commentary
Foreign bots have long plagued X. Musk has introduced a potential fix
Published
November 24, 2025 9:10AM (EST)
Elon Musk and X, formerly Twitter, logo. (Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
In 2014, Buzzfeed News reported on the Internet Research Agency, a “troll farm” based in Russia that waged an organized propaganda campaign across social media. According to internal emails, operatives were instructed to run multiple Facebook, Twitter and blog accounts, bombard comment sections and build fake audiences to shape American political discourse. It’s a method employed by Russia that dates back to at least the 2008 presidential campaign. Yet nearly two decades later, the U.S. is still debating the scope and geographical breadth of our foreign troll problem. All the while, fraudulent accounts have continued to flourish.
In 2022, when Elon Musk purchased Twitter, the news-heavy platform he’s since rebranded as X, the multi-billionaire immediately reinstated accounts banned for hate speech and violent disinformation, including Donald Trump’s. A 2024 CNN analysis of 56 pro-Trump accounts on X revealed “a systematic pattern of inauthentic behavior.” Fifteen even displayed blue check marks, indicating they had been officially verified by the company. Eight used stolen photos of well-known European influencers to lend credibility.
Musk himself has personally boosted extremist propaganda and repeatedly retaliated against journalists who criticized him. Under his leadership, X has dismantled many of the mechanisms and teams designed to safeguard against the distribution of falsehoods and conspiracy theories on the platform.
Musk himself has personally boosted extremist propaganda and repeatedly retaliated against journalists who criticized him. Under his leadership, X has dismantled many of the mechanisms and teams designed to safeguard against the distribution of falsehoods and conspiracy theories on the platform. Monetization on X is largely driven by engagement, and nothing gets people engaged like riling them over culture wars. In practice, this generates misplaced outrage to manufacture consent for policy. It’s been a near-perfect feedback loop in the second Trump administration — until MAGA started turning against Trump.
In October, as the internecine squabbling among Trump’s base showed signs of toppling the coalition in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s killing, X’s head of product Nikita Bier floated a new location-exposing feature. But it wasn’t until Fox News’ Katie Pavlich made a public appeal to Musk in a Nov. 15 post — “Foreign bots are tearing America apart,” she said — that the company took action. “Give me 72 hours,” Bier replied to Pavlich the following day.
Friday’s rollout of the new feature was a chaotic, error-laden mess that nonetheless garnered praise from conservatives, including Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and podcaster Dave Rubin, a right-wing influencer who was confirmed by the Justice Department to be a subcontractor of Russian intelligence. Several top MAGA accounts were exposed as operating in Nigeria. (A warning note appears if a VPN is detected, and X gives users a choice to display a broader region,