X Just Accidentally Exposed a Covert Influence Network Targeting Americans

Summary

A new feature on X has revealed that a huge number of large, divisive political accounts claiming to be Trump supporters are actually operating out of foreign countries. The discovery — likely the most sweeping public exposure of covert foreign activity on a major platform since the revelations about Russia in 2016 — raises serious concerns about covert foreign influence in U.S. political discourse, mirroring the Russian disinformation campaign in which operatives from Russia’s Internet Research Agency posed as U.S. persons to interfere in the election.The new feature on X allows users to see the approximate place where an account was created and is primarily operating from, rather than having to rely solely on an account operator’s self-reported location. The move was made to boost transparency and enhance the authenticity of discussions on the platform, but it immediately became apparent that the new feature would have an additional effect: exposing foreign accounts that are posing as Americans.On Saturday, X users found scores of pro-Trump and MAGA accounts that were trying to pass as Americans but were operated from countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and elsewhere. X acknowledges that some of the operating locations may actually be the location of a VPN service rather than the location of the account owner, but the sheer number of accounts operating from outside of the United States makes it clear that not all of these are simply proxy locations. Furthermore, some of these accounts had listed their locations as being within the U.S., and some were operating with usernames such as (@)American despite being operated from overseas. As X Product Chief Nikita Bier explained, if an account claims to be from a U.S. location but the data shows it’s based overseas, that discrepancy is a red flag suggesting the account “might have another agenda.”A few examples of large MAGA accounts posing as Americans while operating from a foreign country. While location-based discrepa...