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X Just Accidentally Exposed a Covert Influence Network Targeting Americans
- hbarka 11mo agoHow does Elon Musk reconcile this with his own behavior on X, personally boosting fringe people and groups?
- mikeyouse 11mo agoRemember when Musk’s entire cause celebre was to expose the bot networks and paid trolls on Twitter and then he dropped all of that bluster when he realized how useful they’d be to his political goals?
- phantasmish 11mo agoThey’re probably also such a large part of the active Twitter “user base” that substantially reigning them in would be enough to put the product into a permanent, sharp decline.
- neuralkoi 11mo agoThis also was an individual who was getting very little sleep, taking an unknown assortment of hallucinogenic psychotropics, who clearly got drunk off his own success and the attention he got, possibly psyop'd by multiple governments due to his reach and influence. It's kind of tragic. He reminds me of Smeagol from Lord of the Rings. People lacking any virtue (like wisdom, compassion, or courage) are extremely vulnerable to external dark forces.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- jpadkins 11mo agoThen why is he allowing it to be exposed right now? If actually useful to his political goals, he would suppress the launch of the location feature, right?
- jjk166 11mo agoIf your bot farm happens to be domestic, exposing all the foreign bot-farms competing for the same audience seems like a no brainer.
- _whiteCaps_ 11mo agoHaven't they turned the feature off again already? (I don't have a twitter account, so I can't check)
- mikeyouse 11mo agoIt was useful to his political goals back in 2023/2024 when he was spending hundreds of millions of dollars to get Trump elected - it seems like he doesn’t think they’re still useful today.
- throw_m239339 11mo ago> How does Elon Musk reconcile this with his own behavior on X, personally boosting fringe people and groups? Musk has his own agenda.
- psunavy03 11mo agoWhile I don't agree with him doing that, he's doing it above board and in his own name. That's different from foreign actors doing it incognito under covered identities. Elon is a nut, but he's open about being a nut.
- rtkwe 11mo agoThat would require introspection, something he's far too busy for.
- throw_m239339 11mo agoThis isn't by accident. It's funny however how both sides are ignoring the foreign networks aimed at their own camp.
- tetris11 11mo agoBoth sides? This is news to me. Where can I read more
- add-sub-mul-div 11mo agoIs there anyone left who's falling for the idea of symmetry of scope on what's going on? It reads like the most transparent attempt at diversion and denial.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- radiorental 11mo agoRight, and the outcome changes little that wasn't already known. The interesting part of this story is why was this switched on now, by whom? Why was it briefly turned off? Was that an attempt to put the genie back in the bottle?
- unshavedyak 11mo agoBriefly turned off? Oh it's back on? That's good at least. I thought he permanently turned it off the moment it didn't align with his goals.
- radiorental 11mo agotbh, that's just what I read yesterday, it could be turned off again. I haven't looked at that cesspit in well over a year.
- postflopclarity 11mo ago... "both sides" ? seems pretty heavily one sided to me.
- bubbi 11mo ago[dead]
- jrm4 11mo agoAbsolutely wild that this isn't bigger news. This should be the front page of every major news network.
- chneu 11mo agoMost of this, to some degree, has been well established for a while. American Republicans have relied heavily on foreign interference to achieve their goals. From social media manipulation to laundering illegal political bribes, Republicans have been doing it.
- jrm4 11mo ago100%, but the clear proof afforded by Elon should be the opportunity to really put it out there.
- phantasmish 11mo agoIt’s widely known and reported this is happening. I guess this might get the message to people in the back who aren’t paying attention… but given we’ve had most of a decade of off-and-on coverage of this, anyone left is probably unreachable, and a bunch of them have been primed to ignore this exact sort of headline as “fake news”.
- hbosch 11mo ago[flagged]
- harrisonjackson 11mo agohttps://x.com/nikitabier/status/1992382852328255743?s=20 https://x.com/nikitabier/status/1992382852328255743?s=20 > This is fake news. Location was not available on any gray check account at any point. Furthermore, the DHS has only shown IPs from the United States since account creation. - head of product @x Not to discount the impact of foreign powers over social media but maybe don't spread this misinformation.
- cranberryturkey 11mo agoThat’s crazy
- Natsu 11mo agoIt's not really "accidental. Exposing stuff like this is precisely why they rolled out the country of origin feature.
