Edit 3: The Daily Beast has now confirmed some locations in the tweet:
Dozens of major accounts masquerading as “America First” or “MAGA” proponents have been identified as originating in places such as Russia, India, and Nigeria.
Edit: This was reported as having zero citations and they're right. I haven't had my coffee yet. Because I was interested, I did find this article about it saying that it was removed quickly. Please take this with a grain of salt as to the locations.
It's unclear exactly why X quickly removed the feature shortly after rolling it out to the public. However, Bier replied to some X users who were reporting that their "About this account" was showing inaccurate information, which may be the reason why the feature was taken down.
We'll soon find out if Musk's social media platform reinstates the feature.
This is attracting a lot of trolls. I'm going to leave it up for a little while, but don't take the bait please. If I see bait, I'm removing the chain, not just the OG comment.
There need to be real consequences for this. This is mass propaganda that affects geopolitics, interferes in elections, undermines democracy and encourages people into a worldview that is destined for conflict.
I got your point, just tried to make the distinction between ruling and controlling, because in my eyes the verb ruling is for those who are factually in charge (the people in official positions) and controlling is a better fit for those that are de facto in charge (oligarchs, international corpo's, foreign state actors etc).
They are the boss, i agree, but the factually Trump is in the highest position and factually nobody rules over him. I'm not argueing that reality is different, because it's obvious Trump is behaving as a russian asset.
...beep, boop ... No, this can't be real, because it would be stupid and utterly unscrupulous deception of users. So it can't be real, since X is owned by Elon Musk, the most handsome, responsible, and intelligent person in the world. ... boop, boop...
Mashable said it's because users were reporting innacuracies for their own locations, and Raw Story doesn't have any metrics to support their claim... as usual. I couldn't find anything on the number of maga accounts from other countries.
Not to say astroturfing isn't happening, there's foreign interference for sure and some of those screenshots are probably legit. It's just more likely that Xitter's broken and their new feature didn't work.
If this were 15 years ago, sure, I'd accept that "it's just more likely that Xitter's broken" but not now. Not after the shenanigans Musk has played over and over. The benefit of the doubt is gone for that fascist.
Yes, it may well be that they have once again released an unfinished, flawed feature far too early.
I'm not saying that it's necessarily due to the possibly unintended transparency regarding right-wing extremist accounts. It's just that it apparently led to some accounts being visible as being maintained from abroad, even though they insist so much on "America first" and so on. I just wanted to point out that it's a strange coincidence that this feature was immediately withdrawn as soon as this apparently became visible to the users.
Of course, there may be other reasons for rolling back this feature, but with Musk, I wouldn't be surprised if he did it with regards to his political allies, since he clearly has an agenda that aligns with this kind of ideology (astroturfing or not).
I can't judge this myself because I stay as far away from xitter as possible. So I only know what I've seen in the media reports – and I don't think there's much reliable information out there.
So yes, it's speculation, but it doesn't seem impossible at all that the situation is as described in the post. I just wanted to back this up with some other sources that aren't xitter.
My issue wasn't with the claim, it was with the supporting evidence. Raw Story doesn't have a great fact checking record, and I couldn't find anything to support the number of maga accounts that turned out to be foreign.
Not saying I don't believe it, just saying I'm skeptical until I see credible data.
English is their official language but i believe there are a lot different languages spoken there, the main one is like a version of english that is very different to actual english. But i haven't been there so maybe look it up if you want to know exactly. Scots and Irish people can also be hard to understand if they speak 'their' english. But Nigeria and Bangladesh were colonised by the British and that makes them better english speakers than many other poor countries with cheap labour.
They’re also hotbeds for running phone scams for the same reasons. Lots of people with English skills and desperate poverty willing to do evil things for money.
Rich english-speaking countries better brace themselves because there's about to be a lot more desperate people with all the cuts to foreign aid that are going on.
My parents who digest bullshit from the internet would be. But then the bots would post that I am a liar and they would believe the bots. Because boomers can’t be trusted with fake information vs real information.
...even the popes have consistently been swayed by scientific fact...it may not have been publicly, but, religious people can be very easily swayed with fly-by-night journalism...
