frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

X Just Accidentally Exposed a Covert Influence Network Targeting Americans

https://weaponizedspaces.substack.com/p/x-just-accidentally-exposed-a-vast
89•adriand•23m ago

Comments

jrm4•17m ago
Absolutely wild that this isn't bigger news. This should be the front page of every major news network.
chneu•14m ago
Most of this, to some degree, has been well established for a while.

American Republicans have relied heavily on foreign interference to achieve their goals. From social media manipulation to laundering illegal political bribes, Republicans have been doing it.

jrm4•12m ago
100%, but the clear proof afforded by Elon should be the opportunity to really put it out there.
phantasmish•13m ago
It’s widely known and reported this is happening. I guess this might get the message to people in the back who aren’t paying attention… but given we’ve had most of a decade of off-and-on coverage of this, anyone left is probably unreachable, and a bunch of them have been primed to ignore this exact sort of headline as “fake news”.
hbosch•11m ago
>It’s widely known and reported this is happening.

I am not sure it's "widely known and reported" that the official Twitter account for the Department of Homeland Security was created in, and is run from, Israel.

harrisonjackson•7m ago
https://x.com/nikitabier/status/1992382852328255743?s=20

> This is fake news. Location was not available on any gray check account at any point. Furthermore, the DHS has only shown IPs from the United States since account creation.

- head of product @x

Not to discount the impact of foreign powers over social media but maybe don't spread this misinformation.

redindian75•4m ago
after it was reported/recorded, X "fixed" it by making .gov accounts untrackable. So now it doesnt show Israel anymore (and MAGA accounts now have an opportunity to scream fake news)
dstroot•12m ago
They (major news networks) are owned by Trump friendlies (Bezos/WaPo, Soon-Shiong/LAT, etc.) or they are afraid of Trump’s influence.
yetihehe•12m ago
No one likes to be the bad messenger saying to Americans that they were fooled and all that hatred against their opponents (opposite party) was actually induced, not born out of their own superiority.
numpad0•12m ago
Musk's like a transparent kid these days. Anything he touches seem to disappear from media - there is such thing as bad publicity after all, I guess.
postflopclarity•5m ago
I mean it's been pretty obvious for a while...

the people who would care already knew about this. the people who didn't know about this don't care (or are in denial).

cranberryturkey•17m ago
That’s crazy
Natsu•16m ago
It's not really "accidental. Exposing stuff like this is precisely why they rolled out the country of origin feature.
kardianos•15m ago
It isn't bigger news because it would expose many of the targets they like to throw things at (eg Groypers) are not American, but foreign agents masquerading as such.
macintux•14m ago
Effectively a dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46028422, so while I agree this is important news that should be widely covered, we don't need another thread.
braincat31415•13m ago
Jeez. What a pile of nonsense.
jagged-chisel•11m ago
Wow. What a substantive comment.
throw_m239339•13m ago
This isn't an accident. It's funny however how both sides are ignoring the foreign networks aimed at their own camp.
tetris11•10m ago
Both sides? This is news to me. Where can I read more
add-sub-mul-div•6m ago
Is there anyone left who's falling for the idea of symmetry of scope on what's going on? It reads like the most transparent attempt at diversion and denial.
radiorental•5m ago
Right, and the outcome changes little that wasn't already known.

The interesting part of this story is why was this switched on now, by whom? Why was it briefly turned off? Was that an attempt to put the genie back in the bottle?

postflopclarity•4m ago
... "both sides" ? seems pretty heavily one sided to me.
leosanchez•13m ago
Not just America, I assume this is pretty common for most countries' political discourse on Twitter.

Reddit also needs to have a feature like this.

nodesocket•12m ago
As the article mentions a lot of the accounts probably just using VPN services. Remember when Elon exposed the US government in cahoots with Meta and Twitter actively shadow banning people for free speech on legitimate topics such as covid, covid vaccines, masks, and the woke agenda?
jagged-chisel•12m ago
“Moving forward, we’ll likely see a re-examination of how much credence we give to social media as a barometer of public opinion.”

Who is “we?” Not the media in the US, I’d wager.

hbarka•11m ago
How does Elon Musk reconcile this with his own behavior on X, personally boosting fringe people and groups?
mikeyouse•8m ago
Remember when Musk’s entire cause celebre was to expose the bot networks and paid trolls on Twitter and then he dropped all of that bluster when he realized how useful they’d be to his political goals?
Myzel394•11m ago
Am I the only one who feels like the article is at least partially written by AI?
mlmonkey•9m ago
Unfortunately, it requires 3 clicks ("account" -> "join date" -> "about account") to get the required information.

It should be visible on the post itself: where it was posted from, and where the author's account is mostly located. Just 2 little chips stuck on top of each and every post.

space_ghost•6m ago
Followed immediately by these groups making VPNs a standard part of their toolkit. This data is enlightening but its reveal doesn't solve the problem.
hbosch•5m ago
It wouldn't be difficult to include a little "" icon on each post that, when hovered, shows probable location or the creation origin. It's true that VPN's will often muddy this info, and even things like phone number confirmation for 2FA or billing address for Verified badges can't be 100% reliable... but it shouldn't be too difficult to say in those cases "User likely masking location" if the pattern is detected.
bargainbin•9m ago
Wild reading the news earlier to see Iran is making a concerted effort to influence Scottish Independence.

Is the idea to weaken the UK? To what end?

