Did Elon Musk really stumble, by accident, upon the world’s largest electronic lobbying machine — a sprawling bot network hiding in plain sight — or was there something far more deliberate behind the moment? Whatever the intention, the outcome was jarring. What unfolded was not just another social-media hiccup or the usual frenzy of online speculation. It was a revelation that many of the accounts spewing hostility, drowning public debate, and targeting entire nations were never human to begin with. More than half, it appeared, were nothing more than automated systems dressed up as real people, avatars engineered to mimic emotion and identity while quietly amplifying division.
The uproar began with a seemingly minor update on X, a platform already in a state of perpetual controversy. The change was meant to be a routine technical adjustment. Instead, it arrived with an unexpected and disruptive feature: users were suddenly able to see the genuine geographic location of the accounts they followed, not the self-declared setting that people typed into their profiles, but the actual device location. It was a rare moment of transparency in an era obsessed with digital camouflage.
Media analysts suggested that the update was not an accident at all, but a calculated attempt to expose coordinated lobbying operations and influence campaigns aimed at American audiences. Perhaps Musk intended only to shine a light on the domestic machinery of persuasion. But the ripple effects travelled further than anyone could have predicted, ricocheting across continents and detonating like a digital shockwave in countries already battling political polarization. As soon as the feature went live, users began scanning the real origins of the accounts they admired, argued with or feared. The results were staggering.
In Egypt, social-media users discovered that many of the accounts devoted to attacking the Egyptian state were operating from Turkey, Britain and the UAE. Saudis found that several hyper-active accounts criticizing their country were being run from Qatar and the UK. In North Africa, Moroccans and Algerians realized that pages trying to inflame distrust between them were controlled from European cities with no organic ties to either society. In the Syrian context, profiles claiming to be patriotic defenders of the nation were quietly logging in from Istanbul. Even glamorous accounts purporting to be young Gulf women — profiles that often spread inflammatory content under the guise of personal outrage — turned out to be located in the UK.
But the most explosive discovery was the common denominator. Across thousands of Arabic-language accounts sowing division, hostility and exhaustion in the region, an overwhelming number were traced back to Israel — specifically to Unit 8200, the military cyber and intelligence division long accused of orchestrating covert psychological operations across the Middle East. The update exposed what many had suspected but few could prove: profiles with names such as “Omar”, “Reem”, “Saudi Aseel” or “Masri Aseel” were, in fact, being operated by trained specialists skilled in replicating local dialects and cultural idioms.
The implication was unmistakable. The torrents of anger, the endless abuse directed at Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Morocco, Algeria, Syria, Lebanon and Sudan, the artificially stoked feuds between their people, were not simply the spontaneous discharges of a disillusioned public. They were the products of orchestrated operations, targeted campaigns designed to fracture trust within Arab societies, and to make citizens feel that hostility was normal, widespread and unchallenged. Added to this were thousands of automated bots posting around the clock, fabricating the sense that resentment was universal and that users were isolated within their own countries and communities.
Nor did the revelations stop at the Arab world. In the United States, people began tracking the origins of accounts that had been deepening the already toxic rift between Democrats and Republicans. What they uncovered was a network that stretched far beyond American borders: accounts located in Russia, India, Bangladesh — and Israel. Within an hour of the update becoming public knowledge, thousands of accounts were suspended, and the location feature disappeared as abruptly as it had arrived. The window into the machinery of manipulation closed just as swiftly, leaving behind unanswered questions and a public stunned by what it had glimpsed.
It was not, of course, the first controversy to engulf the platform. Earlier, Musk had quietly disabled the automatic Hebrew translation feature after it began exposing how multiple Israeli government and non-government accounts were openly promoting hatred and calls for violence against Gaza without facing consequences. In contrast, pro-Palestinian accounts across the Arab and Muslim world were frequently suspended or throttled. International reporting has long claimed that former members of the Israeli military have served on X’s content-moderation teams — a detail that critics say explains the double standard in enforcement.
Similar patterns emerged in Pakistan. Users discovered that many politically charged accounts — including those posting abuse in Urdu, Punjabi and Pashto — were being operated from the US, India, Europe and Israel. The revelation prompted introspection. Much of what ordinary Pakistanis saw each day on their feeds, the relentless hostility and fury, the tribalism and suspicion, turned out to be carefully engineered provocations. People began to realize that the noise overwhelming their political discourse was not an organic outpouring of national frustration, but a calculated attempt to shape public perception and exacerbate national divides.
And all of this was on a single platform. The implications for Facebook, Instagram and Threads — platforms even larger in reach and influence — are left to speculation. If X could accidentally lift the veil on such an expansive digital apparatus, what might still be hidden behind the layers of code and moderation policies elsewhere?
The episode has forced a difficult question into the public domain. In a world where influence can be manufactured and outrage can be automated, how much of what we see online truly reflects the societies we live in? The update may have vanished, but its message lingers: people deserve to know when they are being manipulated, and by whom. If this story finds its way across screens and newspapers, it will be because users, journalists and ordinary citizens recognize that the future of public debate depends on exposing the machinery that seeks to distort it.