- andrenotgiant 11mo agoBut that would be a narrative violation. X.com and Elon Musk can't possibly be portrayed doing anything positive or productive.
- kardianos 11mo agoIt isn't bigger news because it would expose many of the targets they like to throw things at (eg Groypers) are not American, but foreign agents masquerading as such.
- macintux 11mo agoEffectively a dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46028422 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46028422, so while I agree this is important news that should be widely covered, we don't need another thread.
- consumer451 11mo agoThey should be merged in that case.
- braincat31415 11mo ago[flagged]
- jagged-chisel 11mo agoWow. What a substantive comment.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- leosanchez 11mo agoNot just America, I assume this is pretty common for most countries' political discourse on Twitter. Reddit also needs to have a feature like this.
- consumer451 11mo agoHere is one example: https://old.reddit.com/r/poland/comments/1p5cqcs/literally_every_second_antieu_antiukrainian_right/ https://old.reddit.com/r/poland/comments/1p5cqcs/literally_e...
- NietTim 11mo agoSeeing how reddit is moving in the opposite direction by doing things like allowing people to hide their submission histories, that seems highly unlikely.
- unethical_ban 11mo agoIf it becomes more common for a service to reveal the geography of a user, wouldn't these cyberwarfare farms stand up VPN servers? This is certainly useful as a one-time reveal since the attackers didn't think this data would leak, but now can't they prepare better?
- PaulKeeble 11mo agoVPN farms and using remote servers are all with a bit of effort detectable. It starts a new arms race but all it takes is to catch the account misplaced once on a change to then keep that history and expose the discrepancy forever. Its going to be quite difficult to get and maintain a genuine domestic IP that is unique per account and doesn't then get shut down often.
- _--__--__ 11mo agoEasy, you just ban all known vpn endpoints and cloud hosting provider IP ranges. 4chan figured all this out over a decade ago.
- 11mo ago
- nodesocket 11mo agoAs the article mentions a lot of the accounts probably just using VPN services. Remember when Elon exposed the US government in cahoots with Meta and Twitter actively shadow banning people for free speech on legitimate topics such as covid, covid vaccines, masks, and the woke agenda?
- RoyTyrell 11mo agoThe "Twitter Files" absolutely did not expose anything like that, despite what Lord Genius Elon tried to imply. At best it exposed internal discussion and policies that may have suppressed posts related to Covid, but showed that the Biden administration was largely (largely doesn't mean never) uninvolved with that. It seems like the most they asked was in regards to the "Hunter Biden Laptop" issue and that was largely with posts that were showing the nudes of the women that he was sleeping with, not even posts that were just nude Hunter. Elon then turned on Matt Taibbi and banned him from Twitter when he wouldn't go along with his lying and spin.
- devin 11mo agoYou mean when he teamed up with hack journalist Matt Taibi to try and make a mountain out of a molehill?
- jagged-chisel 11mo ago“Moving forward, we’ll likely see a re-examination of how much credence we give to social media as a barometer of public opinion.” Who is “we?” Not the media in the US, I’d wager.
- Myzel394 11mo agoAm I the only one who feels like the article is at least partially written by AI?
- haritha-j 11mo agoyes
- mlmonkey 11mo agoUnfortunately, it requires 3 clicks ("account" -> "join date" -> "about account") to get the required information. It should be visible on the post itself: where it was posted from, and where the author's account is mostly located. Just 2 little chips stuck on top of each and every post.
- space_ghost 11mo agoFollowed immediately by these groups making VPNs a standard part of their toolkit. This data is enlightening but its reveal doesn't solve the problem.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- luxuryballs 11mo agoyeah it needs to be robust enough to keep a trail so it can detect leaks and predict, and perhaps eventually identify vpn nodes, like Reddit will often block my request when I’m on VPN so there may be a way to smartly disregard certain requests from being counted as the true location, this seems really complicated the more I think about it though
- ericmay 11mo agoTwitter can require verification on their end or require ID upload or something along those lines. The social media companies can solve this problem, it’s just way too profitable to not. They make a lot of money when you read about non-existent events from an account curated in China or India or Belarus and then go look at a bunch of ads for Patriot Bars (R) or Rainbow socks (L) or whatever. They could by default for example require an identification of some sort, and then allow “non-ID” accounts to exist but require specific opt-in to view broadly or something along those lines. More easily though you can just delete your account and then you don’t have to care about any of this crap.
