106
submitted 4 weeks ago by tonytins@pawb.social to c/news@lemmy.world

The accounts being discussed here have pushed agendas within the US, and commented on US politics regularly. Many are also named to echo political movements, like some MAGA accounts.

However, these ‘political influencers’ have been found to be based outside the US, raising questions about the motives.

One profile going by 'MAGA NATION' with a follower count of over 392,000, is based out of eastern Europe. Similarly, ‘Dark Maga’ a page with over 15,000 followers is based out of Thailand. ‘MAGA Scope’ which boasts over 51,000 followers is actually operated out of Nigeria, and ‘America First’, an account with over 67,000 followers is based out of Bangladesh.

“At this time thousands of MAGA-aligned influencer accounts and large political pages that claim to be based in the U.S. are now being investigated and exposed with many of them traced to India, Nigeria, and other countries,” a news aggregator page on X noted.

Archive: https://archive.ph/DYs5O

top 38 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] adespoton@lemmy.ca 51 points 4 weeks ago

I do find it strange that this is surprising to some.

It’s been pretty obvious to us external observers.

[-] tonytins@pawb.social 26 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

At the time, the bot accounts claim was always difficult to prove. There were mountains of anecdotal evidence but nothing concrete. Not anymore.

[-] adespoton@lemmy.ca 11 points 4 weeks ago

Yes; as with so many revelations, the facts shouldn’t be surprising, but the evidence is actionable where the assumptions weren’t.

[-] AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 weeks ago

The thing that did it for me was several years ago when Russia disconnected the whole country from the Internet for a day and Reddit instantly transformed. Nearly all of the trolls in political threads disappeared, and discussions became nicer and way more the left-leaning.

[-] EmilieEasie@lemmynsfw.com 14 points 4 weeks ago

I guess I'm a little surprised at the diversity of where these pages are based, lmao. I thought it would be a lot more Russia, Israel.

[-] adespoton@lemmy.ca 9 points 4 weeks ago

Who says it isn’t? The geolocation only does the first hop. Of course, in the case of Nigeria, it’s organized crime running this with forced labor and being paid off by international interests to do it. It’s more profitable than nigerian prince scams.

[-] TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 1 points 4 weeks ago

Instagram is just as bad. Some accounts make provocative comments but never reply. Looking at their profiles as well, they have little to no followers or no post at all. It's like with Reddit in which accounts that are months or years old with no activity, and then suddenly become activated posting hateful single issues.

The intention is to divide the people so that powers-that-be hoodwink us while stealing from our pockets. Many of us know better that the posts are ragebaits. However, social media companies do nothing about bad faith actors because they benefit from angry discourse to inflate engagement and attention for more traffic and advertising. You wonder who are the people are surprised by this? It's mainly those who don't expand from their narrow experience and like digital brain rot contents.

[-] logicbomb@lemmy.world 10 points 4 weeks ago

392,000 people were tricked by a person who isn't even smart enough to use a VPN.

[-] Fedizen@lemmy.world 3 points 4 weeks ago

Its generous to suggest 1 follower = 1 person

[-] Burninator05@lemmy.world 9 points 4 weeks ago

...Democratic cicles...

Proceeds to list 4 MAGA accounts

I'm not claiming that left leaving policics is immune to this but it feels like there are a lot more prolific right leaning ones.

[-] Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world 1 points 4 weeks ago

It's kinda funny really. Outside influencers push the right opinions because it will destabilize the country. But they do it by saying the left will destroy the country.

[-] SaraTonin@lemmy.world 9 points 4 weeks ago

The shocking thing here is not that there are MAGA accounts from outside the US, but that twitter introduced a feature which would expose that

[-] neukenindekeuken@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 weeks ago

The thing about lying, is you have to keep doing it and be really good at it to never get caught lying ever again. Telling the truth is so much less complicated and avoids situations like this from happening.

Every new feature Twitter adds just increases the chance that they're going to undo something they've been lying about/hiding all these years.

[-] 0_o7@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 4 weeks ago

Melon doesn't think that far. He fired most staffs that would disagree with him, remember?

