A new transparency feature on X has stirred confusion, anger and a wave of online sleuthing after users discovered that the platform was suddenly displaying the surprising locations where certain accounts are based.
Over the weekend, users noticed that clicking an account’s join date now opens a tab that shows the country or region in which the account is located.
X’s head of product, Nikita Bier, teased the feature last month as a way to help users verify the authenticity of content they read and limit the influence of troll farms, which often run political accounts from outside the countries they target.
But as soon as the feature appeared live for users, X was flooded with viral posts showing that numerous high-engagement, MAGA-branded accounts that present themselves as those of patriotic Americans appear to instead be based overseas in Eastern Europe, Thailand, Nigeria and Bangladesh.
An account that calls itself “ULTRAMAGA 🇺🇸 TRUMP🇺🇸2028,” claiming to be based in Washington, D.C., is listed as being based in Africa. Another now-deleted account with a President Donald Trump-inspired username — “Trump Is My President” — was listed as being based in Macedonia. And an account with the username @American, complete with a profile picture featuring a bald eagle over an American flag, is apparently based in South Asia.
But the posts that stirred the biggest frenzy came Friday morning, when screenshots and screen recordings claiming the U.S. Department of Homeland Security account was listed as being based in Israel quickly went viral. The department and Bier have both denied the speculation, claiming the posts are spreading misinformation.
X users circulated images and videos that alleged to show the location field displaying “Tel Aviv, Israel.” The account information feature abruptly disappeared Friday night, fueling speculation that X had pulled the tool to suppress the DHS controversy. NBC News did not view the account’s location before the feature went away Friday and has not confirmed the authenticity of the posts.
The situation unfolded amid mounting backlash from across the political spectrum to U.S. officials’ support for Israel, which many commentators have lamented as appearing to prioritize a foreign entity over America.
DHS initially responded with a meme-like image of Trump, looking stunned, which neither confirmed nor denied the discourse about its account location.
On Sunday, it followed up with an official denial.
“I can’t believe we have to say this, but this account has only ever been run and operated from the United States,” DHS posted. “Screenshots are easy to forge, videos are easy to manipulate. Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
Reached for comment, a spokesperson for DHS pointed NBC News to the same social media statement.
The account information feature returned soon after Friday’s brief shutoff, with Bier announcing a global rollout Saturday. But the feature, which previously listed both an account’s current location and its location on the date of its creation, no longer shows the latter.
Bier also responded to the speculation by telling a user to “stop spreading misinformation,” saying X’s account information feature was temporarily shut off “because the account creation country was incorrect on a very small subset of old accounts, due to IP ranges changing over time.” He did not clarify whether such an error was present on DHS’ account specifically.
Still, he responded to some of the posts showing the DHS account as being based in Israel, calling the claim “fake news.”
“Location was not available on any gray check [government] account at any point,” he wrote in response to one screen recording, which X has now labeled as “manipulated media.” “Furthermore, the DHS has only shown IPs from the United States since account creation.”
As of Sunday morning, however, the location information is available again on the DHS account. This time, it reads: “United States.” But DHS appears to be the only gray-check government account that displays the location where it is based, as other government accounts now display only their dates of account creation and account verification.
Bier and X did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Bier said in a post that there are still “a few rough edges” around the feature that should be resolved by Tuesday.
“If any data is incorrect, it will be updated periodically based on best available information,” he wrote. “This happens on a delayed and randomized schedule to preserve privacy.”
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