’s the actual country and not something spoofed, or Elon just swapping countries for giggles.

Comments are closed.