X's new location feature exposes misleading politics accounts | Global News Podcast

Welcome to the Global News podcast on. YouTube, where we go behind the. headlines to find out more about a story. and why it matters. Today, we're going. to be talking about X and this new. transparency feature that reveals the. locations of users and it's thrown up. some really interesting results. Well, I'm joined by Cheyenne Sarah and Thomas. Copeland from BBC Verify, our specialist. factchecking team. And Cheyenne, can you. tell us more about this change and what. it's shown? Yeah. So, um the change was.

brought in over the weekend and it. basically um when you click on any. users's um bio um and profile on the. platform X, you can now see uh where. they're based and how they're accessing. X. Uh so whether they're using it uh. from an app in the UK or in the US or in. Belgium or the Netherlands, all of that. information is now being provided by X. Now obviously we can't independently. verify the information that X provides. because we don't have access to it but. they already have quite a lot of data on.

their users um ranging from their phone. numbers to email accounts um to GPS data. on their phones. So putting all of those. together they should be able to. reasonably conclude where a user is. based but keep in mind that you know. there are a lot of people who use VPNs. to access the internet and that can. distort the data. [snorts] uh however. there was for a long time uh quite a lot. of demand from users on X and also on. other many other social media platforms. about people who get a lot of clicks and. engagement and a lot of following which.

can be pretty profitable online by. pretending to be from somewhere where. they're actually not. So say somebody. who very incessantly posts about US. politics, whether they're strong. supporters of President Trump or whether. they're against President Trump and they. constantly post about it and all of a. sudden, you know, you've been following. them for a long time and all of a sudden. you realize they're not in America. Possibly they've never been in America. They're not involved in US politics. They've claimed to have voted for. President Trump or voted against. President Trump, but you know, they had.

they were not Americans or they were not. based in America. So all of a sudden you. feel like they've been basically using. your interest in US politics um to. basically gain quite a lot of followers. um quite a lot of clicks engagement and. possibly uh money from from ex. >> so why would it be that foreign ex users. Thomas will be posting about the. politics of a different country not. their own country. >> yeah it's a great question I think at. the moment it's clearly the case that US. politics is probably quite divisive it's.

quite polarized the US audience on X is. very large as well. So about 12 odd%. according to recent polls of US users of. of US people who responds to surveys get. their news from X. There's 100 odd. million users in the US on X. So you. know there's fertile ground and a lot of. interest in these issues. And it's also. going to be the case that you've got. quite divisive politics that's going to. lead to high levels of engagement. Jean. put his, you know, his finger on the. button there. You're going to get more. likes and shares and retweets and quotes. sometimes in complete disagreement with.

what you're posting. And and often we. have this, you know, this phrase that we. would come across called like rage bait. where you post content that's. deliberately designed to get people to. share and to comment in disagreement. That's still engagement and that's still. if your account is eligible on X, that's. still going to result in in. monetization. And what you're talking. about and you know the list of countries. that we have, I mean a a couple of great. examples over the last couple of days, we built up a list MAGA nation based in. Eastern Europe, MAGA Scope based in. Nigeria, Dark Ma Thailand. The list of.

these goes on and on and we'll pick a. couple apart in in more detail later on. But often it's the case that the money. that X would pay, you know, in US. dollars is going to go a lot further in. these parts of the world and you can. make a very handsome living as compared. to some of your peers in the country. where you're from at the moment. Um, if. if if this is the way that you're. bringing in bringing in cash. >> and just to say in and of itself posting. about US politics or British politics is. not a problem. you know, ex global. platform. People can say whatever they. want about whatever topic they want. The.

problem comes in when you were. pretending. >> to basically be an American or a Brit. and constantly posting about those. topics despite actually or pretending to. have participated in US politics or. British politics. And with the US. obviously being the global superpower, there's a lot of interest in what. happens in America. Um, that's where. things go a little bit murky when you. were saying, you know, I voted for. President Trump back in 2024 and it. turns out you were you were not in. America at the time of the election and. you couldn't vote. >> You can sometimes see as well the.

language isn't quite right. You can tell. that English is their second language. and you're thinking this doesn't seem. genuine these responses, but how much. influence are these accounts having? >> Some of them can have a significant. amount of influence beyond the platform. itself. So across all of the accounts. that we identified in the last couple of. days, we were able to see scores of. senior US politicians following them. I'll give you one example. So an an. account called fan Trump army half a. million followers including a senior. Republican senator. Just a few days ago. on Saturday, President Trump shared a.

