Feature Reveals MAGA Accounts Operating Overseas And Fuels Outrage Over DHS Account Location
X’s latest attempt at “transparency” turned the platform into a crime scene over the weekend, as users discovered a new function that reveals where accounts are physically based. Clicking on an account’s join date now opens a tab that lists the country or region associated with it, and plenty of people did not like what they saw.
Nikita Bier, X’s head of product, previewed the update last month as a way to help people spot troll farms. It sounded noble enough. Then the feature actually went live.
Within hours, X timelines filled with posts showing that a parade of MAGA-branded accounts were apparently not posting from small-town America, but from Eastern Europe, Thailand, Nigeria, Bangladesh and beyond.
Dude this is crazy pic.twitter.com/mBMXf6y4Ua
— Alex🇨🇦 (@alex2yc) November 22, 2025
One account calling itself “ULTRAMAGA TRUMP 2028,” supposedly based in Washington, D.C., showed up as being located somewhere in Africa. Another account with the username “Trump Is My President,” now deleted, was listed in Macedonia. The wildly patriotic @American account, complete with its eagle-over-flag aesthetic, was tagged as South Asia.
Left-leaning accounts were targeted too, though with less viral punch. A small unofficial Democratic Socialists of America page showed “Portugal,” even though the real, verified DSA account has more than 300,000 followers and is clearly domestic.
Some of the uproar centered on accuracy. At least three NBC News journalists saw their accounts mislabeled, apparently reflecting recent travel rather than where they live. Click the location field and X even slaps up a warning: an account’s listed country “may not be accurate” and can shift based on travel or “temporary relocation.”
Bier tried calming the crowd, saying a major accuracy upgrade was coming, and promising the system would be “99.99%” correct.
Everything escalated Friday morning, when screenshots and videos started spreading that claimed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s official account was listed as “Tel Aviv, Israel.”
https://t.co/Xe6MVghyfV pic.twitter.com/4PJNovdEQT
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) November 22, 2025
That allegation hit the internet like a match in a fireworks warehouse. Bier called the posts misinformation. DHS initially responded with a Trump meme looking stunned, then followed up with an official statement.
“I can’t believe we have to say this, but this account has only ever been run and operated from the United States,” DHS posted. “Screenshots are easy to forge, videos are easy to manipulate.”
NBC News wasn’t able to confirm what the DHS account displayed before the feature briefly vanished.
The location tool disappeared on Friday night, then resurfaced Saturday. When it returned, one detail was missing: the location where an account was created. Bier said the shutdown was due to incorrect data on “a very small subset of old accounts,” blaming outdated IP ranges.
He didn’t directly confirm whether that included DHS. He did, however, call the viral DHS screenshots “fake news.”
Oddly, DHS now displays “United States,” while other gray-check government accounts hide their locations entirely.
Bier said more fixes are coming, insisting the system will update user locations “on a delayed and randomized schedule” for privacy reasons.
Whether this new transparency tool actually helps fight misinformation or just ignites more of it remains to be seen. But for now, X has turned account metadata into the new battlefield.
