Elon Musk’s X has pulled back the curtain on thousands of accounts found on the micro-blogging platform. The results have been shocking, entertaining and – for anti-Israel and/or antisemitic propagandists – deeply embarrassing.

In recent days, X – formerly Twitter – quietly revealed a new feature that displayed previously-secret information about user accounts. The platform’s head of product, Nikita Bier, said the change was part of an effort to “secure the integrity” of X.

Alongside the date when a user joined X/Twitter is new information: descriptions about where the account is based, and where it was first connected to the social media platform. Also included is information about how many times the user has changed their name.

For many years, Twitter/X had permitted its users to hide behind fake identities. While that still is the case, the new feature is revealing startling details about how truthful those accounts really are.

In particular, the new location feature has left the variously anti-Israel, antisemitic, pro-Palestine, pro-Hamas fringe reeling. A sampling of the revelations:

• “Motasem A Dalloul,” whose profile photo shows a bearded man in a flak jacket and helmet, is a self-described journalist professing to be reporting on atrocities committed by what he calls the “Israeli occupation.” He has nearly 200,000 followers, and his claims have often been republished by Western news agencies. X, however, says he joined Twitter via the Twitter store in the U.K. – and is based in Poland.
• “Torah Judaism” is an anti-Zionist account with 12,000 followers, and regularly attacks supporters of Israel (including this writer, just last week). Torah Judaism claims to be based in New York – but is actually in the Philippines, says X.
• “Times of Gaza” proclaims it offers the “latest news, updates and top stories from occupied Palestine,” and has nearly a million followers. It declares “Location: Palestine.” But its real location, according to the platform? East Asia – and it was first connected to Twitter/X via the “North Africa App Store.”
• “Tiberius,” an anti-Israel account ostensibly maintained by a far-Left British journalist, is in Thailand, X says, and has had 24 username changes in the past seven years.
• “Ameer from Gaza,” his profile complete with a tiny Palestinian flag, says he posts “from the heart of Gaza and the womb of suffering” and is part of “a family of five orphans who lost both of their parents.” Except the account is operating far from from Gaza, says X – in the United Kingdom.
• “Mohammad Smiry,” professes to be “a Palestinian, born, raised and based in Gaza” and “tweets about my life under the occupation!” He has nearly a million followers, including many journalists in the West. His real location, according to X? Indonesia.

Other revelations shared by X follow the same disturbing trend. “North Gaza Survivors” is actually in Pakistan. “Rafah residents,” in Indonesia. Hamas’ Nukhba special forces unit wasn’t in the Gaza strip, says X – it was uploading content from Malaysia. “Mahmoud in Gaza,” an account with 21,000 followers? It’s in the Netherlands.

There are hundreds of accounts like these – people claiming to be Palestinian and based in the Gaza strip, but actually posting content far from the frontlines in the Middle East. Many of them successfully seek donations, as well. But, according to X at least, the anti-Israel users are based in Africa, Europe, Asia and – frequently – Canada.

After the location feature started to roll out, some “pro-Palestinian” users panicked. They changed their location or, in some cases, shut down their accounts entirely. Some claim to be using a VPN – a virtual private network – to create a secure and encrypted connection to the Internet, and insisted that X was wrong about its own data. X/Twitter has not commented on those claims. It simply says “country or region may not be accurate.”

The reality, as with most things on the Internet, isn’t easy to ascertain. The truth is elusive.

One truth is irrefutable, however, as I write in my forthcoming book, The Hidden Hand: a propaganda campaign has been built to attack Jews, the Jewish state and Western democracy.

And it is massive, global, and effective.