Since 2016, Americans have been aware of Russia’s use of social media, and its own press and television outlets, to create discord in American politics and undermine trust in institutions. More recently, the Islamic Republic has adopted a similar set of tactics, in which promoting hatred of Jews plays a key part. Brian Bennett writes:
Social-media accounts tracked to troll farms run by the Iranian government have ramped up disinformation after several major events this year, including President Biden’s effort to return the U.S. to the Iran nuclear deal, the April 14 announcement of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the guilty verdict of Derek Chauvin on April 20, and the eleven-day war between Israel and Hamas that started on May 10.
But within days of the conflict beginning last month in Israel and Gaza Twitter accounts linked to Iran were amplifying anti-Semitic messages in English, including the phrases “Hitler was right” and “kill all Jews” at a rate of 175 times per minute, according to analysis by Network Contagion Research Institute, which studies disinformation and is affiliated with Rutgers University and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
Last year, Iran was behind efforts to intimidate Democratic voters in the weeks before the election by sending threatening email messages from accounts posing as the violent pro-Trump group the Proud Boys, U.S. intelligence officials have found. The same network of Iranian operatives created and distributed a video with fake allegations of voter fraud.
Iran’s online disruption efforts also aren’t limited to the U.S. They are also focused on Arabic-speaking Shiite populations in Iraq, French-speaking populations in North Africa, and Latin America through Iran’s state-sponsored broadcast network HispanTV.
Read more on Time: https://time.com/6071615/iran-disinformation-united-states/