X's Fake Accounts Exposed: How Monetization Turned Outrage into a Global Business

Online anonymity has always made it easy to hide who you are; social media simply amplifies that tendency by letting anonymous users provoke large audiences. Recent changes to X (formerly Twitter) that reveal approximate posting locations have made one thing clear: many high-profile, US-focused accounts actually post from places like India, Thailand and parts of Eastern Europe.

Not a new phenomenon, but newly visible

It may feel surprising to see supposedly American accounts traced to overseas locations, but the behavior itself is far from new. People misrepresent themselves online for many reasons — amusement, safety, political influence, or harassment — but one of the strongest drivers is financial. Outrage generates clicks; clicks generate ad revenue or platform payments; and a steady flow of provocative posts can become a real income stream.

Money, reach, and incentives

After 2016, much attention focused on foreign influence operations. That coverage exposed state-backed efforts, but it also revealed commercially driven schemes: in past elections, teenagers in other countries created provocative or misleading posts to funnel readers to ad-supported sites. As one of those teens later told a reporter, the content could be false or harmful, but "if it gets people to click and engage, then use it."

When Elon Musk acquired Twitter in 2022 and transformed it into X, he introduced monetization features that rewarded engagement more directly. Those changes amplified existing incentives: when platforms reward reach — and sometimes pay creators for engagement — they attract users who specialize in producing attention-grabbing content, regardless of the posters' true identities or locations.

Why this matters — and what it doesn't mean

It's too easy to dismiss any opinion you dislike as the work of an overseas troll farm. Rage-bait thrives because it magnifies real divisions that already exist. The money behind the posts is real, the reach is real, and the effects on public conversation are real — even if some accounts are not who they claim to be.

Important distinction: Social media noise is not a reliable map of public opinion. Most people don't post, and a small number of accounts — some genuine, some manufactured — produce a disproportionate share of what looks like the public conversation.

The recent unmasking of accounts on X is a reminder to treat what we see online with greater skepticism, not to tune out social platforms entirely. Verify information, look for broader patterns beyond the loudest voices, and remember that incentives shape content as much as ideology does.