In recent weeks, a new transparency feature released by Elon Musk’s social media platform, X (formerly Twitter), has triggered one of the most dramatic shake-ups in online discourse since the Gaza war began on Oct. 7, 2023.

With a single click, users can now view an X account’s real-world geographic location, the date it was created and its name-change history. The result has been startling: dozens of accounts that claimed to be civilian “eyewitnesses” inside Gaza, many sharing emotional accounts of bombings and life under siege, were exposed as operating from thousands of miles away.

The revelation, pieced together by Israeli media and now acknowledged publicly by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has begun to pull back the curtain on what appears to be a broad, coordinated disinformation network. What millions of global viewers believed to be heartbreaking personal testimonies of ordinary Gazans were actually accounts traced to countries across the world, including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Russia, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Turkey and the United Kingdom.