Vitalik Weighs in on MAGA Grifter Exposé

Ethereum’s wonderkid revealed mixed feelings about Friday’s crackdown on foreign sock puppet accounts masquerading as American conservatives on X.

Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin Addresses X’s MAGA Controversy

On May 26, 2025, the X account “America First,” with the handle “@America_First0,” posted a seductive photo of a scantily clad blonde decked out in a muted turquoise outfit. Her legs are crossed, and she’s sporting white thigh-high boots that bring attention to her unbelievably short skirt. On her left is a matching purse with golden clasps, and she appears to be dining at an expensive restaurant inside a hotel. She’s holding a martini glass, smeared with lipstick, and is looking straight into the camera with a come-hither look.

“I got quite a few new follows and want to make things clear,” she writes. “I don’t support the union. I am a former liberal who voted Trump. Russia isn’t our enemy. Elon Musk isn’t a Nazi. Texas is the best state. I own guns.”

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A flood of gushing responses follows: “Gorgeous,” “Nice boots,” “I love your dress.” But it turns out @America_First0 isn’t really from Texas at all. In fact, the person behind the handle is probably not even a woman. The account is operated out of Bangladesh and is one of many phony MAGA accounts that were exposed on Friday after X rolled out a new feature that reveals users’ geographic locations.

(A new feature on X that reveals an account’s geographic location exposed profiles operating out of countries such as Bangladesh but masquerading as American conservatives.)

“In the short term it will have lots of positive effects,” said Vitalik Buterin, referring to the new location feature, before cautioning that in about six months, “Troll accounts with names like ‘Defend Western Civilization’ or whatever will all have ‘USA’ or ‘UK’ as their location tags.”

It’s well-known that X has a bot problem. Studies estimate that roughly 20% of accounts on the social media platform are chatbots. That works out to about 100 million bot accounts on X, which has approximately 500 million users. But Friday’s exposé reveals something much more sinister; armies of foreign content creators, or as Buterin calls them “trolls,” sowing discord among Americans to generate engagement, a practice known as “rage baiting.”

(More than 20% of X accounts are bots / nature.com)

The twenty years between 1994 and 2014 saw political polarization double in the U.S., according to Pew Research Center. By now, that number is likely far larger, as Republicans and Democrats lock horns over race, gender, and immigration. But while Americans bicker over politics, wily scammers in Russia, Southeast Asia, and Nigeria are cashing in by adding fuel to the fire. Outrage generates engagement, and with X paying thousands every month to whoever can garner the most views and likes, scammers are being incentivized to post the most inflammatory rhetoric to maximize their payouts.

(The twenty-year period between 1994 and 2014 saw polarization between Democrats and Republicans double / Pew Research Center)

“I’m calling on Pete Hegseth to strip Mark Kelly of his rank and court-martial him for Sedition against the United States,” writes MAGA Nation, an Eastern European account masquerading as a pro-Trump patriot. “Do you support this?” the account asks. Here, MAGA Nation or @MAGANationX, is stoking the flames around a controversial comment by Kelly, a former Naval officer and current Senator for Arizona, by calling on Hegseth, the current U.S. Secretary of War, to charge Kelly with a crime that is just shy of treason. The account is still active and boasts nearly 400,000 followers even after it was outed on Friday.

Buterin, who has been focused on privacy lately, blasted the fake accounts, but seemed conflicted as he weighed the benefits of eliminating trolls and bots with the loss of location privacy. “I thought about this more,” he said. “Revealing the country non-consensually without offering any opt-out option (not even ‘stop using your account’) is wrong.”

But X has gone even further than just “revealing the country non-consensually.” Some of the offending accounts have simply been banned. Ivanka News, which had been using the handle “@IvankaNews_,” suddenly vanished on Monday. The profile had amassed more than a million followers and as expected, regularly posted incendiary content on hot-button issues such as immigration. The house of cards collapsed when the account’s location was confirmed to be in Nigeria.

“Some of us living outside the USA genuinely support President Trump’s movement,” the account posted in one of its final tweets. “We believe he was saved by God on July 13, 2024.”

FAQ ⚡

• Why did Vitalik Buterin comment on the MAGA sock-puppet exposé?
  Because X’s new location-revealing feature exposed foreign-run MAGA accounts, prompting Buterin to warn about both short-term benefits and long-term privacy risks.
• What exactly did X uncover about these MAGA accounts?
  The platform revealed that many popular “America First”–style profiles were actually operated from countries like Bangladesh, Eastern Europe, and Nigeria.
• Why are these fake political accounts considered dangerous?
  They fuel U.S. polarization by posting rage-bait content for engagement payouts, amplifying division while being financially incentivized to provoke outrage.
• What concerns does Buterin have about X’s new policy?
  He argues that automatically revealing users’ countries without consent undermines privacy, even if it helps expose trolls and bots in the short term.