{"id":230974,"date":"2020-12-12T11:30:59","date_gmt":"2020-12-12T11:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=230974"},"modified":"2025-09-20T17:29:52","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T16:29:52","slug":"study-of-irans-regime-cyber-activity-exposes-demonization-campaign-against-the-iranian-resistance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/demonization-documents-statements\/study-of-irans-regime-cyber-activity-exposes-demonization-campaign-against-the-iranian-resistance\/","title":{"rendered":"Study of Iran\u2019s Regime Cyber Activity Exposes Demonization Campaign Against the Iranian Resistance"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"Free_Iran_global_summit4_14082020\"
Free Iran Global Summit linked together approximately 30,000 locations in more than 100 countries, some of which featured thousands of assembled representatives of local Iranian expatriate communities – July 17, 2020<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Treadstone 71, a cyber security monitor with special focus on the Iranian regime, has published an analysis of disinformation activities and social media manipulation related to an annual gathering of Iranian expatriates and dissident activists. The report notes that this analysis was motivated by Treadstone\u2019s recognition of a spike in coordinated Twitter activity featuring hashtags that disparaged the organizers of the event, and its keynote speaker.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe primary hashtag\u2026 targeted Maryam Rajavi<\/a>,\u201d the report noted in a section that established the context of the resulting study. \u201cMaryam Rajavi is the president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI<\/a>), an umbrella organization of Iranian opposition groups dedicated to the Iranian government\u2019s overthrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sudden emergence of that hashtag on July 17, 2020 raised questions among Treadstone researchers, which led the company to the discovery of a wealth of other activity surrounding the Free Iran 2020 Global Summit. The largely virtual event<\/a> featured hundreds of political supporters of the NCRI, including European members of parliament and American government officials, who delivered speeches via Zoom over the course of three days.<\/p>\n

As a symbol of the expanding influence of a pro-democracy Iranian Resistance movement, the event was a prime target for cyber activity affiliated with Iran\u2019s clerical regime. In both January 2018 and November 2019, that regime faced nationwide anti-government uprisings<\/a> encompassing between 100 and 200 localities and featuring slogans that evoked an explicit call for regime change. Those developments sparked massive crackdowns on dissent inside the Iran, and according to the NCRI, such crackdowns frequently go hand-in-hand with increased activity connected to perennial disinformation campaign targeted the coalition and its main constituent group, the People\u2019s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI-MEK<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The recent Treadstone report<\/a> supports this claim while also highlighting some of the key tactics that regime authorities use in an effort to spread their disinformation. The company\u2019s analysis determined that the July upsurge in coordinated social media activity was the product of a sudden glut of false accounts and Twitter bots. Specifically, Treadstone calculated that of all the accounts that tweeted negative talking points about the Iranian Resistance during July\u2019s event, 46 percent of them were fake.<\/p>\n

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#IRGC<\/a> #MOIS<\/a> #Basij<\/a> joint influence operation – Anonymous communications occurred via @BChatBot<\/a> and @BiChatBot<\/a> non-inclusively on Telegram for communication purposes between Cyber Units @ABC<\/a> @NBCNews<\/a> @CBSNLive<\/a> @FoxNews<\/a> @BBCBreaking<\/a> @ABCNewsLive<\/a> @cnnbrk<\/a> https:\/\/t.co\/Kcdn4dUBhz<\/a><\/p>\n

— Treadstone 71 (@Treadstone71LLC) December 10, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n