Musk is both stupid enough and narcissitic enough to have legitimately thought his charm and personality were making MAGA flock to him on his own personal "I need my ego stroked" site. It's quite possible it never even occured to him that none of it was real.
Remember. Elon is a problematic drug addict but Twitter had this information long before he was in charge and they were perfectly content with this fact.
Tech companies are not your friend and don't give a shit about your cause or your morals.
I think the amusing part is Musk didn't bother to check over that data before saying it should go live. Mean I'm pretty sure I saw it was removed soon after, but I was mostly skimming. Think he's knows enough that 10mins is all the Internet needs., and 10min is generous.
Seriously what person who manipulates social platforms wouldn't think, well let's give this data a once over for the big voices I want amplified?
It may be an oversight but it's more likely he's not overly intelligent. Seriously when manipulation via social media is a goal that's a pretty high fucking priority. Like he should have a report from a team checking that out before it went live. Maybe he tried but fired anyone competent enough but if you're a billionaire you should have a few (competent) teams ready for various tasks.
I agree but since he's fired everyone I assume he must know if a 'show origin location of accounts' feature is released. If not, I'll buy whoever that made that a reality a drink if it snuck by. They definitely deserve it. Though I can almost see it being some random person's task for like a few years making sure it all works perfectly, finally tested and in production then....no job.
Even so, tip of the hat to them cause they inadvertently showed (not exactly of course) origin of accounts. Know we're familiar with VPN but so many accounts coming out of country it's like how the Russians work, hmm just a coincidence I'm sure. So kudos to whoever made this a fact.
They'd have been better off using VPNs from the US locations at the very least, if they were from VPNs anyways.
I imagine they contacted US authorities regarding this information on the back channels, a lot of social networks allow people to continue posting so they can "incriminate" themselves in regards to whatever interests they may be offending while having open contact with authorities.
No, tech companies are not your friends, and they can easily be compelled by the states they legally reside in without it ever becoming public knowledge.
I didn't say third party votes would've swung it. I said third party and the people who stayed at home instead of going to vote, because they've read "don't vote genocide joe" spam online and it carried over even after Joe stepped down and Kamala tried running.
Just make people apathetic about the vote. That's it. That was the Russian strategy, because that was the only way Trump would win and Trump winning was the only out left for Putin in regards to a lot of things.
Oh so, now that Trump has been president, he's clearly done much more to stop the genocide, right?
It's not like pretending that these delusions are real has ever been a part of Russian disinformation. Nooo sir. Never ever. Actually, Russian disinfo doesn't even exist. And if it does, it's definitely not on Lemmy. Amirite, вахтера?
That would make it way too easy to catch the tankies, so no.
The only way I was able to read the deleted comment was that I read it off the notification I got when it was posted, and that doesn't get deleted, so...
I don't live in america, nor want to, yet I'm also wanting to influence the americans...to do something about the orange kiddie fiddling rapist that they voted in, twice!
Honestly, I don't care what happens over there. I just want that disgusting piece of shit to feel some serious consequences before he dies (...of a painful and incurable disease, hopefully)
Is there any source for this huge accusation that isn’t a blurry picture of text from someone you’ve never heard of? Come on Lemmy, you’re better than this.
Thats what i usually come to the comments for but ive found a lot of comments are just riding the confirmation bias so I either have to check myself or forget about it because im tired boss
The fact that only Cambridge Analytica has been investigated for manipulation is a testament to how widespread it is, and that Elon Musk was able to buy Twitter without consequence was just reality smearing it all over our faces.
Twitter is still popular. Most people are just never going to leave it. I don't think they care either way whether the location feature exposed anything or not. Musk gets people talking about his platform and that's all he cares about. Most people are like leftists. They will complain about things, but won't really do anything productive to help realize meaningful changes.
