Not what we thought
The Real Reason Behind Nick Fuentes' Meteoric Rise to Fame
A major Rutgers study reveals Nick Fuentes’ 2025 rise was fueled by foreign bot farms, anonymous accounts, and coordinated online raids, exposing a massive artificial amplification of his influence on X.
A bombshell report released Monday by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) at Rutgers University concludes that far-right provocateur Nick Fuentes’ dramatic surge in visibility this year was overwhelmingly artificial, fueled by foreign bot farms, anonymous “booster” accounts, and coordinated online raids rather than genuine grassroots growth. The 23-page investigation, titled America Last: How Fuentes’s Coordinated Raids and Foreign Fake-Speech Networks Inflate His Influence, analyzed millions of interactions on X (formerly Twitter) and found overwhelming evidence of inauthentic amplification.
Interesting findings:
Fuentes’ posts routinely receive more retweets and impressions in the first 30 minutes than accounts with 10–100 times as many followers, including Elon Musk’s 229 million-follower account.
92% of the earliest repeat retweeters are completely anonymous accounts with no profile picture, bio, or location.
Approximately 50% of retweets on Fuentes’ six most viral posts originated from overseas clusters in India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Malaysia, and Indonesia, countries with no organic connection to Fuentes’ “America First” ideology but well-documented as global hubs for low-cost bot farms.
After the September 2025 assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, the geographic pattern shifted slightly toward Western countries, suggesting foreign bots provided the initial “seed engagement” that then lured real users into the pile-on.
“These patterns are consistent with deliberate, foreign-influenced campaigns to game platform algorithms and artificially inflate influence far beyond what authentic domestic support could produce,” the report states.
Researchers say the operation exploits X’s engagement-driven algorithm: a rapid burst of likes and retweets in the first minutes pushes content to millions, creating the illusion of massive popularity.
Mainstream media then amplified the manufactured momentum, with 149 major stories between June and November 2025 portraying Fuentes as a rising force in Republican politics.Ironically, the same report notes that Fuentes regularly praises U.S. adversaries, defending China’s treatment of Uyghurs, cheering Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and appearing on Iranian state television, making foreign state sponsorship a plausible motive for the bot campaign.
The NCRI findings echo a smaller June 2025 report that first flagged Iranian-linked networks boosting Fuentes alongside other anti-Israel influencers.Conservative commentators reacted swiftly. “This isn’t cope, it’s hard data showing a foreign op to fracture MAGA,” wrote one prominent X account. Others renewed calls for Elon Musk to release full analytics or implement visible liker lists to expose coordinated inauthentic behavior.
Fuentes and his supporters have dismissed the study as a smear, with some falsely labeling NCRI a “Jewish nonprofit” despite its academic affiliation with Rutgers University and lack of religious or ethnic designation.
As of Thursday evening, neither X nor Nick Fuentes has issued an official response to the report.
The full NCRI study is available at networkcontagion.us.