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.
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.
The hired trolls are only one part of the problem. The other problem – perhaps the bigger problem – is that running scam / spam accounts is a legitimate occupation for people living in near-poverty. They need to put food on the table, and if they can do so by posting MAGA bullshit to get the advertising clicks, of course they’ll keep on doing that.
This is a good example of why everyone should be working to improve the living situations of everyone else in the world, and not just in their own country. It’s not like most people enjoy running scams, but if that pays the bills, fuck it, let the rich Americans sort it out.
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.
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.
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.
It wasn’t just based on IP from what I understand, but also what country’s app store you used.
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?
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. )