screenshot a screenshot of a post that. this account had posted. It was a post. celebrating a Supreme Court justice a. Supreme Court ruling that according to. the account would allow the president to. deport criminals to El Salvador. it was. celebrating this. It was screenshotted, reposted by the president of the United. States on truth social. But look at the. X data and you see that this account is. based in India. Or another account we. find sharing anti-Trump posts claiming. to be a proud Democrat described itself. as a professional MAGA hunter. That user. actually deleted its entire profile.

after it was revealed that they were. based in Kenya. So there is significant. amount of influence both on the platform. and beyond. And I know you've been. looking at some accounts, haven't you, that have been linked to Scottish. politics, but they're nowhere near. Scotland, the users. >> Yeah. So, just just to clarify, we're. only talking about a handful of accounts. here, but there had been reporting both. last year and earlier this year about um. basically a potential influence. operation being run from Iran uh with. accounts specifically posting about um.

in favor of Scottish independence. So we. already were sort of tracking that on. the platform X specifically. But when. the um the sort of location data started. rolling in over the weekend, we noticed. uh sort of we're talking about five or. six specific accounts that they were. sort of constantly posting in favor of. Scottish independence and they were. pretending to be people based in Dundee. or Glasgow or Edinburgh. Um and that. when we looked at their profile photos, they were all sort of lifted from the. internet. So, they didn't seem to be the.

people that they claimed to be. Um, and. then when we sort of checked their. location data, interestingly, it said. that they were accessing X from the. Android app based in Iran. And now it. also said that they were all located in. the Netherlands, all of them, the ones. that we looked at. But we think that. might be because X would sort of give us. a notification that they were likely. using a VPN service. So, the X app is. blocked in Iran, so you can't actually. access it without using a VPN. So that's. probably what was happening. They were. accessing it from Iran using a VPN. Um.

and it kind of tracks with the previous. reporting that we'd seen about um you. know there being some kind of an. influence operation on the platform X. specifically with fake accounts posting. in favor of Scottish independence. And. when we in a number of these accounts. when we sort of went through some of. their recent posts actually. interestingly we found that during the. for example Iran Israel war um back in. June uh they were sort of posting. positive messages about Iran praising. the Iranian supreme leader. So all of.

those things added together this seems. like you know these accounts were. actually based in Iran. >> And you talk about an influence. operation is this individual people. doing this or is it linked to. governments in any way? Do we know that? Uh it's very difficult to say because. obviously we don't have access to the. data. Uh we you know the platform X or. other social media platforms often have. the data that reveals whether something. is being run by a company or a PR firm. or a number of individuals whether be it.

for money or for engagement or for. influence or in some cases actually more. nefarious some states doing that. So we. can't say that specifically, but it is. interesting that these accounts. specifically as ex suggest run from Iran. were posting in favor of Scottish. independence, which in a sense with Iran. being a state that is kind of seen as. hostile to the UK, they obviously have. an interest in the UK breaking up in. some sense. So that aspect of it is. interesting, but we cannot say.

definitively at all whether these were. run by the Iranian state or whether they. were individuals in Iran who had an. interest in this. That's entirely. possible as well, but X has the data. We. don't. >> And Thomas, have these changes by X made. these users operate in a different way? You mentioned one account has already. been deleted. >> Yeah. So I think there's a couple of. different things here. So one is that. there's an element of these accounts. being more transparent themselves. So. the account that I mentioned before uh. fan Trump army the one that was shared. by the president has now changed its. account profile to say an Indian who.

loves America President Trump Musk. exclamation mark. Another account that. we found called Ivanka News described. itself as a fan account for the Trumps. for for President Trump's daughter. It. gathered more than a million followers a. massive account posting day after day. after day multiple times a day. Um. including saying that it voted for the. president last year. We found out it's. based in Nigeria. It's changed its. username 11 times since it was first set. up in 2010. After its location was. revealed, the account posted that quote, "Some of us living outside the USA.

genuinely support President Trump's. movement. X now appears to have. suspended that account. We don't know. why. We've asked X exactly why they've. suspended that account, but the account. has been suspended." So, that's one. element of the impact. The other one is. just a simple transparency thing on the. platform. I mean I've noticed in the. last couple of days and Cheyenne has as. well the number of people responding to. posts from these accounts by saying well. hold on you're based in Nigeria you're. based in India you're based in Pakistan. what exactly is your motivation here so. that element of transparency from other.

users on the app as well is something. that that that ex users should expect to. see a lot more of. >> Thomas Cheyenne thank you so much and. that's it for this edition of the Global. News podcast. You can listen to the. audio version wherever you get your. podcasts. And if you liked this, please. subscribe to us on YouTube. Also, if. there are any stories you'd like us to. cover, please reply in the comments. below. But that's it for this edition of. the Global News.