DHS Faces Intense Scrutiny After X Shows Its Official Account Listed as Based in Israel

A new transparency feature on X has ignited a political firestorm after screenshots circulated online claiming the US Department of Homeland Security's official account was listed as being based in Israel. The tool, which appeared over the weekend, lets users view an account's current or previous location by tapping the join-date field. While designed to expose foreign-run troll farms, many of which masquerade as American political voices, it instead triggered a wave of speculation about high-profile accounts, including a series of MAGA-branded profiles that appeared to originate from Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa.

The biggest backlash emerged when videos and images surfaced showing the DHS account's location field allegedly reading 'Tel Aviv, Israel'. The posts quickly went viral, fuelling criticism amid ongoing tensions over US support for Israel. DHS initially responded with a meme-like image before issuing a formal denial, insisting the account had 'only ever been run and operated from the United States'. X's head of product, Nikita Bier, also rejected the claims as 'fake news', arguing that a small subset of older accounts had been assigned incorrect creation-country data due to shifting IP ranges over time. Some recordings circulating online have since been labelled 'manipulated media' by the platform.

The feature briefly vanished on Friday before returning with revised functionality, and the DHS account now displays 'United States'. However, it remains the only government-linked account showing location data, prompting fresh scrutiny and questions about the rollout. For now, X says errors will continue to be corrected on a delayed schedule but the controversy highlights the risks of incomplete transparency tools in an already polarised information environment.