- In November 2025, a claim circulated online that X owner Elon Musk shut down the platform’s account-location feature after it revealed two-thirds of X’s “MAGA and far-right accounts” were based in Russia, Nigeria and Bangladesh.
- It’s true X launched a feature that publicly showed information about an account, including what country the user was based in listed under “Account based in,” on Nov. 22, 2025. The update also showed what country a user had created the account in listed under “Date Joined. Soon after launch, X removed the “Date Joined” location.Â
- Online claims incorrectly said that X shut down the feature that showed the country where an account was based. At the time of this writing, X still showed that location under the “Account based in” headline, though a disclaimer noted that the data “may not be accurate and can change periodically” due to travel or temporary relocation.
- Nikita Bier, X’s head of product, wrote on the platform that developers removed “Date Joined” information “because the account creation country was incorrect on a very small subset of old accounts.” Some users also complained that their “Account based in” location was wrong.
- It was unclear whether or to what degree Musk was involved in decision-making around the new feature. Snopes found no evidence that the rollback of “Date Joined” information was related to discoveries of accounts based in Russia, Nigeria and Bangladesh.
In November 2025, a claim (archived) circulated online that Elon Musk, the X owner and former adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, shut down X’s account-location feature after it revealed two-thirds of the platform’s “MAGA and far-right accounts” were based in Russia, Nigeria and Bangladesh. MAGA, an abbreviation of Make America Great Again, is a catch-all term for Trump supporters.
Nikita Bier, X’s head of product, first introduced (archived) the location feature, which would publicly show information about an account including what country the user was based in, on Oct. 14, 2025. X rolled out the feature on Nov. 22, 2025, according (archived) to Bier. Users could access the information by tapping on the three dots on any profile page and choosing “About this account.”
On Nov. 22, 2025, one X user wrote, “After it turned out that about two-thirds of Twitter’s MAGA and far-right accounts are based in Russia, Nigeria and Bangladesh, Musk has now shut down the location feature.”
The claim also circulated on Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived), Threads (archived) and Bluesky (archived). Snopes readers wrote in asking if the claim was true.
According to Bier, X did roll back information about where a user created an account, previously displayed under “Date Joined” in “About this account.” Bier wrote (archived) X “shut off” the “Date Joined” location “because the account creation country was incorrect on a very small subset of old accounts.” The team hoped to return that feature by Thanksgiving 2025, according to Bier (archived).
Online claims incorrectly said that X shut down the feature that showed the country where an account was based — found under “Account based in” in the “About this account” information. At the time of this writing, X still showed that location under the “Account based in” headline, though a disclaimer noted that the data “may not be accurate and can change periodically” due to travel or temporary relocation.
X had not publicly released figures corroborating the claim that two-thirds of “MAGA and far-right” accounts on the platform were based in Russia, Nigeria and Bangladesh. It was unclear at the time of this writing whether Musk, who had not posted about the feature on his own X account, was involved in the partial rollback of the “Date Joined” location, or whether the rollback happened for reasons other than what Bier publicly confirmed.
Given the sheer number of accounts on X, the subjectivity involved in classifying accounts as “MAGA and far-right” and the unreliable nature of “Account based in” data, Snopes could not independently verify this claim and has thus left it unrated.
Snopes reached out to Bier and other X spokespeople in the U.S. and Europe to ask whether the claim was true and await replies to our queries. Bier replied with links to his X posts about why X “shut down” the “Date joined” location and the expected fix date of Thanksgiving 2025.
‘Account based in’ location public but ‘may not be accurate’
At the time of this writing, X had not removed the “Account based in” information from its location feature, as some online claims said. Though the data remained, it would have been disingenuous to use it to support online claims about two-thirds of “MAGA and far-right” accounts being based outside the U.S.
According to X’s own disclaimer, “Account based in” locations “may not be accurate”. For example, Bier told (archived) one user, who said their account falsely listed their “Account based in” location as the U.S., that “Starlink threw us off.” The user explained (archived) that because Musk’s Starlink internet service routed through a hub in California, the “Account based in” location showed as the U.S. even if the user were physically in Canada.
Reports in major news outlets that circulated after X launched its location feature included examples of accounts with unexpected “Based in” locations, like a self-described “Patriot Voice for We The People” account (archived) that appeared to be based in Turkey and a journalist (archived) reporting from the Gaza Strip who appeared to be based in Poland. Both of the mentioned accounts said the “Account based in” location was wrong (archived, archived).
In sum …Â
Snopes found no evidence that “Account based in” information for two-thirds of “MAGA and far-right” accounts listing overseas locations caused X to remove this information, which was still accessible at the time of this writing. Rather, X removed “Date Joined” location information due to incorrect information given on some accounts. At the time of this writing, X had not released data or statements to support the claim about two-thirds of “MAGA and far-right accounts” being based overseas or said that this affected its decision to remove “Date Joined” location information.
The X team appeared to be working on its account location feature. Developers temporarily removed the “Date Joined” location, which online claims mistakenly identified as the “Account based in” location.” The site also warned that “Account based in” information that showed where a user was posting from was not always accurate.
Bier said developers aimed to return X’s “Date Joined” location by Thanksgiving 2025. It was unclear to what degree users would be able to manipulate location data on their profiles.
Snopes previously investigated whether the U.S. Department of Homeland Security account was created or based in Israel.
Sources
Binder, Matt. “Elon Musk’s X Rolls out Feature That Shows Users’ Country of Origin – Then Suddenly Removes It.” Mashable, 22 Nov. 2025, https://mashable.com/article/elon-musk-x-rolls-out-country-of-origin-profiles-then-removes-it.
Hagstrom, Anders. “X’s New Location Feature Exposes Apparent Fraudster Accounts Posing as Americans, Gaza Journalists.” Text.Article. Fox News, 23 Nov. 2025, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/xs-new-location-feature-exposes-apparent-fraudster-accounts-posing-americans-gaza-journalists.
“Has X’s New Location Feature Just Exposed MAGA Influencers as Foreign Trolls?” The Independent, 24 Nov. 2025, https://www.the-independent.com/tech/x-about-this-account-location-maga-b2871068.html.
@nikitabier. “Fixing This Now. Looks like Starlink Threw Us Off.” X, https://x.com/nikitabier/status/1992100946357428704?s=20.
———. “In a Couple Hours, We’ll Be Rolling out About This Account Globally, Allowing You to See the Country or Region Where an Account Is Based. This Will Be Accessible by Tapping the Signup Date on Profiles. .” X, 22 Nov. 2025, https://x.com/nikitabier/status/1992335925322613127.
———. “It Was Shut off Because the Account Creation Country Was Incorrect on a Very Small Subset of Old Accounts, Due to IP Ranges Changing over Time.” X, 23 Nov. 2025, https://x.com/nikitabier/status/1992386627562615190?s=20.
———. “The Data Had Inaccuracies for Very Old Accounts. We Hope to Have It Back before the Thanksgiving Holiday.” X, 22 Nov. 2025, Nov. 24, 2025.
———. “When You Read Content on X, You Should Be Able to Verify Its Authenticity. This Is Critical to Getting a Pulse on Important Issues Happening in the World.” X, 14 Oct. 2025, https://x.com/nikitabier/status/1978132382868988310?s=20.
