Article X reveals fake MAGA accounts run by foreign bot farms (false community)

[C C]

https://conservativefix.com/p/x-reveals-...-maga-bots

EXCERPTS: X (formerly Twitter) rolled out a new feature called “About This Account,” designed to increase transparency by revealing an account’s location, join date, and username history. The result? Chaos.

Within hours, X users learned what many had long suspected: a shocking number of supposedly “MAGA” accounts loud, aggressive, and ultra-nationalistic weren’t American at all. They were being operated out of Russia, Nigeria, India, Thailand, Pakistan, and beyond.

[...] Here’s what the new transparency has exposed:

• Foreign actors posing as MAGA influencers, often using AI-generated personas to imitate American conservatives
  
• Bot networks pushing anti-Israel propaganda, claiming to be Gazan journalists while operating from Pakistan and Bangladesh
  
• Coordinated misinformation surges following high-profile U.S. events, including terror attacks, shootings, and political scandals
  
• Fake accounts attacking Trump, often immediately after his rift with Elon Musk, revealing their true anti-MAGA intentions

As researchers from the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) explained, these cyber operations follow a three-phase cycle:

1. Identify: Target a political audience or crisis moment
   
2. Imitate: Adopt the language, branding, and messaging of that group
   
3. Amplify: Rapidly spread divisive or false content to fracture communities

In one case, a single activation window produced 650,000 posts pushing false-flag narratives, garnering 4 million interactions many fueled by foreign propaganda networks. These fake MAGA accounts weren’t trying to help Donald Trump. They were weaponizing his movement to destabilize it from within.

Even worse, the same strategy was used to pose as anti-Israel activists, raising fake donations, impersonating Middle Eastern journalists, and sowing discord during the Gaza conflict. Behind the avatars? Users in Bangladesh, Turkey, and even American-based operatives acting as signal boosters.

This isn’t a partisan issue it’s a national security crisis. The U.S. political system is being gamed by bad actors exploiting our openness, our divisions, and our trust. They’re not just targeting the Right. They’re mimicking it, distorting it, and using it as a Trojan horse to rip the country apart.

For years, conservatives were told that complaints about “bots” were just excuses used by the Left. Now we know: they were real. And many of them weren’t on the Left they were impersonating the Right... (MORE - missing details)

Is Nick Fuentes a leftist in disguise? ... https://youtu.be/8eYV3q5VaZw

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/8eYV3q5VaZw

[Syne]

Why impersonate the left? They already what to destroy America.

Hopefully the conspiratorial right learns how to be more discriminating in who they believe.

[stryder]

Why impersonate the left? They already what to destroy America.

Hopefully the conspiratorial right learns how to be more discriminating in who they believe.

Forget Left and Right, it's too Linear and to be honest Dumb. If you have a state operator utilizing information manipulation as a tactic to sow discontent to keep nations from being able to be a threat to them. It's not about a simple left or right move, it's actually more like a Spidergraph.

Any action made moves the way the graph looks, potentially generating points of contention or pressure in other areas which can be exploited for results.

A simple point here is how people are pointing out this manipulation is a "National Security Threat", one point of contention on that spidergraph would be your liberty in the sense of privacy and what information is held on you, by pushing a "National Security Threat" it increases the likelihood that a country will adopt tighter information gathering on it's citizens, which is technically in line with Chinese methodology. (I'm not blaming China, I'm merely pointing out how such adoptions get countries that otherwise would of fragrantly been against their policies, suddenly adopting them.)

I still imply this all ties to Cambridge Analytica as it opened the eyes of those that could misuse it.

[Syne]

Hey, let me know if you ever find actual evidence for any of your conspiracy theories.

[stryder]

Hey, let me know if you ever find actual evidence for any of your conspiracy theories.

Will do.

[Yazata]

https://conservativefix.com/p/x-reveals-...-maga-bots

EXCERPTS: X (formerly Twitter) rolled out a new feature called “About This Account,” designed to increase transparency by revealing an account’s location, join date, and username history. The result? Chaos.

The last words, "the result? Chaos" are hyperbolic.

Yes, X rolled out the new feature revealing where each account is posting from. (In general terms, the country or region, no identifying information.) And yes, it created lots of interest on X for a few days. Everyone was talking about it.

But 'chaos'? Not really.

Within hours, X users learned what many had long suspected: a shocking number of supposedly “MAGA” accounts loud, aggressive, and ultra-nationalistic weren’t American at all.

Again true. But "a shocking number" is again hyperbolic. 'Some' or even 'a few' would have been a better word choice.

Here’s what the new transparency has exposed:

Foreign actors posing as MAGA influencers, often using AI-generated personas to imitate American conservatives

Which raises the question of how much influence 'influencers' really have. I never followed any of these fake MAGA accounts. I don't recall anyone quoting or reposting them. I never heard of most of them. It's true that there are a number of big MAGA accounts, from President Trump and JD Vance on down. Some of them are indisputably 'influencers', they are read by millions and their opinions carry weight. (Elon himself is the ultimate 'influencer', he's followed by 229 million people!) But all of the MAGA accounts that I read and follow, all of the ones that are quoted and reposted regularly by others, are indisputably American.