- rtkwe 11mo agoThere's already pretty sophisticated setups to get fake live ID verifications where it's already a cat and mouse game between the tools to verify and the tools faking live verifications (sometimes including just scamming people into acting as the 'user' for verification). Ideally I'd also not have to provide my ID for yet another inane service and risk that ID getting leaked as seems to be inevitable.
- bargainbin 11mo agoWild reading the news earlier to see Iran is making a concerted effort to influence Scottish Independence. Is the idea to weaken the UK? To what end? Also, if it’s being done to us, surely we’re doing it back? The CIA and MI6 are no stranger to destabilising regimes, and yet surely it would be more common knowledge if we were employing people to post anti-Putin propaganda on Russian forums?
- consumer451 11mo agoIran is very much an ally of Russia. The theory I have seen for Moscow wanting Scottish independence is that they might remove the UK's only nuclear sub port from their newly independent country. Also, it would be a general black eye for the UK, which has been very supportive of the defense of Ukraine.
- rz2k 11mo agoThat sounds like the blundering VP/president in The Diplomat. I wonder if it's instead North Sea Oil, and Iran preferring a UK with less energy independence.
- consumer451 11mo agoWhy wouldn't an independent Scotland continue producing oil from the North Sea? It's one of the main talking points for independence: "we get to keep that money." BTW, I had not seen that show, but if they are getting things even close to accurate once in a blue moon, then I may do so. Thanks.
- inglor_cz 11mo agoIs North Sea Oil even economically viable nowadays? The break-even cost is pretty high there.
- consumer451 11mo agoIf we are to take our natural place as the inventors and leaders of "The West," you know... democracy and all that boring stuff... wouldn't it be nice to have a source that is within reach, until we ween ourselves off of fossil fuels? Another answer: with sanctions on Russian oil, and hopefully finally waking up to the fact that we cannot rely on any traditional foreign partners... yes. Look at what China has done. They know they have no reliable sources and delivery routes for liquid fossil fuels. So, they took the reigns of their own destiny and created PV and battery production on a scale that changed the world. Meanwhile, we in the EU, let Northvolt go under, and we closed down domestic PV production... like babes in the woods. (children wandering the the forest full of wolves) Letting Northvolt shut down was one of the dumbest strategic things in modern European history, and that is saying a lot. I still have hope that it can somehow be resurrected.
- teddyX 11mo agoAnd DOGE was cancelled the day after. Coincidence I’m sure
- MomsAVoxell 11mo agoUntil we see the source code for how X is determining the geo-location, all bets are off. This could just as easily be X, trying to influence opinions on the nature of America's divisive classes, which is to say there is just as much evidence that is the case as any other circumstances one might conclude.
- jajuuka 11mo agoExactly. Using Twitter as a primary source for this is dubious. Already seen a few accounts prove that they are where they say they are even though X shows them as being half way across the world. Following occams razor, I think they released a broken feature and have taken it down since then to fix it. Which leads all these "revelations" to be based on incomplete or false data. Not to say the site isn't filled with bots and influence campaigns, it absolutely is. But basing that conclusion on this location information is foolish.
- MomsAVoxell 11mo agoMeanwhile the collective is fully prepared to just roll right along with this conspiracy theory like its reality.
- welcome_dragon 11mo agoMake sure that tin foil hat is secure there
- MomsAVoxell 11mo agoYeah bro, war is peace.
- mschuster91 11mo agoIt's not just Americans that are being targeted. If you look at prominent far-right pseudo-influencers (i.e. identities not tied to a real living person) in Germany, the result is just the same. Eastern Europe, Russia, Africa - not Germany. Or it's everyone being targeted by scammers posing as Gazans - these scammers are, for me, the vilest of the vile. No matter which team one is on regarding this particular conflict... abusing the dire situation in which many Gazans legitimately are to grift money is outright wrong. We need to hold Russia and China, the most likely actors pulling the strings, accountable. No more niceties, no more playing with the big guys, until this kind of warfare stops. And so we should treat every country hosting the low-level agents. Clean shop or get hammered. I'm sick and tired of cyber crime, propaganda warfare and scamming our elderly. Enough is enough.