Also, if it’s being done to us, surely we’re doing it back? The CIA and MI6 are no stranger to destabilising regimes, and yet surely it would be more common knowledge if we were employing people to post anti-Putin propaganda on Russian forums?

consumer451•6m ago
Iran is very much an ally of Russia. The theory I have seen for Moscow wanting Scottish independence is that they might remove the UK's only nuclear sub port from their newly independent country.

Also, it would be a general black eye for the UK, which has been very supportive of the defense of Ukraine.

teddyX•5m ago
And DOGE was cancelled the day after. Coincidence I’m sure
MomsAVoxell•4m ago
Until we see the source code for how X is determining the geo-location, all bets are off.

This could just as easily be X, trying to influence opinions on the nature of America's divisive classes, which is to say there is just as much evidence that is the case as any other circumstances one might conclude.

Zero [video]

https://youtu.be/ls71QtnZctA?t=2m49s
1•layer8•1m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Personalized Slack and Teams Alerts

https://chirpy.pro
1•daniel_nimbus•1m ago•0 comments

Is current AI architecture broken? Jagged intelligence suggests it may be

https://old.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/1p5khov/llion_jones_coinventor_of_the_transformers/
1•jaggs•2m ago•1 comments

Gist of Go: Concurrency Testing

https://antonz.org/go-concurrency/testing/
1•ibobev•3m ago•0 comments

Apple //e and Vic 20 BASIC added to Online IDE

https://retrogamecoders.com/apple2e-and-vic20-basic-javascript/
1•ibobev•4m ago•0 comments

Maxduino Review: Tape Cassette Emulator for Multiple Retro Computers

https://retrogamecoders.com/maxduino-review/
1•ibobev•4m ago•0 comments

Sam Tucker tries to replicate Apple Intelligence demo [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2nNAYnPFTQ
1•jmount•7m ago•0 comments

Backend-Driven SwiftUI

https://blog.jacobstechtavern.com/p/backend-driven-swiftui
1•jakey_bakey•7m ago•0 comments

Quality Requires Visual Design

https://elijahpotter.dev/articles/quality-requires-visual-design
1•chilipepperhott•8m ago•0 comments

The Legendary Video Toaster (YouTube)

https://youtu.be/e-cEIp0AcfM
1•gbraad•8m ago•0 comments

Dorothy Vaughan: Adapt or Become Obsolete

https://imapenguin.com/2025/11/dorothy-vaughan-adapt-or-become-obsolete/
1•atan2•9m ago•0 comments

Nobg.space – Background Removal in the Browser (No Uploads)

https://www.nobg.space/
1•vyshnavtr•9m ago•1 comments

Will technology provide a boost to truck drivers – or will it replace them?

https://text.npr.org/nx-s1-5615322
1•mooreds•9m ago•0 comments

Lethal smog is back in the most polluted capital

https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/23/india/india-delhi-smog-protests-challenges-intl-hnk-dst
1•mooreds•10m ago•0 comments

Unlocking Latent Powers

https://www.melbournebaldove.com/logs/math-academy-journey
1•gmays•10m ago•0 comments

Enforcing 100% code coverage is a bad idea, but you should do it anyway

https://substack.com/home/post/p-179830435
1•abhashanand1501•10m ago•0 comments

Donald Glover reveals he suffered stroke, doctors found hole in heart

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2025/11/23/donald-glover-health-stroke-h...
1•mooreds•10m ago•0 comments

What I Meant When I Said Substack Isn't Cool

https://www.gq.com/story/what-i-meant-when-i-said-substack-isnt-cool
1•zdw•11m ago•0 comments

MCPBodega – Deploy GitHub, Drive, Slack MCPs easily – free tier: 3 live servers

https://www.MCPBodega.com
1•c_core•14m ago•1 comments

HTTPS is killing earth: The plain text manifesto (Satire)

https://plaintextmanifesto.eu
1•nickyisonline•15m ago•0 comments

A lightweight way to guard against prompt injection

https://andersmyrmel.com/blog/a-lightweight-way-to-guard-against-prompt-injection/
1•andersmyrmel•16m ago•0 comments

The Unexpected Joys of Hacking an Old Kindle

https://hackaday.com/2025/11/24/the-unexpected-joys-of-hacking-an-old-kindle/
1•zdw•17m ago•0 comments

A Prank Ten Years in the Making

https://massicotte.org/blog/ten-year-prank/
1•frizlab•17m ago•0 comments

Are we wasting our time on dev?

https://www.shuttle.dev/blog/2025/11/13/infrastructure-as-code-problems
1•jvcor13•18m ago•0 comments

Yann LeCun (Chief AI Scientist) Left Meta

https://www.threads.com/@yannlecun/post/DRQL7I2jlco
3•reconnecting•21m ago•0 comments

Amper Update, November 2025 – Extensibility Preview

https://blog.jetbrains.com/amper/2025/11/amper-update-november-2025/
1•todsacerdoti•21m ago•0 comments

Orchestrating our UI test suite with Maestro

https://www.doist.dev/orchestrating-ui-tests-with-maestro/
1•raybb•22m ago•0 comments

Engineered E. coli use direct, cell-to-cell contact to grow into new structures

https://phys.org/news/2025-11-coli-cell-contact.html
2•PaulHoule•23m ago•0 comments

X Just Accidentally Exposed a Covert Influence Network Targeting Americans

https://weaponizedspaces.substack.com/p/x-just-accidentally-exposed-a-vast
101•adriand•23m ago•39 comments

Ask HN: Anyone interested in a plug-and-play Trust Engine (TTLI)?

1•gokulnair2001•25m ago•1 comments