{"id":241224,"date":"2021-06-09T09:02:14","date_gmt":"2021-06-09T14:02:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=241224"},"modified":"2023-02-01T04:51:37","modified_gmt":"2023-02-01T03:51:37","slug":"new-report-confirms-how-irans-regime-fake-news-and-propaganda-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/news\/new-report-confirms-how-irans-regime-fake-news-and-propaganda-work\/","title":{"rendered":"New Report Confirms How Iran\u2019s Regime Fake News And Propaganda Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mother<\/a><\/p>\n

On Monday, the Henry Jackson Society, a London based think tank, published a 100-page report<\/a> that details many of the tactics used by the Iranian regime to spread its own talking points and undermine Western policy through the media by relying on a network of fake news websites with a thin veneer of credibility. The report\u2019s author, Dr. Paul Scott, notes that this network\u2019s claims of credibility tend to be self-reinforcing, in the sense that various websites might reference and republish content from others in order to give the impression of research spanning multiple sources when in fact, the various sites are merely contributing to the same echo chamber.
\nThat phenomenon is made even more effective by the network\u2019s access to so-called experts in Iranian affairs, counterterrorism, and so on, who have well-established ties to Iranian intelligence services, yet continue to benefit from the faux legitimacy they have acquired through prior publications, media interviews, and professional positions. Over the years, a handful of these individuals have been exposed in ways that led to their prosecution or sanction, but others have continued to receive positive attention from some media outlets even amidst repeated criticisms from Western intelligence agencies and opponents of the Iranian regime.
\nAmong the most prominent individuals in the first category is Kaveh Lotfolah Afrasiabi<\/a>, a Massachusetts political scientist who was arraigned in a U.S. federal court in January on charges of repeatedly violating the Foreign Assets Registration Act through his service to the Iranian regime. Over a 13-year period, he reportedly received more than a quarter of a million dollars in financial compensation from his Iranian handlers for pushing pro-regime talking points through legitimate sources, on at least one occasion even helping a member of U.S. Congress to prepare a letter to the White House urging support for a policy favorable to Tehran.<\/p>\n

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Afrasiabi has little chance of continuing to exert his direct influence over international media in the wake of his prosecution, but it would be foolish to underestimate the impact that he had during his 13 years of activity or the longevity of that impact. There is little doubt that the narratives he injected into otherwise credible news outlets will continue to circulate, and unless the offending publications are scrupulously unearthed and corrected after the fact, they will surely continue to be cited by the non-credible sources that Iran has helped to proliferate all across the internet.
\nWhile the newly-published report focuses on the dissemination of Iran-backed fake news in the United Kingdom, it bears mentioning that prior investigations have established that such websites have been constructed in a number of different languages, featuring the domain extensions for a number of different countries in which the regime believed it could benefit by spreading its influence.
\nThis was part of the takeaway, for instance, from last year\u2019s news that the U.S. Department of Justice had shut down at least 92 websites with ties to the Iranian government and to a global collective of social media accounts tasked with promoting that online content. Separately, thousands of these sorts of accounts have been shut down by Twitter and Facebook over the years, in several clean sweeps that aimed to combat disinformation campaigns and deceptive accounts run either by bots or by persons using fake personas.<\/p>\n

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One area in which the Iranian regime has been very active for decades with similar tactics has been the demonizing campaign against its main opposition, the People\u2019s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI\/MEK).
\nIn this regard, during the third day of the NCRI\u2019s<\/a> \u201cFree Iran Global Summit,\u201d Ambassador Adam Ereli<\/a>, former U.S. Ambassador to Bahrain, said:
\n\u201cThe MEK<\/a> has done a great deal for the people of Iran and for the world. But perhaps the greatest testimony to your effectiveness is the fact that the Iranian regime hates you so much and will stop at nothing to destroy you. And to me, that says\u2014that speaks volumes. It says that they consider you a threat and, frankly, whatever\u2019s bad for the Iranian regime is good for the rest of the world.\u201d Said Ereli in his speech, adding:
\n\u201cThe MEK efforts have been instrumental in exposing this conspiracy of terror by the government of Tehran over many, many years. And you\u2019ve had, I think, some very important successes in disrupting the Iranian regime\u2019s terrorist activities. And that\u2019s why, again, not only have they tried to destroy you in Iran, they\u2019ve also tried to discredit and demonize you outside of Iran. They have funded information campaigns against you. They have tried to convince journalists, governments, think tanks that the MEK is an outlaw organization, that it doesn\u2019t represent Iranians, that it has no following inside Iran. Well, again, the fact that they\u2019re saying this indicates to me that the opposite is true. Otherwise, they wouldn\u2019t be spending all this money and effort to present a false narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.@erelija<\/a>: Iran's regime has a sophisticated and coordinated plan to spread terror and violence and destabilization in the region. #MEK<\/a> has been exposing this conspiracy of terror over many years. #ExpelIranDiplomatTerrorists<\/a> #FreeIran2020<\/a> https:\/\/t.co\/Jiy2ZBgkVa<\/a><\/p>\n

— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) July 23, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n