- josefrichter 11mo agoSo... Is Musk really trying to say he didn't know this before election? This has to be investigated, as it has implications far beyond Musk. This is basically a global scandal.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- overrun11 11mo agoNo slop accounts being run from third world countries is not a global scandal
- josefrichter 11mo agoThe scandal is he most likely knew the election is being manipulated via his platform, but didn’t say anything, because it was in “his” candidate’s favor.
- OutOfHere 11mo agoWhen will Hacker News target the covert non-American influencers pretending to be Americans and holding strong positions on American issues?
- jsheard 11mo agoI wouldn't be surprised if some of these accounts are psyops, but the majority are probably just grifters exploiting X's revenue sharing system. We've already seen that play out on Facebook where users in developing countries would spam low-effort, high-engagement content to make money. That might mean posting political rage-bait or producing AI-generated Shrimp Jesus pictures (amen), it's just down to whatever gets the clicks this week.
- superxpro12 11mo agoIn any case, it's manufacturing immoral and violent sentiment to the detriment of society. Why should we allow such things to percolate? What benefit is this providing to society?
- jsheard 11mo agoThere's no benefit to society, but revshare abuse differs in that it's self-inflicted by the platforms. They can make it go away by not rewarding that behaviour.
- consumer451 11mo agoWhy not both? Psyops that cover their own costs sound pretty neat! Just imagine... your target country is so sloppy and greedy that it monetizes its own destruction. I believe one of the top three most murderous tyrants of the previous century had a quote about this very thing!
- parineum 11mo agoBecause you're not the morality police and speech isn't violence.
- incomingpain 11mo agoEvery other ad on the internet is for vpn services. Some work better than others. From my pov, what a great change. Anyone talking without specific location, it doesnt matter. Anyone talking positively about something, it doesn't matter. We now know more about those interacting in a negative way.
- ZeroGravitas 11mo agoThe "scary foreign" parts of this seems to miss the forest for the trees. Social media makes rage-baiting people into a lucrative career and opens it up to anyone with an internet connection.
- an0malous 11mo agoNo it’s definitely more important that foreign countries are manipulating American politics through social media than people in poor countries are making money off of rage bait (and likely many of the latter are being paid by the former).
- ALittleSlow 11mo agoTo be or not to be, xenophobic and America first? Perhaps we should blame this on Big VPN? Or is this more 20-minute city geo-fencing technology pushing? All sorts of fun ways to spin this one.
- SPICLK2 11mo agoFurther evidence that a national firewall is a prudent idea. What kind of careless government would permit anyone in the world to have unfettered, anonymous access to their citizens' thoughts and minds?
- braincat31415 11mo ago[flagged]
- DonHopkins 11mo ago[flagged]
- braincat31415 11mo ago[flagged]
- DonHopkins 11mo ago[flagged]
- braincat31415 11mo agoTouched a nerve? I have quite a few gay and trans friends. They tend to agree with my views which is live and let live. Their lifestyle is not a problem, and they afford me the same courtesy.
- DonHopkins 11mo ago[dead]
- Fnoord 11mo agoExample of a neonazi who isn't white [1]. The Believer (2001, with Ryan Gosling) is a decent fictional movie about how this could work [2], and I also liked Rompen Stomper (1992, with Russell Crowe) [3] and La Haine (French for 'the hate', 1995, with Vincent Cassel) [4] about the phenomenon in general but there's likely more recent, good material as well as non-fiction available. I also had a colleague student who was IMO racist, but he was himself what we in NL call halfbloedje (in this case: mother black, father white, divorced). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michiel_Smit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michiel_Smit [2] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0247199/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0247199/ [2] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105275/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105275/ [3] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113247/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113247/
- fsckboy 11mo ago>likely the most sweeping public exposure of covert foreign activity on a major platform since the revelations about Russia in 2016 the 2016 "revelations" were a nothing-burger, ginned up as cover for the actual dangerous conspiracy, to spy on a rival political campaign in a scandal that eclipses Watergate.
- daveguy 11mo agoWow, they really got you, didn't they. Good luck leaving if you ever try.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- hulud 11mo ago4chan’s /pol/ has had the flag forever, and “show flag” is a typical callout. Only the normies are surprised and the pearl clutching on HN is farcical. You should know better by now. I guess the outrage must be manufactured so let’s all join hands and pretend we are shocked by this news and demand something be done, I guess. Slow news week.