Edit 3: The Daily Beast has now confirmed some locations in the tweet:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/top-maga-influencers-accidentally-unmasked-as-foreign-actors/
Edit 2: Here is another one from a commenter in the comments. Again, take locations with a grain of salt:
Internet erupts as MAGA influencers exposed for being based in other countries
Edit: This was reported as having zero citations and they're right. I haven't had my coffee yet. Because I was interested, I did find this article about it saying that it was removed quickly. Please take this with a grain of salt as to the locations.
https://mashable.com/article/elon-musk-x-rolls-out-country-of-origin-profiles-then-removes-it
This is attracting a lot of trolls. I'm going to leave it up for a little while, but don't take the bait please. If I see bait, I'm removing the chain, not just the OG comment.
There need to be real consequences for this. This is mass propaganda that affects geopolitics, interferes in elections, undermines democracy and encourages people into a worldview that is destined for conflict.
Consequences imposed by whom? The US is currently ruled by the very powers who are employing these accounts.
I'd say controlled by is more accurate, because the people who factually rule the US are not based outside of the US.
I never said they were. I said they were employing these accounts. But anyway, the oligarchs who rule the US are not all based in the US.
I got your point, just tried to make the distinction between ruling and controlling, because in my eyes the verb ruling is for those who are factually in charge (the people in official positions) and controlling is a better fit for those that are de facto in charge (oligarchs, international corpo's, foreign state actors etc).
Krasnov heartily agrees. As does his boss, Putin.
They are the boss, i agree, but the factually Trump is in the highest position and factually nobody rules over him. I'm not argueing that reality is different, because it's obvious Trump is behaving as a russian asset.
People should get motivated to force change.
Bad news, everyone. We have detected cockroaches in the kitchen.
The good news is that we just turned off the lights, so now we can't see them.
Holy moley, that's a perfect metaphor, because we all know how cockroach behavior & numbers accelerate when they're in the dark.
Turning the lights off does not matter anymore, because these accounts glow in the dark. Thats what they look like right now:
America did that for COVID, which is why we had such low numbers.
Oh and all those COVID deaths? Natural causes.
Grok is this real
/s
See also:
Internet erupts as MAGA influencers exposed for being based in other countries
and
Elon Musk's X rolls out feature that shows users' country of origin – then suddenly removes it
Mashable said it's because users were reporting innacuracies for their own locations, and Raw Story doesn't have any metrics to support their claim... as usual. I couldn't find anything on the number of maga accounts from other countries.
Not to say astroturfing isn't happening, there's foreign interference for sure and some of those screenshots are probably legit. It's just more likely that Xitter's broken and their new feature didn't work.
If this were 15 years ago, sure, I'd accept that "it's just more likely that Xitter's broken" but not now. Not after the shenanigans Musk has played over and over. The benefit of the doubt is gone for that fascist.
To quote what I just wrote:
Where can I find out how many maga accounts were from those three countries?
Yes, it may well be that they have once again released an unfinished, flawed feature far too early.
I'm not saying that it's necessarily due to the possibly unintended transparency regarding right-wing extremist accounts. It's just that it apparently led to some accounts being visible as being maintained from abroad, even though they insist so much on "America first" and so on. I just wanted to point out that it's a strange coincidence that this feature was immediately withdrawn as soon as this apparently became visible to the users.
Of course, there may be other reasons for rolling back this feature, but with Musk, I wouldn't be surprised if he did it with regards to his political allies, since he clearly has an agenda that aligns with this kind of ideology (astroturfing or not).
I can't judge this myself because I stay as far away from xitter as possible. So I only know what I've seen in the media reports – and I don't think there's much reliable information out there.
So yes, it's speculation, but it doesn't seem impossible at all that the situation is as described in the post. I just wanted to back this up with some other sources that aren't xitter.
My issue wasn't with the claim, it was with the supporting evidence. Raw Story doesn't have a great fact checking record, and I couldn't find anything to support the number of maga accounts that turned out to be foreign.
Not saying I don't believe it, just saying I'm skeptical until I see credible data.
I asked grok
Then I'm afraid you're in the wrong place... here there are only unfunny comments from unfunny people like me :)
Cock is this real
Hard to say — let's check Pornhub for relevant citations.
Looks like someone asked Grok and archived it for posterity. https://archive.is/kM8aq
Based
...was anyone surprised?..
I don't know too much about American politics, but I am surprised with Nigeria and Bangladesh
Cheap labor that Russia can afford.
