Patriots in Birmingham or Bots in Colombo?
By Colin Crowden
X just handed intelligence analysts a gift. For a few short hours, the platform pushed a new feature that showed where each user was logging in from. This was not a glitch or a leak. It was an intentional feature release, only delivered without the due diligence or harm modelling that companies like Meta or Google normally perform.
The result was instant chaos. Users who claimed to be lifelong Brits fighting to “save the country” were suddenly showing up as logging in from Colombo, Chennai, Dhaka and beyond. Patriot accounts turned out to be operating from digital sweatshops. Culture war commentators were not living in Birmingham or Manchester, but in Maharashtra or Sri Lanka’s Southern Province.
Before X scrambled to pull the feature offline, researchers captured enough evidence to confirm what many of us already suspected. A portion of the UK political conversation is being shaped, steered and monetised by actors outside the United Kingdom.
To seasoned investigators, this felt oddly nostalgic. In the early days of Twitter, the platform accidentally exposed EXIF geolocation data embedded in uploaded images, which allowed analysts to pinpoint the exact locations of users. That capability disappeared years ago as platforms tightened privacy rules. This recent feature effectively brought a piece of that world back, but in a far more direct form.
What the rollout exposed
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A non trivial volume of UK political accounts espousing nationalist, anti migrant or culture war narratives were logging in from India or Sri Lanka.
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Many of these accounts adopt British identities, names or profile aesthetics to appear authentic.
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Engagement bait content such as anti migrant memes, sensationalist crime posts and fabricated political stories performed exceptionally well among older UK audiences.
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The feature’s sudden deactivation suggests X recognised the risk of transparency once the implications became obvious.
Why this matters
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Cross border influence operations
Actors can target a foreign electorate while operating outside regulatory or legal jurisdictions. -
Commercialisation of outrage
Much of the content was monetised. Virality is revenue. Outrage pays. -
Synthetic amplification
Networks recycle AI generated imagery and recycled video designed to trigger strong emotional responses. -
Loss of platform transparency
Insights that would help researchers identify manipulation were visible for only a short window.
Case study: a Sri Lankan influencer running UK political pages for profit
Sri Lankan online operator Geeth Sooriyapura has built a lucrative business producing anti migrant and Islamophobic content aimed at UK audiences.
Investigations by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism report that:
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He earned an estimated 300,000 USD from UK targeted Facebook pages.
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He operated or coordinated more than 100 pages and groups with a combined audience of around 1.6 million.
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He teaches students to target older British users because immigration content performs well financially.
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His network has spread fabricated stories such as claims about council homes being allocated on religious grounds.
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The focus is not ideology. It is monetisation.
This is the model. Emotional triggers plus low regulatory risk equals high profit.
More here: thebureauinvestigates.com
What this means for the UK
The temporary transparency created by X’s rollout confirms that the UK political information space is being shaped by non UK actors. Some do it for ideology, others for income, and many for both. The rapid removal of the feature shows how dependent researchers are on brief moments of openness before platforms shut the door.
The case of Sooriyapura demonstrates the scale of overseas influence. The recent X feature showed that this is not an isolated example. It is part of a pattern. As the UK approaches major electoral events, foreign operated content farms will continue to target British anxieties for financial and political gain.
This makes geo attribution, trend analysis and platform accountability more important than ever.