A new transparency feature on X has exposed many influential personalities in the Make America Great Again (MAGA) camp as based in Nigeria, as well as in other countries, including Russia and India.
The new tool, called “about this account,” became available on Friday to users of the Elon Musk-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.
As soon as the update was rolled out, users found numerous MAGA and right-wing influencers who presented themselves as patriotic Americans were operating from other countries.
MAGA popularized in US politics, most prominently by Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential race, has created a culture of amplifying messages around the US President and his policies. This has been criticised heavily by critics and opponents for deepening partisan divides and often accompanied combative political messaging.
According to checks, accounts like 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.
MAGA Scope, which has more than 51,000 followers, also operates out of Nigeria.
Other accounts, including MAGANationX, with nearly 400,000 followers and a bio reading “Patriot Voice for We The People”, is actually operated from eastern Europe. Dark Maga, a smaller account with roughly 15,000 followers, is run from Thailand while MAGA Beacon is based in South Asia.
Beyond MAGA accounts, a lot of users claiming to be foreigners have been exposed to be Nigerians and other nationalities.
Following his takeover of X, formerly known as Twitter, in October 2022, bots spreading misinformation and propaganda, which has been a long-running problem on the platform have drastically increased. Also, its AI chatbot, Grok, has been found to frequently make and amplify false claims.
Experts also shared with Business Post that the impersonation and misinformation became rife with X’s monetisation incentives, which allows users to earn money based on higher engagements with payouts in Dollars running into millions in Naira equivalent.