Welcome to Reality Check, NewsGuard’s newsletter that tracks the false claims and conspiracy theories that shape our world — and who’s behind them.
A note to readers: Who’s feeding your feed? That question drove us to create NewsGuard — and today’s story shows why. Foreign accounts masquerading as Americans have spread dozens of false claims about U.S. politics and elections. Support more reporting about what’s really going into your news diet by becoming a premium member or sharing Reality Check.
Follow us: X | LinkedIn | Instagram | Bluesky
What happened: Influential pro-Trump X accounts that appeared to be U.S-based but actually operate from Eastern Europe, Asia, or Africa have spread 31 false claims about U.S. and global politics in the last 15 months, ranging from supposed corruption by Democrats to a phony Ukrainian assassination plot, a NewsGuard review has found.
Context: On Nov. 22, X rolled out a feature that discloses the country or region where X accounts are based. Almost immediately, news outlets found that many accounts that appeared to be based in the U.S. purporting to be run by Americans were, instead, based abroad. NewsGuard has now found that some of these masked accounts are regular spreaders of the significant false claims debunked in NewsGuard’s proprietary False Claims Fingerprint database.
Referring to X’s new geolocation...
Negotiations on paper and tensions on the ground have long shaped India–China relations. Even during phases of diplomatic warmth, China’s posture on Arunachal Pradesh has followed a familiar histo...