What is the ‘account based in’ feature on X / Twitter – and why is it a problem for MAGA?

Elon Musk’s X / Twitter has had many controversial changes and new features since the Tesla boss took over in October 2022 (such as the ability to let users view the tweets of accounts blocking them), but one of the latest tools on the social media platform is causing issues for accounts which are a part of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement.

In a post to the site on Saturday (22 November), X’s head of product Nikita Bier announced the global rollout of the ‘About This Account’ – a feature found by tapping an account’s sign-up date to see where in a country or region the user is located.

“This is an important first step to securing the integrity of the global town square,” he wrote. “We plan to provide many more ways for users to verify the authenticity of the content they see on X.

“And for those in countries where speech has penalties, we’ve included privacy toggles to only show your region.”

And this encouraged people to check out the accounts of those pushing Trump and MAGA messaging, only to find that many profiles with Trump imagery and American flags placed around parts of their accounts weren’t actually based in the United States.

One user revealed that ‘MAGA Nation’ is based in eastern Europe, ‘DarkMagaCoin’ is located in Thailand and ‘MAGA Scope’ is based in Nigeria:

An account named ‘America First’, ironically, is actually based in Bangladesh:

Another profile, with the username @WilliamAlbrech, describes itself as “ultra MAGA” and a “patriot” in a bio with many US flags – except despite giving its location as ‘USA Washington DC’, the ‘about this account’ feature says it’s based in Nigeria:

And podcaster Ed Krassenstein mocked one account – which appears to have now changed its name to @BestPotus2025 – titled ‘Trump Is My President” by writing: “No. Trump isn’t your President. You are in Macedonia!”:

The feature has since been disabled for now... Awkward.

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