- ChrisArchitect 11mo agoRelated: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46028422 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46028422 X begins rolling out 'About this account' location feature to users' profiles https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46024417 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46024417 Top MAGA Influencers on X/Twitter Accidentally Unmasked as Foreign Trolls https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46024211 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46024211
- vcryan 11mo agoIt definitely could be foreign influence. It also could be US companies/campaigns (same thing...) outsourcing their astroturfing to other countries to save money.
- AJRF 11mo agoThe attempts at controlling the narrative feel a lot more unsubtle since Musk took over. I bet dollars to donuts that they are tipping the scale on stoking up tensions on UK users with things like migration and class division. I only follow tech people on twitter, but if you looked at my FYP you'd think I was deeply interested in UK politics - which I am not!
- Havoc 11mo agoYup. Not just x though. On insta Even a slight misstep and you’re up to your eyeballs in anti migrant content from the algo
- lavezzi 11mo agohttps://twitter.com/settings/your_twitter_data/twitter_interests https://twitter.com/settings/your_twitter_data/twitter_inter... think you'll be surprised in what has been signed for on your behalf.
- annexrichmond 11mo agoThis is mostly why I stopped going on Reddit. At least on X I have more control over what I see and mostly just follow trustworthy accounts. I just assume most of the commentary on mainstream American subreddits like politics is infiltrated by foreign actors and bots.
- MengerSponge 11mo agoLMAO. You've got a chance if you use Mastodon or Bluesky, but you don't have control of the X algorithm.
- annexrichmond 11mo ago> you don't have control of the X algorithm There is literally a timeline that only shows the feed of people you follow.
- MengerSponge 11mo agoDoes it show every post of every person you follow in chronological order? Does it serve ads?
- y-c-o-m-b 11mo agoI left because I couldn't stand the echo-chamber and hivemind attitudes. There's also way too many people arguing just for the sake of arguing, even though they agree with your overall comments. It was slightly more manageable when you just stuck to very niche sub-reddits like gardening, landscaping, cozyplaces, sub for tv-shows etc. Now it's nothing but bots and AI garbage. The platform is beyond saving.
- baiac 11mo agoWhy is the word “accidentally” used when this is a feature that was implemented with this particular reason in mind?
- mpalmer 11mo agoBecause it gets clicks.
- herpdyderp 11mo agoGiven Musk's political affiliations, it seems unlikely that this was the intended outcome.
- dexwiz 11mo agoMusk's affiliation is power and whomever will give him more money. This is a tactic he has revealed. Don't go along with him? He will expose your propaganda network. Or maybe he will enable a way to change it for money. Musk isn't loyal to anyone but himself.
- blibble 11mo agothe social media companies have likely had this data for a decade and decided to sit on it, as our democracies implode I guess the CTR for disinformation bot ads must be good?
- Uhhrrr 11mo agoDo we actually know that this is only targeting Americans? If I were a state actor who put this thing together, I would use it on everybody. with one exception; someone in the US might not think about doing it in other countries
- ChocolateGod 11mo agoA bunch of the accounts are targeting British politics, but it would seem the Americans are more greatly affected.
- helle253 11mo agoTo be honest, I'm not sure it is a 'covert influence network'.. Or at least, that is a much more conspiratorial turn of phrase than I would use here. It strikes me as wage arbitrage if anything, an opportunity for these engagement farmers to make very good money (relatively), an opportunity which was all-but-explicitly created by Elon Musk's payout system. All else aside, its very funny that this is an example of a market-maker once again (un)intentionally destabilizing the social fabric they talk so much about.
- parineum 11mo ago> an opportunity which was all-but-explicitly created by Elon Musk's payout system. Nobody seems to remember it now because the narrative got shifted to "Russians manipulating the election" but, in 2015/16, the whole "Fake News" phenomenon was originally attributed to click bait websites being thrown up to get Facebook/AdWords revenue. I believe it was a European outlet interviewing an Indian person, IIRC. (Found it, or one of them, this isn't the one I remember and it's from after the election) [1]. Once the narrative turned to it being Russian bots influencing the election (to further the "Trump as a Russian agent" narrative, speaking of fake news...), that reporting seemed to dry up. [1] https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/503146770/npr-finds-the-head-of-a-covert-fake-news-operation-in-the-suburbs https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/50...
