On Saturday, X briefly revealed data that it has for every account, but that is not normally public: the location from which the account originates. The results, which I wrote about here, were revelatory. Those American Indian accounts that routinely disparage white people? They come from Bangladesh. The “bombs are exploding next to me here in Gaza” accounts? They are fake, posting from London, Poland, and so on.
I think this is hugely important. A few years ago, Democrats pretended to be deeply concerned about “foreign interference” in our politics. That was mostly a fraud, but this is much more significant. Accounts originating overseas have caused journalists to “report,” for example, on deep fissures in the MAGA movement.
In the New York Post, Glenn Reynolds elaborates on these themes:
[O]n Friday Elon Musk, having figured out that a lot of influential X accounts weren’t what they claimed to be, activated an X feature showing where users were actually posting from — and uncovered (at least) a million lies.
Turns out a lot of users claiming to be disillusioned Trump voters, or anti-Israel Americans, are actually foreign frauds.
Like the one that posted: “Trump is Israel First. I’m done with MAGA. I hope Republicans lose.”
Americans turning on Trump over Israel?
Nope. The account was based in Turkey.
Have you wondered how some guy named Nick Fuentes, whom no one had heard of not long ago, suddenly became, or appeared to become, a significant force on the right? Despite his professed admiration for both Josef Stalin and Adolf Hitler? Does this sound like enemy action? Yes, it does:
Likewise the woke-right “groyper” movement supposedly elevating white supremacist Nick Fuentes seems to be largely a foreign sham, and “Ron Smith, MAGA Hunter,” a prolific anti-Trump poster with a substantial following, turns out to be from Kenya.
More at the link. Glenn goes on to make a broader point:
But there’s a bigger story here.
The United States, for all its size and power, is prone to the whims of public opinion — and its communications are largely open to outsiders.
It’s hardly surprising that some of those outsiders will seek to take advantage of our nation’s freedom of expression.
For many years, and continuing today, that external influence has been manifested in foundations, grants, donations, lobbying and — hello, Biden family! — outright bribes.
It is illegal for foreigners to contribute to American political campaigns (although it happens, most notoriously in Barack Obama’s presidential runs), but nothing prevents foreign governments or interests from contributing to American nonprofits or American universities. Islamic countries have given large amounts of money to American universities, which I think is partly responsible for the widespread anti-Semitism on American campuses.
If you can redirect a multitrillion-dollar government by spending a few million on campaign contributions or “consulting” contracts, that’s a pretty good deal.
But fake X accounts are even easier, and even cheaper.
It costs virtually nothing for a malign operator to set up accounts, farm engagement and accumulate enough followers to be — or at least to seem — influential.
Causes that are not actually popular can be made to look like they have genuine momentum behind them, even if that “momentum” is just a few nerds pecking keyboards in Third World countries.
And what follows is a key point. I have been struck many times, over the years, by the fact that most journalists are not only ill-informed, but lazy:
And X is an ideal outlet for this scam because lazy journalists — and there are a lot of those — often rely on it for easy-peasy cut-and-paste clickbait stories.
Find a few colorful tweets to elevate and quote, and boom — you’ve got a controversy or even a “movement.”
It’s especially effective if the tweets support a preferred media narrative, like “MAGA is splitting” or “Palestinians were killed by Israeli bombs in the tent right next to mine.” (The latter, as it turned out, was tweeted from Poland.)
Bingo. We see this every day–“news” stories based on tweets by supposedly influential individuals, that can easily be selected to promote the Democratic Party’s theme of the day.
Glenn concludes by pointing out that Elon Musk did this the old-fashioned way–not by censoring, but by disclosing facts that some would like to keep hidden:
We’ve heard a lot in recent years about “misinformation” and “disinformation” on the Internet, which officials in both the United States and the increasingly totalitarian European Union have used as an excuse to censor ideas they don’t like.
Inevitably, the ideas they dislike are those coming from their political opponents.
But Musk on Friday didn’t censor people for lying. He revealed them as liars.
Rather than repression, he chose illumination.
All true. I am left wondering, how many “news” stories of the past few years have been based on tweets that supposedly shed important light on American politics, but in fact originated in foreign countries, perhaps at the behest of foreign governments? Also: will our liberal journalists change their ways, even slightly, as a result of these revelations?
Don’t hold your breath.
