This 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.

Unfortunately, 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.

Absolutely wild that this isn't bigger news. This should be the front page of every major news network.

  - Type in some search terms.
  - Open handful of the top hits.
  - Believe everything. 
  - Even the obvious scams & ads.

If 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.

“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.

Why is the word “accidentally” used when this is a feature that was implemented with this particular reason in mind?

I 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.

Not just America, I assume this is pretty common for most countries' political discourse on Twitter.

Reddit also needs to have a feature like this.

The "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.

The 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!

I'd pay $100 dollars a year to block all social media posts from India, Pakistan and Malaysia.

So 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.

This 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.

Why should I trust X to give correct based countries for accounts?

Do 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

I 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.

To 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.

It's not really "accidental. Exposing stuff like this is precisely why they rolled out the country of origin feature.

This 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

It 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.

At 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.

Related:

X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run

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

Top MAGA Influencers on X/Twitter Accidentally Unmasked as Foreign Trolls

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46024211

Reddit, HN, and Facebook all desperately need this information too.

It definitely could be foreign influence. It also could be US companies/campaigns (same thing...) outsourcing their astroturfing to other countries to save money.

Every 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.

the 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?

How does Elon Musk reconcile this with his own behavior on X, personally boosting fringe people and groups?

Wild 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?

Twitter 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.

So... 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.

That’s crazy

To 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.

4chan’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.

There’s just so much money in tard wrangling.

Capitalism is responsible for much of this without the need for organisational control.

Am I the only one who feels like the article is at least partially written by AI?

It'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.

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As 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?

When will Hacker News target the covert non-American influencers pretending to be Americans and holding strong positions on American issues?

>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.

This isn't by accident. It's funny however how both sides are ignoring the foreign networks aimed at their own camp.

And DOGE was cancelled the day after. Coincidence I’m sure

Further 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?

Effectively a dupe of 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.

Until 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.