- baklavaEmperor 11mo agoIf people are concerned about foreign interference, it’s worth noting that Twitter’s ID-verification pipeline runs through AU10TIX. The company is founded in Tel aviv by an ex Israeli military person and maintains core operations and engineering in Israel, which is where part of the verification flow is processed. That creates a direct data-flow path for sensitive government IDs outside the U.S. for no real reason, and most users have no idea this is happening. I do not want a foreign government to have access to the address of all American verified users on Twitter.
- Fnoord 11mo agoYou'll need to be more specific. Every adult in Israel is ex-military since they have a mandatory draft. The exception is draft dodgers. FWIW, notably orthodox Jews are among those.
- baklavaEmperor 11mo agoMandatory service isn’t the point. The issue is that a foreign jurisdiction with a tight intelligence industry overlap is processing U.S. government IDs. especially for something like X/Twitter where verified accounts include journalists, activists, and government officials. There are many alternatives located in the US.
- Fnoord 11mo agoIf that isn't the point, why mention they are ex-military? Mentioning they're located in Israel ('foreign jurisdiction with a tight intelligence industry overlap') would suffice.
- array_key_first 11mo agoaaaand this is why you should be extremely wary if a company is asking you to upload sensitive information. Even if it's a big company. I tried to tour an apartment complex, and they required me to use an online application for 'id verification. For a tour. A tour! I'm sorry, but you do not require my social security number and pictures of my driver's license for me to use my eyeballs to see an apartment unit. What am I gonna do? Drive away with the apartment?
- iamleppert 11mo agoAt this point, does it not make sense that Israel just become an additional US State or Territory? At least that way they can be taxed, regulated and controlled like any other US territory. If we are committed to providing absolute protection for them like we would a state, they should just become part of the US. Their existing government structures should be absorbed into the US and all their citizens be made US citizens and subject to tax and rule of the law of the US.
- overrun11 11mo agoTwitter pays more for US impressions so slop accounts often target a US audience and the payments are relatively more attractive to people in less developed countries. Aside from the fact that Americans are only 4% of the world population. What about this is surprising? There is no evidence presented that there is any state sponsored conspiracy going on. Nor would you need one to explain what we're seeing. The author also presents no evidence that Pro-Trump accounts are disproportionately represented among accounts lying about their country of residence. Ultimately, this is just evidence-free gesturing at some grand conspiracy. Cherrypicking the bits that are red meat to her (and apparently HN's) audience.
- diggyhole 11mo agoI'd pay $100 dollars a year to block all social media posts from India, Pakistan and Malaysia.
- cosmicgadget 11mo agoAdd Texas and I will make it an even 500.
- brador 11mo agoThere’s just so much money in tard wrangling. Capitalism is responsible for much of this without the need for organisational control.
- silexia 11mo agoReddit, HN, and Facebook all desperately need this information too.
- theshrike79 11mo agoThis is directly from the Russian Война нового поколения (New Generation Warfare)[0] playbook. > new-generation wars are to be dominated by information and psychological warfare, ... morally and psychologically depressing the enemy’s armed forces personnel and civil population Any kind of discord is good for Russia, every single panic and outrage that splits the population is good, even better when you get people to doubt "the media" in general. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_generation_warfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_generation_warfare
- trueismywork 11mo agoWhy should I trust X to give correct based countries for accounts?
- parineum 11mo agoThe people that work there have shown a willingness to leak information in the past.
- pfannkuchen 11mo agoSo obviously this is big if true, but do we know it isn’t just that a lot of high profile type people on social media use VPNs? If I was a public figure or attempting to be one or anything like that I would definitely try to hide where I am actually located, regardless of whether I am doing anything nefarious, just because political harassment and violence is a thing.
- AraceliHarker 11mo agoI believe these MAGA accounts were being operated not for a political agenda, but simply as a means for people in developing countries to make money. MAGA content is genuinely easy to spread across social media platforms like X and YouTube, which is why it's so easy to rack up views.
- Incipient 11mo agoThis will fundamentally change nothing. The vast majority of people that care, already know. The others don't care. Also anyone that is taking any meaningful information from Twitter likely isn't really fussed about the details - they're after whoever is there is support their view.
- BergAndCo 11mo ago"ACCIDENTALLY" AHAHAHHAHAHAHHA AH AHAHHA HHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHA OMFG LOL
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 11mo agoFrom 2022 https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/18/business/china-internet-censors-ip-address.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/18/business/china-internet-c...