This new feature achieved something almost unbelievable (in 2025): both sides of the aisle came out in support. Right-wing posters have been constantly lobbing "you're posting from Pakistan" at each other for several months now, while left-wingers tend to favor of any kind of deanonymization unless it's them being deanon'd. Only the occasional globetrotting journalist will end up mildly irritated. Myself I'm wondering what took X this long.
I agree that it's easier to manipulate right-wing posters, at least in the US, than left-wing ones, as the left-wing audience is younger, more educated and politically "fashion-aware". But "easier" is not a qualitative distinction, and the main difference in practice ends up being that left-wing canards are hatched in middlebrow media while right-wing ones often take their origins in random shitposts. Over the last few months, many left-wingers -- some of them book-smart -- managed to get themselves convinced that Charlie Kirk was murdered by a rogue right-winger; that Israel has undeniably genocided the Gaza Strip; and that Trump had blown Bill Clinton at an Epstein party. (Arguably the last one is "believed" with a level of ironic detachment more commonly seen in a Pelevin novel than in US politics, and the middle one stems from a general unfamiliarity with the theory of war that has been plaguing America since the 70s. And nowadays you find enough idiots on the Right to believe all of these, too, thanks to Candace and Tucker.)
It feels like the structure of the digital media landscape itself is optimized for the lowest common denominator. This is exactly how a figure like Trump broke through in the first place—once the old media bottlenecks disappeared, the system rewarded whatever provoked the most animal-brain engagement. And now that we’re fully in the post-gatekeeper world, any return to robust moderation would be seen by the public as some aggressive, authoritarian crackdown. So what’s the actual way out of this?
Probably some strategy where instead of directly censoring or moderating rage bait, it is instead made less profitable. Find some way to demonetization clickbait.
I'm afraid there's no easy fix here. Incremental things like this that gradually open people's eyes are probably the best we can expect.
As the article states, these accounts target older MAGA types because they have the least robust defenses against this sort of thing. Many of those people, sadly, are never going to learn and are going to spend the rest of their lives stewing over some nonsense ginned up by an exploitative prick in a Russian troll farm.
In other words, quaint as this sounds, what we need is cultural change to truly adapt to a world centered around this revolutionary new technology that is the Internet and social media. And cultural change is slow and laborious, the work of decades, with the general process of cultural "learning" depending as much on people dying as it does minds being changed.
When the printing press was introduced, the world endured similar trials, over a much larger time scale. The ability to produce, share, and store information like never before would permanently unite the minds of humanity into a persistent global society of knowledge that would withstand the rise and fall of individual empires.
And the price for this magical evolution of human civilization was war, revolution, and religious strife, much of it probably necessary to loosen the grip of kings, nobles, and clergymen, and transition to a civilizational model in which the common human could read and write, and access worldly knowledge without it having to come through a priest.
And now we face a similar prospect, as we attempt to transition to a world in which the common human can "do their own research". It's going to take time, trial and error, and sadly, generational turnover. I'm 52 and I don't have a hell of a lot of confidence that I'll live to see us restored to some semblance of what we were at our peak.
The estimated 70% or more of America-First Pro-MAGA accounts coming from all the countries that realized the ignorance and stupidity of millions of Americans… So much “winning” to be had by those that - Welcome comrades from Russia, Nigeria, Bangladesh, India and Macedonia…
Welcome comrades in Russian
Добро пожаловать, товарищи
Welcome comrades in Hausa in Nigeria
barkanmu da warhaka
Welcome comrades in Bengali
কমরেডদের স্বাগতম
Welcome comrades in Hindu
स्वागत है साथियों
Welcome comrades in Macedonian
добредојде другари
Welcome comrades in German
Willkommen, Genossen!
Just can’t make this shit up anymore. You go there Musky your bad self of incompetence trying to prove your delusional rhetoric revealing what we already knew..
This new feature achieved something almost unbelievable (in 2025): both sides of the aisle came out in support. Right-wing posters have been constantly lobbing "you're posting from Pakistan" at each other for several months now, while left-wingers tend to favor of any kind of deanonymization unless it's them being deanon'd. Only the occasional globetrotting journalist will end up mildly irritated. Myself I'm wondering what took X this long.
I agree that it's easier to manipulate right-wing posters, at least in the US, than left-wing ones, as the left-wing audience is younger, more educated and politically "fashion-aware". But "easier" is not a qualitative distinction, and the main difference in practice ends up being that left-wing canards are hatched in middlebrow media while right-wing ones often take their origins in random shitposts. Over the last few months, many left-wingers -- some of them book-smart -- managed to get themselves convinced that Charlie Kirk was murdered by a rogue right-winger; that Israel has undeniably genocided the Gaza Strip; and that Trump had blown Bill Clinton at an Epstein party. (Arguably the last one is "believed" with a level of ironic detachment more commonly seen in a Pelevin novel than in US politics, and the middle one stems from a general unfamiliarity with the theory of war that has been plaguing America since the 70s. And nowadays you find enough idiots on the Right to believe all of these, too, thanks to Candace and Tucker.)
It feels like the structure of the digital media landscape itself is optimized for the lowest common denominator. This is exactly how a figure like Trump broke through in the first place—once the old media bottlenecks disappeared, the system rewarded whatever provoked the most animal-brain engagement. And now that we’re fully in the post-gatekeeper world, any return to robust moderation would be seen by the public as some aggressive, authoritarian crackdown. So what’s the actual way out of this?
Probably some strategy where instead of directly censoring or moderating rage bait, it is instead made less profitable. Find some way to demonetization clickbait.
I'm afraid there's no easy fix here. Incremental things like this that gradually open people's eyes are probably the best we can expect.
As the article states, these accounts target older MAGA types because they have the least robust defenses against this sort of thing. Many of those people, sadly, are never going to learn and are going to spend the rest of their lives stewing over some nonsense ginned up by an exploitative prick in a Russian troll farm.
In other words, quaint as this sounds, what we need is cultural change to truly adapt to a world centered around this revolutionary new technology that is the Internet and social media. And cultural change is slow and laborious, the work of decades, with the general process of cultural "learning" depending as much on people dying as it does minds being changed.
When the printing press was introduced, the world endured similar trials, over a much larger time scale. The ability to produce, share, and store information like never before would permanently unite the minds of humanity into a persistent global society of knowledge that would withstand the rise and fall of individual empires.
And the price for this magical evolution of human civilization was war, revolution, and religious strife, much of it probably necessary to loosen the grip of kings, nobles, and clergymen, and transition to a civilizational model in which the common human could read and write, and access worldly knowledge without it having to come through a priest.
And now we face a similar prospect, as we attempt to transition to a world in which the common human can "do their own research". It's going to take time, trial and error, and sadly, generational turnover. I'm 52 and I don't have a hell of a lot of confidence that I'll live to see us restored to some semblance of what we were at our peak.
The estimated 70% or more of America-First Pro-MAGA accounts coming from all the countries that realized the ignorance and stupidity of millions of Americans… So much “winning” to be had by those that - Welcome comrades from Russia, Nigeria, Bangladesh, India and Macedonia…
Welcome comrades in Russian
Добро пожаловать, товарищи
Welcome comrades in Hausa in Nigeria
barkanmu da warhaka
Welcome comrades in Bengali
কমরেডদের স্বাগতম
Welcome comrades in Hindu
स्वागत है साथियों
Welcome comrades in Macedonian
добредојде другари
Welcome comrades in German
Willkommen, Genossen!
Just can’t make this shit up anymore. You go there Musky your bad self of incompetence trying to prove your delusional rhetoric revealing what we already knew..