Quote:

---

Location, location, location. That’s what matters now on X, because Elon Musk has just rolled out a hugely important new feature, and it’s confirming what some of us have suspected was the case for some time now.

It turns out that many of the openly racist and anti-Semitic accounts on X that claim to be America First but are actually giving MAGA a bad name — well, they’re not true America First at all. In fact, they’re largely coming from Muslim countries. And now we have the proof.

A week ago, Fox News personality Katie Pavlich, a friend of mine, posted on X: “Hey @elonmusk, please make it mandatory that wherever an account is based – country – be featured in an account’s public profile. Foreign bots are tearing America apart. Thanks.”

In response, Nikita Bier, head of product development at X, said, “Give me 72 hours.”

And now, X has delivered. When you click on an X profile, there is an option to see more information about that account. It says “account based in” and then lists the country or region.

My account, for instance, says based in the United Staes, because I was in the United States when I created it and have posted the vast majority of my X content while in the U.S.

The same cannot be said for a great many accounts that purport to be America First.

You know the ones I’m talking about: They often have that Pepe the frog character as their avatar. They promote Nick Fuentes and complain that Jews have taken over the U.S. They whine about America at every turn, while purporting to be America First. They openly avow racist ideas, but because they have American flags in their bios, the mainstream media mistakes them for MAGA. Liberals point to these accounts and say, “See, here’s the evidence that Trump’s base, the MAGA movement, is racist and anti-Semitic to its core. Just look at these accounts.”

Well, guess what? A substantial number of them are based in the Middle East — Pakistan in particular. They’re not MAGA or America First. They’re cosplaying as America First in order to discredit MAGA.

As conservative journalist Joel Pollack points out, this is an extensive foreign interference campaign intended to drive a wedge within the MAGA movement, to the benefit of hostile foreign Islamic regimes.

And conservative pundit Matt Walsh notes that tons of X commentary on divisive American culture war issues is coming from foreigners whose opinions on internal U.S. policy can be safely ignored.

Even some liberals who have tracked harassment and hate online are now giving Elon massive props for unmasking all these foreign accounts. Jared Holt, a researcher on hate and extremism who has been very critical of Musk in the past, writes on X:

“Honest to god, Elon Musk letting people see what country accounts are based in is one of the few good things he has done with this platform. ‘Culture war’ clickbait is mass produced by people overseas. It’s always been that way. It’s low-effort, hateful content. Easy money!”

To be clear, it’s not just these faux right-wing pro-Fuentes groyper accounts getting exposed. X accounts promoting the grievances of various ethnic groups have also been exposed as false. Plenty of pro Native American advocacy has been exposed as originating from Bangladesh, for instance.

And it’s also the case that some X accounts purporting to be from dying or starving Palestinian children in Gaza actually originate in India, Qatar or North Africa. That does not mean there are no dying children in Gaza, to be clear, but it does mean that what we’ve seen and consumed on X is, in some cases, a form of manipulation.

The question you might be asking yourself is, why? Why are people in Pakistan, India, Qatar, Bangladesh and elsewhere trying to sell us division and racism? Why are people who hate each other trying to convince us — Americans — that we also hate each other? Why are they trying to inflict upon U.S. political discourse a crude and inauthentic racial and religious hatred?

The answer is self-apparent: Because they want America to fail. They want us to weaken. They want us to descend into infighting. They want us to start pointing fingers and scream in each other’s faces. They want us to fall behind.

And it’s not just about culture. There’s an organization called Americans for Responsible Innovation that tries to sabotage U.S. tech developments by supporting regulations that would ensure that China wins the AI race. Well, guess what? That account is based in Germany.

Maybe we should stop taking advice from foreign powers, on what our tech policy should be? Just a thought.

In any case, we must shut out the foreign racists and anti-Semites who pretend to be America First. They are not American, and they are not serving America’s interests.

---