Former Pakistan PM targeted with false X account location claims
- Published on December 10, 2025 at 06:39
- 1 min read
- By Masroor GILANI, AFP Pakistan
After X rolled out a feature revealing an account's location in November 2025, posts surfaced in Pakistan falsely claiming a screenshot of former leader Nawaz Sharif's page showed it is located in the nation's arch-rival neighbour India. An analysis of the image found errors indicating it was fabricated, while a review of Sharif's account confirmed its location as Pakistan.
"Nawaz Sharif has been exposed as the real friend of Modi," reads an Urdu-language X post shared November 23, 2025, referring to India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
It includes a picture apparently showing details from Sharif's X account that say it is based in India.
Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan engaged four days of conflict in May, their worst fighting since 1999, with missile, drone and artillery exchanges killing more than 70 people on both sides (archived link).
Similar posts portraying Sharif as a traitor to Pakistan have surfaced on Facebook and TikTok since Elon Musk's X rolled out a feature revealing an account's location (archived link).
The launch triggered a wave of online sleuthing, although X has cautioned that the feature "may not be accurate and can change periodically."
When clicking on an account's location, a pop-up message reads: "The country or region that an account is based can be impacted by recent travel or temporary relocation."
Contrary to the false posts, a review of Sharif's X account on December 4 shows the location as Pakistan (archived link).
Moreover, the screenshot shared in the false posts contains several errors.
Sharif's X handle is @NawazSharifMNS, while the name of the account in the circulating image appears as @nawazsharifmns -- all letters in lowercase.
The latter also misspells Sharif's title as "Former Mrimite of Pakistan" instead of "Former Prime Minister of Pakistan".
AFP has debunked more misinformation targeting Sharif here.
Copyright © AFP 2017-2025. Any commercial use of this content requires a subscription. Click here to find out more.
Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.
Contact us
