{"id":149265,"date":"2025-11-23T20:52:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T20:52:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/149265\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T20:52:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T20:52:17","slug":"many-prominent-maga-personalities-on-x-are-based-outside-us-new-tool-reveals-us-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/149265\/","title":{"rendered":"Many prominent Maga personalities on X are based outside US, new tool reveals | US politics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Many of the most influential personalities in the \u201cMake America great again\u201d (Maga) movement on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/twitter\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">X<\/a> are based outside of the US, including Russia, Nigeria and India, a new transparency feature on the social media site has revealed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The new tool, called \u201cabout this account,\u201d became available on Friday to users of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/elon-musk\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Elon Musk<\/a>-owned platform. It allows anyone to see where an account is located, when it joined the platform, how often its username has been changed, and how the X app was downloaded.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">As soon as the update was rolled out, users found numerous Maga and rightwing influencers who presented themselves as patriotic Americans were operating from other countries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cThis is easily one of the greatest days on this platform,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/harryjsisson\/status\/1992389775945527705\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow\">wrote<\/a> liberal influencer Harry Sisson. \u201cSeeing all of these MAGA accounts get exposed as foreign actors trying to destroy the United States is a complete vindication of Democrats, like myself and many on here, who have been warning about this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The account MAGANationX, with nearly 400,000 followers and a bio reading \u201cPatriot Voice for We The People\u201d, is actually operated from eastern Europe, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/top-maga-influencers-accidentally-unmasked-as-foreign-actors\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Daily Beast<\/a>. Another popular profile, IvankaNews, an Ivanka Trump fan account with around one million followers that frequently posts about illegal immigration, Islam and support for Trump, was revealed to be based in Nigeria.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Another user also <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/alex2yc\/status\/1992077299295072387\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow\">uncovered<\/a> several additional cases. Dark Maga, a smaller account with roughly 15,000 followers, is run from Thailand. MAGA Scope, which has more than 51,000 followers, operates out of Nigeria, while MAGA Beacon is based in south Asia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Users on Reddit also joined the expos\u00e9 effort, posting examples of accounts that appeared to misrepresent their origins. One <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/somethingiswrong2024\/comments\/1p39mp3\/twitter_x_has_changed_their_policy_and_now_you\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Reddit<\/a> user posted a screenshot of a woman who claimed to live in Texas but instead appeared to be located in Russia, though as of Sunday, the <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/MaryTilesTexas\/about\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow\">user<\/a> named in the post appears to have a US location. Many in the comments posted other examples they found.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Bots spreading misinformation and propaganda has been a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2023\/mar\/07\/pro-trump-bots-attack-rivals-haley-desantis\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">long-running<\/a> problem on Twitter, a problem that has been significantly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2023\/sep\/09\/x-twitter-bots-republican-primary-debate-tweets-increase\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">exacerbated<\/a> since Musk bought it in October 2022 and then renamed it X. Its AI chatbot, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2025\/nov\/03\/grokipedia-academics-assess-elon-musk-ai-powered-encyclopedia\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Grok<\/a>, has also been found to frequently make and amplify <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2024\/sep\/12\/twitter-ai-bot-grok-election-misinformation\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">false claims<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Quick GuideContact us about this storyShow<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1763931137_193_4000.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"dcr-1vs4o7z\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The best public interest journalism relies on first-hand accounts from people in the know.<\/p>\n<p>If you have something to share on this subject, you can contact us confidentially using the following methods.<\/p>\n<p>Secure Messaging in the Guardian app<\/p>\n<p>The Guardian app has a tool to send tips about stories. Messages are end to end encrypted and concealed within the routine activity that every Guardian mobile app performs. This prevents an observer from knowing that you are communicating with us at all, let alone what is being said.<\/p>\n<p>If you don&#8217;t already have the Guardian app, download it (<a href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/app\/the-guardian-live-world-news\/id409128287\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">iOS<\/a>\/<a href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/apps\/details?id=com.guardian\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Android<\/a>) and go to the menu. Select \u2018Secure Messaging\u2019. <\/p>\n<p>SecureDrop, instant messengers, email, telephone and post<\/p>\n<p>If you can safely use the Tor network without being observed or monitored, you can send messages and documents to the Guardian via our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/securedrop\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">SecureDrop platform<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, our guide at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/tips\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">theguardian.com\/tips<\/a>\u00a0lists several ways to contact us securely, and discusses the pros and cons of each.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Illustration: Guardian Design \/ Rich Cousins<\/p>\n<p>Thank you for your feedback.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many of the most influential personalities in the \u201cMake America great again\u201d (Maga) movement on X are based&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-149265","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}