Hacker News Reader

Possibly when it comes to the "paying" part.

But my response was directed towards "indians cosplaying as patriotic americans".

I'm on the fence when it comes to paying people for posts, but that wasn't really the heart of the statement.

It's intent of action vs. actual action.

Elon may not be _intending_ to pay foreigners to cosplay as patriotic Americans.

However, X pays people based on engagement. A number of people outside the USA have figured out that if they post outrageous shit to Americans, they get engagement -- and therefore earn money. So in fact, Elon _is_ paying foreigners to cosplay as Americans, but it might not have been what he meant to do.

There were a ton of "I'm a red blooded god fearing patriot"-type accounts being operated out of Russia, India, Pakistan, etc - the BBC link in another chain of this thread covers it. I think this is more about the global economy and the economics of western political engagement on digital platforms rather than some grand conspiracy, personally, but in a very literal sense, the post could be described as not technically inaccurate, even if missing the point and assigning personalized blame where it probably isn't warranted.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com