Cheap natively english-speaking labour, to be precise.
Nigerians natively speak English? I can barely understand their English.
English is their official language but i believe there are a lot different languages spoken there, the main one is like a version of english that is very different to actual english. But i haven't been there so maybe look it up if you want to know exactly. Scots and Irish people can also be hard to understand if they speak 'their' english. But Nigeria and Bangladesh were colonised by the British and that makes them better english speakers than many other poor countries with cheap labour.
Countries where salaries are low and English is high.
I mean, imagine paying a poor person $50 to yell at Wells Fargo for a week. That's pretty much this.
I'd do it for free.
So, if the USA want to minimize the problem, (no, autocorrect, not "use GPT") they have to lift these and similar countries to western pay standard?
...have you seen the offshore accounts of American manufactureers?..
I don't think I've ever seen any manufacturer account
...surely?..
They’re also hotbeds for running phone scams for the same reasons. Lots of people with English skills and desperate poverty willing to do evil things for money.
Rich english-speaking countries better brace themselves because there's about to be a lot more desperate people with all the cuts to foreign aid that are going on.
My parents who digest bullshit from the internet would be. But then the bots would post that I am a liar and they would believe the bots. Because boomers can’t be trusted with fake information vs real information.
...have you tried f2f?..
Face 2. Face? Fact 2 Fact?
My father is a religious radical. Facts are the literal devil to him.
...in person..one-on-one, but with some kind of moderation or peer-reviewed, perhaps even group or "interfaith" interpretation?..
...even the popes have consistently been swayed by scientific fact...it may not have been publicly, but, religious people can be very easily swayed with fly-by-night journalism...
If that is true then Musk & Twitter 100% knew about it before disclosing location to other users.
Musk is both stupid enough and narcissitic enough to have legitimately thought his charm and personality were making MAGA flock to him on his own personal "I need my ego stroked" site. It's quite possible it never even occured to him that none of it was real.
That's a good point.
Musk, Trump and other narcissist like them always look genuinely confused when a crowd boos them.
Only if they cared enough to analyse the data though
No way in hell. Musk was probably like "let's show location guys, think of how much more noticing we could do tehe!"
And then he got results that triggered him, so he had them turn it off
Remember. Elon is a problematic drug addict but Twitter had this information long before he was in charge and they were perfectly content with this fact.
Tech companies are not your friend and don't give a shit about your cause or your morals.
I think the amusing part is Musk didn't bother to check over that data before saying it should go live. Mean I'm pretty sure I saw it was removed soon after, but I was mostly skimming. Think he's knows enough that 10mins is all the Internet needs., and 10min is generous.
Seriously what person who manipulates social platforms wouldn't think, well let's give this data a once over for the big voices I want amplified?
It may be an oversight but it's more likely he's not overly intelligent. Seriously when manipulation via social media is a goal that's a pretty high fucking priority. Like he should have a report from a team checking that out before it went live. Maybe he tried but fired anyone competent enough but if you're a billionaire you should have a few (competent) teams ready for various tasks.
Eh that's assuming he even knows what is going on at Twitter.
He purged like 75 percent of the company. The only ones left are the ones with no other options.
Pretty sure his focus is on getting Tesla to give him ever increasing compensation while it starts to circle the drain.
I agree but since he's fired everyone I assume he must know if a 'show origin location of accounts' feature is released. If not, I'll buy whoever that made that a reality a drink if it snuck by. They definitely deserve it. Though I can almost see it being some random person's task for like a few years making sure it all works perfectly, finally tested and in production then....no job.
Even so, tip of the hat to them cause they inadvertently showed (not exactly of course) origin of accounts. Know we're familiar with VPN but so many accounts coming out of country it's like how the Russians work, hmm just a coincidence I'm sure. So kudos to whoever made this a fact.
They'd have been better off using VPNs from the US locations at the very least, if they were from VPNs anyways.
I imagine they contacted US authorities regarding this information on the back channels, a lot of social networks allow people to continue posting so they can "incriminate" themselves in regards to whatever interests they may be offending while having open contact with authorities.
No, tech companies are not your friends, and they can easily be compelled by the states they legally reside in without it ever becoming public knowledge.
