New X feature reveals surprising origins of Trump ‘fan accounts’

Published
This illustration photo shows a person checking the app store on a smartphone for “Truth Social”, with a photo of former US president Donald Trump on a computer screen in the background, in Los Angeles, on Wednesday. — AFP
This illustration photo shows a person checking the app store on a smartphone for “Truth Social”, with a photo of former US president Donald Trump on a computer screen in the background, in Los Angeles, on Wednesday. — AFP

OVER the weekend, X (formerly Twitter), rolled out a new feature which allows users to see the country or region where the social media platform believes an account is based.

The feature, called “about this account”, can be accessed from any user’s bio and identifies the country or region through which they often connect to X, BBC News reported.

The feature has revealed some interesting details: for example, some notable accounts with a history of posting content supportive of President Donald Trump, which generate a large amount of engagement, are actually located outside of the US.

Just two days ago, Trump shared on Truth Social a screenshot of a post from an X account called @TRUMP_ARMY_ celebrating a Supreme Court ruling in his favour.

This account, which has more than half a million followers, is based in India and has changed its username four times since joining the platform in March 2022, according to X.

Many of these accounts have previously claimed they are American or based in the US.

Separately, the account @IvankaNews_, which describes itself as a fan account for Trump’s daughter, has gathered more than one million followers by posting multiple times a day in support of the president and the wider ‘Make America Great Again’ movement.

This user previously claimed to have voted for the president in the 2024 election.

But the account is based in Nigeria and has changed its username 11 times since 2010, according to X.

Similarly, BBC Verify reported that several accounts claiming to be from Scotland and almost exclusively posting in favour of Scottish independence. But based on X’s location feature, these accounts have been accessing the platform from Iran.

One account, Ewan McGregor, claims to be based in Dundee. “Polls can be hidden, but momentum cannot. Independence is already in motion,” it posted three days ago.

Another user who claims to be in Glasgow, Alisa Stewart, posted this on Saturday: “Generations shift, but freedom endures. Scotland’s independence is timeless, beyond demographics.”

But X’s location data indicated that both were based in the Netherlands and accessing X via the Android app in Iran.

Since their location data was made available by X, both users have manually changed them to display a region rather than a country.

Published in Dawn, November 25th, 2025

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