It adds to the fact his other companies like SpaceX are run by competent people and not him. He is just someone with very poor impulse control sitting at the very top, just to manipulate the markets.

[-] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 5 points 4 weeks ago

Extremely disingenuous title. Not surprising, every time I come across the Hindustan Times they are slobbing the knob of fascists.

[-] MapleEngineer@lemmy.world 4 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Alexis Wilkins, FBI director Kash Patel's girlfriend, also added, ...

Who?

(the fuck cares what some two bit MAGA country singer says?)

[-] MNByChoice@midwest.social 2 points 4 weeks ago

The Fediverse needs to implement something like this. We already have a problem, and it is important to stop this before it gets worse.

[-] village604@adultswim.fan 2 points 4 weeks ago

It kinda already does. If you have your own instance you can see people's IPs.

[-] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 0 points 4 weeks ago

That’s not the same as making them publicly visible.

[-] vga@sopuli.xyz 0 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

I'm worried that the actors we most need to be worried about are more than able to hide their origin countries if they need to. I mean even I could do that if I wanted to.

[-] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 0 points 4 weeks ago

I agree. If they want to expend the resources to manipulate public opinion then hiding their identity is not going to be a problem.

[-] khepri@lemmy.world 1 points 4 weeks ago

On the internet it has never made sense to take someone's claimed location or identity as fact, it's been that way for 25 or 30 years and I feel like I'm going insane seeing so many people apparently realize this for the first time.

[-] DeICEAmerica@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago

It's painfully obvious X is a cesspool of Muskbots and Russian seedbots accounts.

[-] NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 0 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

I think we give Russia too much credit. I didn't even see it mentioned in the article but I did see "Thailand, India, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and the nondescript Eastern Europe." A lot of countries are in Eastern Europe.

[-] DeICEAmerica@lemmy.world 0 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

X is blocked in Russia. That is why there are none listed. They have to use VPNs. Russia is the main culprit.

[-] NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 weeks ago

where did you see that in the article?

[-] fox2263@lemmy.world 1 points 4 weeks ago

How long until he turns it off?

[-] favoredponcho@lemmy.zip 1 points 4 weeks ago

Pretty sure he already did based on other comments I’ve seen around other sites.

[-] fox2263@lemmy.world 1 points 4 weeks ago

Well shucks.

Hopefully long enough for MAGA to question even a small portion of their existence

[-] MummifiedClient5000@feddit.dk 1 points 4 weeks ago

Sorry, but introspection is woke.

[-] echodot@feddit.uk 2 points 4 weeks ago

Remind me of this book I own

This engine is woke

[-] NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 0 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

AI slop?

[edit] definitely AI slop. check out the fingers and the messed up details on the shoulder. Also, What kind of engine looks like that?

[-] echodot@feddit.uk 1 points 4 weeks ago

Not everything is made by AI it's literally a photograph of a book I own.

[-] Linktank@lemmy.today 1 points 4 weeks ago

Gullible morons.

[-] _stranger_@lemmy.world 1 points 4 weeks ago
[-] DougHolland@lemmy.world 1 points 4 weeks ago

Odd that Xitter should be the dump that officially reveals this, as the reveal runs counter to their interests.

[-] H1AA6329S@lemmy.world 1 points 4 weeks ago

Not that surprising knowing how much countries like russia invest in their troll farms and how much influence has been applied on Americans from the outside.

Good feature overall, Facebook has this feature too. I was not surprised that many nsfw shorts creators on the page are actually India or similar locations based. Making much of a sense, since the clicks are now generally being generated by using sora

[-] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 1 points 4 weeks ago

“I hope that everyone sees, regardless of their specific reason, that the enemy is outside of the house. The people posing as Americans with big American opinions but are actually operating from a basement across the world have one common goal - to destroy the United States. We have our issues, but we really can’t allow them to succeed.”

Elon:

"Yeah, we're just gonna turn that feature right back off here for a second...nothing to see, don't worry about it."

this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2025
106 points (95.7% liked)

News

33695 readers
1200 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS