Opinion from the Center
One of the biggest stories in mainstream media over the past few days has been the implementation of a new X update that allows users to see where an account is based.
Media outlets across the spectrum sought to highlight users whose biases stand in contrast with theirs, in attempts to serve a “gotcha” to opposing political movements or factions. But despite the waves the story has made, there were few, if any, really influential accounts exposed.
How The Media Covered It
After the update came on Friday, mainstream media began to pick the story up on Sunday and Monday, with many outlets from the left and center noting that the update exposed pro-Trump users who were revealed as based in foreign countries.
Several outlets slanted headlines, like The Independent (Lean Left bias), which wrote “Elon Musk’s new X policy unwittingly exposes MAGA influencers as foreign trolls” or The Daily Beast (Left), which ran an article titled, “Top MAGA Influencers Accidentally Unmasked as Foreign Trolls.”
A quick look at coverage from these two outlets, plus Forbes (Center), The Guardian (Left), Axios (Lean Left), BBC News (Center), NBC News (Lean Left), and Newsweek (Center), shows that several accounts were highlighted as foreign actors by each outlet. Among the mentioned accounts were:
- @IvankaNews_, 1M followers, Nigeria
- @MAGANationX, 392K followers, non-EU Eastern Europe
- @femalebodybuil6, 390K followers, Morocco
- @ColdWarPatriot, 140K followers, Chile
- @TrumpVVon, 123K followers, North Macedonia
- @America_First0, 67K followers, Bangladesh
- @_MagaScope, 51K followers, Nigeria
- @WilliamAlbrech, 16K followers, North Macedonia
- @Americaman_Hero, 15K followers, Indonesia
- @DarkMagaCoin, 15K followers, Thailand
- @MAGAWorld4896, 3K followers, East Asia
- @American, 2K followers, Pakistan
- @MAGA100X, 1K followers, Germany
Notably absent from the list of alleged heavyweight MAGA trolls included in mainstream coverage were some of the actually most prominent anonymous politics accounts on X that are often accused of being pro-Trump or spreading misinformation.
For instance, @EndWokeness (3.9M), @VigilantFox (1.9M), @TheRabbitHole (1M), @LeadingReport (974K), @Rightanglenews (327K), and many more prominent conservative accounts were revealed as being based in the United States.
The inclusion of accounts with just a few thousand followers should be telling of how overblown mainstream media’s framing of the story was. But it didn’t stop with outlets from the left and center trying to make MAGA look bad. Outlets of different biases took similar approaches with different kinds of users.
BBC News, which receives funding from the British state, said its team saw “a number of accounts claiming to be from Scotland and almost exclusively posting in favour of Scottish independence,” but that most of the accounts were “accessing X from Iran.” The outlet did note, “All of these accounts had very small followings.”
Israeli outlet The Jerusalem Post (Center) centered its coverage around “anti-Israel, antisemitic, and Gaza scam accounts” that were based outside Gaza. It claimed some “Anti-Zionist accounts [were] not based in the West,” but also noted that “many pro-Israel accounts, particularly those featuring attractive female IDF soldiers in their profiles, have been revealed to be inauthentic” and based abroad. The Jerusalem Post didn’t include many names and follower accounts, but did mention one “Pro-Israel account” named @marianatimes, which had 78K followers and was based in India.
Fox News’ (Right) coverage was more balanced than several outlets from the left, but still biased. Fox noted a few pro-Trump accounts that were based outside the US, and also that an account claiming to represent a “Gaza-based journalist” with 196K followers was based in Poland. Fox framed its headline more softly than outlets from the left and center, writing, “X's new location feature exposes apparent fraudster accounts posing as Americans, Gaza journalists.” It also didn’t go as in-depth on which pro-Trump accounts were based abroad or mention the biggest ones.
Overblown, Charged Headlines
By reading only headlines from major mainstream outlets, which were flush with sensationalism and spin, one would think the accounts exposed were more prolific than they actually are.
And many outlets opted for charged descriptors like “exposed” or described the accounts as “trolls.”
BBC’s aforementioned piece, “How X's new location feature exposed big US politics accounts,” which was one of the more balanced prominent pieces of coverage, subjectively used the word “big,” leading readers to believe the accounts mentioned were more influential on US politics than they actually were. Personally, as someone using X every day to read political news for my job, I had never heard of any of them.
Other outlets took things much farther. Under the headline “Elon Musk’s Worthless, Poisoned Hall of Mirrors,” an opinion from The Atlantic (Left) said X’s location update “blew up its own platform.” It doesn’t appear that X collapsed its own business with this new update, or that it will ultimately lead to its demise.
What appears to be a news story with a few stray charged descriptors from The New Republic (Left) was titled, “Many Top MAGA Trolls Aren’t Even in the U.S.”
International Business Times (Center) wrote, “New X Feature Reveals Top MAGA Accounts Based Overseas.”
Both of these headlines subjectively use the word “Top” to imply the accounts revealed were more influential than they are.
The New Republic’s headline also implies that being a “troll” – anonymously claiming you’re something you’re not online – is more tolerable if you’re based in the US. Keep in mind that X’s update does not include identity verification measures, meaning accounts based abroad could technically be Americans, while accounts based in the US could technically not.
A quick Google Search reveals more headlines of this variety by outlets from the left and center.
The Biggest Account Mentioned
The biggest account prominently mentioned by both social media users and some mainstream media outlets in all of this was the official government account for the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
When the update was implemented on Friday, some claimed the DHS’s page, which has 2.8M followers, said it was established in Israel in 2008, is currently located in Tel Aviv, and “Connected via” the “Israel App Store.”
NBC News was the first and most prominent mainstream outlet to mention this in its coverage. NBC wrote that the new feature “abruptly disappeared” after users noticed the DHS’ alleged Israeli location.
Currently, the DHS’s location says “United States,” and it does not show a “Connected via” section. It appears to be the only gray checkmark government account showing a location.
X's product head, Nikita Bier, described the page’s alleged Israel ties as “fake news” and said, “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.”
The DHS wrote, "I can't believe we have to say this, but this account has only ever been run and operated from the United States. Screenshots are easy to forge, videos are easy to manipulate."
Something not mentioned by mainstream media is that since the update was shelved and reinstated, the country where the account was first created is no longer explicitly shown. In fact, most major mainstream coverage of the story didn’t get into how the feature actually works that much, if at all.
How X’s Location Feature Appears to Work
While X’s update is an excellent stride towards more digital transparency on the platform and is very newsworthy, major outlets focused more on political “gotchas” than the mechanics and intricacies of the feature. Doing some poking around on the platform and peering into accounts that represent real, public-facing people reveals how it actually works.
As of now, the feature cannot be turned off and defaults to showing a user’s country. However, users are able to select whether they would like to have their region shown instead.
This means a user based in the US can have their page show their location as “North America,” whereas a user based in Poland can have their location shown as “Europe.” Countries outside the European Union in Eastern Europe, such as Russia or Serbia, also have a separate region category, “Eastern Europe (Non-EU).” On the settings page, X notes that these locations will “change periodically” if a user has relocated or is travelling.
Previously shown, before the update was briefly shelved on Friday, was the location of the user when the account was created, but that information has since been removed. What is still available, however, is a “Connected via” section that appears to show how the user first connected to X – unless they signed up via a web browser.
My X profile, for instance, says my account was made in October 2012 and “Connected via Web.” While “connected” is both a past and present tense verb, it’s not immediately clear what this “Connected via” section means. But since I didn’t own any mobile devices in 2012, I can confirm that my first connection to Twitter was via a desktop computer.
A bit more sleuthing with this in mind confirms that this “Connected via” parameter appears to show when the user first connected.
A look at the X account of independent American journalist Glenn Greenwald (Center), who has long been based in Brazil, says he connected via the “United States App Store,” but lists his current location as “Brazil.”
Independent Irish journalist Brian MacDonald, who was formerly of RT (Lean Right) and lists on X that he was a “long time Russia-based journalist,” connected via the “Russian Federation App Store” and is currently located in the United States.
Both Brazil and Russia have banned X within the last few years, confirming that the “Connected” in “Connected via” must be past tense and indicates how the account was first established.
A final nuance on the stated location of an X account is that it appears it can be altered by consistently using a VPN.
For instance, a Russian-American influencer who goes by Sasha Meets Russia and regularly posts videos of herself in Russia was accused of not living there since her profile says she is located in the Netherlands. Sasha, a Texan whose real name is Alexandra Jost, has claimed she uses a VPN in response to accusations made against her.
Furthermore, Jost’s account says “Connected via Mexico App Store.” Since her account was made in April 2025, three years after Russia’s ban of the platform, and she is reportedly married to a Mexican man, it further backs up that the “Connected via” parameter indicates the account's first connection.
Food For Thought
The pros and cons of online anonymity in political discourse can be debated.
While a bit sensational, labeling some of these pro-Trump accounts as “trolls” isn’t entirely inaccurate if they were claiming to be based in America and were not. Though seemingly unlikely, it’s not impossible either that some of these accounts were run by US citizens, which raises another question – is an anonymous political account based in the US acting in better faith than one based abroad, if both are citizens?
What if neither are citizens? What if an American citizen lives abroad, or what if an American resident is not a citizen?
Lying about one’s identity is not bringing good faith to a discussion, but if X’s update only exposes location, what else could accounts be lying about in how they characterize themselves?
Furthermore, as a world power with a long (and current) history of meddling in other nations’ politics, is it more rational for foreigners to have opinions on American politics than it is for Americans to have opinions based on the politics of other countries they have never been to?
Many countries’ politics operate downstream of America’s. If an American citizen can comment anonymously on our politics online without cancellation – as it appears most of these “exposed” accounts have now been banned – should citizens of other countries be banned for doing so as well?
All sorts of pensive discussions can be had about the roles location, and anonymity could play in online political discourse. The answers may not even be clear.
But what is clear is that media outlets raced to cover this story, authored bold headlines, and aimed to inflict political “gotchas” without presenting full context on the update itself or much investigation of their own.
By reading only the headlines, you would think everything you’ve read on X is a lie drummed up by some bad-faith operator in a country like Nigeria or Pakistan, but most of the accounts mentioned were non-players in the game of public opinion.
Many of these large mainstream media outlets, which actually do have their thumbs well on the scale, have misled readers and should have done better. It’s another textbook example of why readers should read coverage from outlets of several biases and do their own reading of source materials when possible to get the full picture.
Andy Gorel is a News and Social Media Editor at AllSides. He has a Center bias.
This piece was reviewed by Julie Mastrine, Director of Marketing and Media Bias Ratings (Lean Right), and Evan Wagner, News Editor and Product Manager (Lean Left).