('Follow' is a misleading word. It isn't like religious-follower, there's no 'faith' involved. It just means that their posts are featured on our customized 'for you' feeds more often than other people's. X weights your feed with accounts you follow and accounts similar to those. I get a lot of space oriented accounts, including ones I'd never heard of but choose to follow, which just reinforces it.)

The fake foreign accounts just added to the cacophony of voices on X, which has about 250 million average daily-users. We never see the vast majority of them, unless we go looking for them.

Bot networks pushing anti-Israel propaganda, claiming to be Gazan journalists while operating from Pakistan and Bangladesh

Yes, many of the pro-Hamas voices came from various Muslim countries. Most of those voices were upfront about who and where they were, but some probably did pretend to be Americans. It's questionable how influential those were. (Most of the anti-Israel influence appears to have been on the left.)

Coordinated misinformation surges following high-profile U.S. events, including terror attacks, shootings, and political scandals

Really? "Misinformation" has turned into a left-wing code-word applied to any conservative opinion. (Use of the word sets off alarm bells in my head.) I'd really like to see some specific examples of this.

Fake accounts attacking Trump, often immediately after his rift with Elon Musk, revealing their true anti-MAGA intentions

Almost 100% of the MAGA opinion that I saw following the Elon/Trump breakup were talking about how it was very unfortunate and expressed hope the two would patch things up (which they seemingly have). There was virtual unanimity about that.

I do think that there was a full-court press on X to try to exploit the Epstein files issue in hopes of splitting MAGA, but I don't know how much of that came from overseas. It seemed to me to have mostly been orchestrated by the US democratic party. And it doesn't seem to have had its intended effect - MAGA isn't split.

As researchers from the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) explained, these cyber operations follow a three-phase cycle

And there it is. The Network Contagion Research Institute was started at Rutgers University during Trump's first term, during the hysteria on the left about "misinformation" on the web that had somehow tricked all the ignorant and impressionable rubes out in Middle America to vote for Trump.

If it weren't for internet "misinformation" -- all the woefully misled Trump voters would have happily given up their 1st and 2d Amendment rights, they would have believed everything the New York Times and MSNBC told them, they would have been certain that men can menstruate and have babies, that the US shouldn't have borders (but Ukraine should), that the police are "systematically racist" and should be defunded, that criminals are victims of the justice system, that the way to end 'racism' is to classify everyone by race and assign different legal rights to each, that capitalism must be abolished and replaced by socialism, and all the rest.

If it weren't for internet "misinformation" ("Russian bots"!), Hillary would have received 100% of the vote!

In one case, a single activation window produced 650,000 posts pushing false-flag narratives, garnering 4 million interactions many fueled by foreign propaganda networks. These fake MAGA accounts weren’t trying to help Donald Trump. They were weaponizing his movement to destabilize it from within.

What "activation window"? What "false-flag narratives"? Certainly it's obvious that there are forces trying to exploit differences of opinion in the MAGA coalition in hopes of splitting it, but it's questionable how effective any of them are or have been. And most of the divisive stuff seems to be originating domestically out of the democratic party, who are very aware of X's influence and are constantly trying to "shape the narrative" to favor themselves and their issues. They have already done that with the establishment media, with higher education and with many corporate boardrooms, but it's much harder for them to influence X.

This isn’t a partisan issue it’s a national security crisis.

Hyperbole.

The U.S. political system is being gamed by bad actors exploiting our openness, our divisions, and our trust. They’re not just targeting the Right. They’re mimicking it, distorting it, and using it as a Trojan horse to rip the country apart.

We don't need foreigners to do that. We are perfectly capable of doing it ourselves.

All the foreigners can do is add more accounts expressing whatever opinions they want to express. Pretending to be Americans or pretending to be MAGA doesn't mean that the poor ignorant Trump voters (like me) will automatically believe everything they say. There are voices on X already saying literally everything that isn't illegal. (If you are trying to organize criminal activity on X, they will kill your account.) There are flat-earth accounts, there are Islamic accounts, there are communist accounts, you name it, everyone is already on there.

Whether or not an account is persuasive depends on how persuasive the posts are. If free speech is to be a core value, isn't that how it should be?

[Syne]

It seemed to me to have mostly been orchestrated by the US democratic party.

Aside from the likes of Candice Owens, Tucker Carlson, etc..

And it doesn't seem to have had its intended effect - MAGA isn't split.

Even MTG is resigning over her failure to split the party.

Whether or not an account is persuasive depends on how persuasive the posts are. If free speech is to be a core value, isn't that how it should be?

Aside from the fact that women are generally more conforming to the apparent popular opinion... and make up the bulk of the democrat vote.