Elon Musk’s social network X has a new feature — determining the country of origin of accounts. This has shaken MAGA and Democrats: many «American» accounts turned out to be foreign. Meanwhile, Ukrainian publics are «exposing» Ukrainian politicians who have gone abroad and continue their political rhetoric from there.

X Elon Musk, formerly of Twitter, has launched a feature that shows the country of origin of an account in the Joined tab. The platform now allows you to view the country from which the account is operated: just go to the user’s page and click on the Joined tab. Although the feature was initially removed, it has now been brought back — and both political camps are massively exposing each other.

Botfarm scandal

The new feature has already caused chaos in the online communities of both MAGA supporters and Democrats, as it emerged that a number of profiles actively promoting political narratives in the US were actually operating outside the country.

These are accounts that actively promoted political messages in the U.S. Some have names that directly allude to the MAGA movement.

However, many of these «political influencers» turned out to be foreign operations, which raises questions about their true motives.

Here are some examples of «American» accounts operating from other countries:


MAGA NATION — over 392,000 followers, based in Eastern Europe.
Dark Maga — over 15,000 subscribers, operates from Thailand.
MAGA Scope — 51,000+ subscribers, hosted from Nigeria.
America First — over 67,000 subscribers, operations from Bangladesh.

«Thousands of MAGA-related accounts posing as American are currently being investigated and exposed. Many of them are being run from India, Nigeria, and other countries,» a post from one of the news aggregators in X reads.

It’s not just the MAGA camp that gets it.

Ron Smith, who calls himself a «proud Democrat» and «professional MAGA hunter,» operates from Kenya and has over 52,000 followers.

Republicans Against Trump is a large anti-Trump page, previously operating from Austria. System X now shows the US, but notes that the data may be inaccurate due to VPN. The account has over 978,000 followers.


Mariana Times — over 78,000 subscribers, publishes pro-Israeli content, and is based in India.

Congresswoman Anna Polina Luna wrote: «All these supposedly ‘pro-American’ accounts that have been stirring up conflict within MAGA are simply foreign players. I’m telling you, foreign operations are real, as are bot accounts.»

Alexis Wilkins, the girlfriend of FBI Director Kesh Patel, added: «It should be clear: the enemy is outside. People who pose as Americans with big American ideas, but are sitting in a basement somewhere overseas, have one goal: to destroy the United States. We have our problems, but we cannot let them succeed.»

And what about in Ukraine?

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian community is interested in the geolocation of Ukrainian politicians. Here are a few cases:


 

 


How is it arranged?

Cyber ​​expert Konstantin Korsun says that some parameters, such as IP addresses, can be easily faked using a VPN. A phone number for initial registration is also not a problem, now you can buy an eSIM pack without getting up from the couch. You can easily change the interface language, time zone, and much more. It is more difficult to change the regional AppStore, but it is also possible, although it is a pain. But. If you have a bot farm with 100,000-200,000 accounts, and you bought each one for $8-10, then hiding the real country of origin of the network is not only difficult and expensive, but also a considerable risk of blocking. Especially if the social network makes a conclusion based on a combination of many or all criteria,» he believes.

«That’s why, the expert adds, bot farms are often bought ready-made, and the buyer usually doesn’t really care how and where they were created. It works, it gets likes — fuck it, wrap it up.» And then Volodymyr Zelensky’s «Vietnamese bots» come out, or Ivanka Trump’s Nigerian account with news. And the millions of dollars spent suddenly fly into the abyss — due to an unexpected and radical change in the rules of social networks. I think the cunning Musk did this not without hidden intent, but I hope that other social networks will pick up this feature. Because the «bot problem» is a real pain for modern society, oriented towards the tendency to «explain news» from social networks and form «one’s own vision» based on the positions of LSD and the «majority opinion» inflated by bot farms,» ​​Konsun noted .