I thought, third party got a very insignificant amount of votes that would not turn the results even if they voted Dems
Third party plus everyone who stayed home because "I'm not voting genocide joe" or whatever their reasoning for not voting was in the end.
I didn't say third party votes would've swung it. I said third party and the people who stayed at home instead of going to vote, because they've read "don't vote genocide joe" spam online and it carried over even after Joe stepped down and Kamala tried running.
Just make people apathetic about the vote. That's it. That was the Russian strategy, because that was the only way Trump would win and Trump winning was the only out left for Putin in regards to a lot of things.
One way to avoid such criticism is to not participate in Genocide. It works pretty well for me.
Oh so, now that Trump has been president, he's clearly done much more to stop the genocide, right?
It's not like pretending that these delusions are real has ever been a part of Russian disinformation. Nooo sir. Never ever. Actually, Russian disinfo doesn't even exist. And if it does, it's definitely not on Lemmy. Amirite, вахтера?
/S
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/04/17/russia-foreign-policy-us-weaken/
So is there a way to view cached deleted shit on here? Cause I don't appreciate this mess and I also want to see the awful takes.
That would make it way too easy to catch the tankies, so no.
The only way I was able to read the deleted comment was that I read it off the notification I got when it was posted, and that doesn't get deleted, so...
It's in here: https://discuss.online/modlog/3304
I don't live in america, nor want to, yet I'm also wanting to influence the americans...to do something about the orange kiddie fiddling rapist that they voted in, twice!
Same. Whatever happens in USA tends to rub off on Europe, either through cultural impact, or through propaganda.
We still have our lovely national parks... For now.. Culturally though, eugh.
It is a very pretty and strange place. I enjoyed the time I got to spend there.
More like fear-ridden shithole. But potato tomato.
If america has a vold, the rest of the world gets sick. And right now, it's bleeding out of the asshole.
There's an old saying that when the USA sneezes the world catches a cold. What happens when it gets syphilis?
Real, it's like trying to save the Roman Empire at this point lol
Honestly, I don't care what happens over there. I just want that disgusting piece of shit to feel some serious consequences before he dies (...of a painful and incurable disease, hopefully)
Maybe the real CIA-funded third world nation coups were the bots we made along the way
That's what happens when you monetize engagement..
Is there any source for this huge accusation that isn’t a blurry picture of text from someone you’ve never heard of? Come on Lemmy, you’re better than this.
Thats what i usually come to the comments for but ive found a lot of comments are just riding the confirmation bias so I either have to check myself or forget about it because im tired boss
The fact that only Cambridge Analytica has been investigated for manipulation is a testament to how widespread it is, and that Elon Musk was able to buy Twitter without consequence was just reality smearing it all over our faces.
Good to see Elon end up revealing this.
lol there’s a conspiracy going around that Muskrat did it on purpose to humiliate Trump. Something about something he said at the State dinner?
Shouldn't the result humiliate Musk more than Trump? Musk is the one responsible for the integrity of his platform.
I don't think he has this "integrity"concept we used tto value.
Is this real or satire? God I hate that I ask this at least once a week
Uh I thought we knew about MAGA being fuelled by Russian propaganda farms 9 years ago lol
This is real
Twitter is still popular. Most people are just never going to leave it. I don't think they care either way whether the location feature exposed anything or not. Musk gets people talking about his platform and that's all he cares about. Most people are like leftists. They will complain about things, but won't really do anything productive to help realize meaningful changes.
Hopefully news agencies run with it, but their CEOs and chairmen seem to be largely complicit.
"Let's hide everything in the midst of fog so we can continue with our fuckery.". At least Elon learned something from the americans.
fuck musk. hope he takes a flight in one of his own space ships.
Why not one of his own Neurolink chips?
How about Chinese MAGA accounts?
Edit: Oh? Why you downvote? It’s not like they don’t exist.
Russia, China ‘Bots’ Want Violence After Charlie Kirk killing
Nigeria and Bangladesh sound like VPN locations, honestly, not actual user locations though.
They're also countries with extremely low wages and fairly large English-speaking populations