663
MAGA trolls outed as foreigners vanish from X after brutal update (www.thedailybeast.com)
submitted 11 months ago by to c/politics@lemmy.world
67 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Many of the MAGA influencers outed as living in countries like Nigeria and Bangladesh have since vanished from X.

The users, who had over a million followers between them, had their country of origin exposed over the weekend as part of a new X feature that now shows where accounts were created and how their owners downloaded the social platform’s app.

Four prominent accounts unmasked by the feature—DarkMAGA, MagaScope, WilliamAlbrech, and IvankaNews_—now show as being “suspended” for violating “X rules,” though it is unclear which. X’s website says it bars users who pretend to be someone they are not—something all the accounts appear to be guilty of.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 34 points 11 months ago (7 children)

I was wondering if this is just because of VPN use or something but nope this confirms they’re actually just hired trolls and the rubes have been manipulated this whole time. Fucking pathetic how dumb we are.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 7 child comments
    •
  • [–] 14 points 11 months ago*

    Well, lots of tankies, "centrists", and of course nearly all Republicans seem to think that concerns about Russia going back to 2016's election are a "hoax".

    I don't know if they could even begin to articulate what they think that word means in the context of their claims. But they sure are butthurt about it.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 11 points 11 months ago* (1 child)

    I could be wrong here, but unless you're actively trying to hide something pretty serious, I'd be surprised if people use a VPN and set it to a country like Nigeria or Bangladesh if you're from NA.

    Maybe Canada if you're from the USA, likely other states, or maybe somewhere in the EU if you think their data protection laws will be better for you.

    But Nigeria? Who fuck sets their VPN there?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago

    I know I've had to try several countries before I found Invidious instances that would work over a VPN. It seems that there are a few European countries that work, though.

    ( I guess I don't understand enough about how Invidious works, but I sure don't think that Alphabet needs to track my views of random videos. )

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [+] 6 points 11 months ago (2 children)
    [deleted]
  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 7 points 11 months ago

    There are literal companies you can hire. They also do it to cancel people or promote beliefs about people.

    A good example is that Johnny Depp admitted he hired one against his ex during the public court stuff to make her look bad. Amber Heard. And it worked.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3VnNDMYzttcGgBNQB0BswtH/amber-heard-vs-the-internet-an-organised-smear-campaign

    Companies, in this case, owned by Saudi

    This stuff sounds like crackpot conspiracy theories. But it's real. This stuff is reality now.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago

    That last paragraph was something that struck me...I was thinking about this earlier in the day.

    The great thing about disadvantaged groups is that they are easy to exploit.

    This isn't cheating. This is playing the game strictly by the rules. The whole system of checks and balances assumed good faith and professional conduct. That turned out to be a really shitty assumption.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent