{"id":1748,"date":"2025-11-24T01:36:32","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T21:36:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/about-this-account-reveals-the-scale-of-xs-foreign-troll-problem\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T01:36:32","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T21:36:32","slug":"about-this-account-reveals-the-scale-of-xs-foreign-troll-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/about-this-account-reveals-the-scale-of-xs-foreign-troll-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"About This Account reveals the scale of X\u2019s foreign troll problem"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\"\"

\n\t\t<\/figcaption><\/p><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s long been known that X (and Twitter before it) is a major venue<\/a> for foreign influence campaigns to meddle in American politics. Much of the focus has been on Russian troll farms<\/a>, which the US government has targeted<\/a> on several<\/a> occasions<\/a>. But the launch of X\u2019s About This Account<\/a> feature may have revealed the scope and geographical breadth of its foreign troll problem.<\/p>\n

Almost immediately after the feature launched, people started noticing that many rage-bait accounts focused on US politics appeared to be based outside of the US. Profiles with names like ULTRAMAGA\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8TRUMP\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf82028<\/a> were revealed to be based in Nigeria. A verified account posing as border czar Tom Homan<\/a> was traced to Eastern Europe. And America_First0? Apparently from Bangladesh. An entire network of \u201cTrump-supporting independent women<\/a>\u201d claiming to be from America was really located in Thailand.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Threads quickly started growing, collecting all the pro-MAGA trolls that claimed to be American, but were really foreign actors from every corner of the globe. Some right-wing<\/a> personalities<\/a> were quick to jump on evidence that many left-wing X users were also not who they claimed to be. In no time at all, X was flooded with people calling out the seemingly endless list of fake<\/a> and troll<\/a> accounts focused on stoking political anger.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Shortly after the feature launched, X removed<\/a> information about where accounts were created. And disclaimers were placed on locations for where accounts were based, noting that travel, VPNs, and proxies could lead to inaccurate data. This is certainly true for some accounts, however, it\u2019s extremely<\/em> unlikely to be true for even a majority of those being called out.<\/p>\n

Some of these troll accounts are likely state-sponsored influence campaigns. Foreign entities like Russia and China have a vested interest in sowing chaos<\/a> in the American political system. But it\u2019s also likely that many are driven by monetary gain. While earnings from monetization<\/a> on X can be paltry by Western standards, it can be life-changing in developing nations.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s long been known that X (and Twitter before it) is a major venue for foreign influence campaigns to meddle […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-classe"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1748\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}