Thousands of Iranians Tweet #IraniansDetestSoleimani And May Face Punishment From Regime

[Zippyjuan]

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/...eg-of-misinformation-trump-just-lit-the-match

Thousands of shady social media accounts have been pumping out a crossfire of propaganda and misinformation across the Middle East.

Thousands of shady social media accounts have been pumping out a crossfire of propaganda and misinformation across the Middle East as Iran prepared to launch missile strikes on U.S. bases in Iraq Tuesday night.

Pushed by sketchy sites and small armies of accounts on Twitter and other platforms, the messaging takes aim at both pro- and anti-Iranian interests and likely stems from players across the region. It’s designed to influence the appearance of public sentiment on the ground and shape media narratives around the world.

Rival powers Iran and Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. partner, have long tried to shape public opinion across the Middle East. In recent years, the regimes and their respective allies have developed sophisticated digital propaganda arms. But America’s killing of top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani last week kicked it into high gear.

“There are probably lots of other campaigns that we can’t see,” Qatar-based social media researcher Marc Owen Jones said. “We’re probably just scratching the surface.”

In the days after the Iraqi Parliament voted unanimously Sunday to expel U.S. forces from the country, Jones noticed a counterintuitive hashtag trending on Twitter.

Shared in several thousand tweets, mentions, and retweets, the Arabic hashtag translated to “I am Iraqi and parliament doesn’t represent me.” Attached messages, many of them aimed at U.S. media and political leaders, bashed Iraq’s response to Soleimani’s death.

But many of the nearly 2,700 accounts that tweeted the hashtag bore hallmarks of a coordinated effort, like low follower counts, recent launch dates, or repetitive behavior. While pinpointing who’s behind such efforts is difficult, the anti-Iranian tilt mimicked many of the other social media operations Jones studies at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Doha.

“We tend to see trends that reflect Saudi foreign policy,” he said.

Jones also sampled nearly 10,000 Twitter accounts sharing the hashtag #IraniansDetestSoleimani. Almost 13% of them included references to either Trump or the right-wing conspiracy theory QAnon in their bios which suggested users on the American right could be helping to push the narrative.

Christopher Bouzy, a software engineer who runs Bot Sentinel, a platform that evaluates Twitter accounts for inauthentic behavior, saw similar overlap between the MAGA internet and anti-regime content. Bouzy published a dataset Monday of more than 460 Twitter accounts reeking of phoniness that had recently shared hashtags such as #Make_Iran_Great_Again, #RestartMIGA, and #Restart_Opposition.

They’re part of a much larger network tweeting the hashtags, which are an apparent reference to Restart, an opposition social media group headed by former Iranian game show host Seyed Mohammad Hossein. Hosseini told Bloomberg News in 2018 that he hopes to get an audience with Trump.

“They’re very aggressive at pushing a lot of pro-Iran stuff but, in terms of the people of Iran,” Bouzy said, adding that Twitter has suspended or removed dozens of accounts he’s been monitoring. “But they’re against the regime of Iran. They amplify this stuff by piggybacking on top of the MAGA crowd.”

These efforts often boost real public sentiment to swamp online conversation and game social media algorithms. The result is that it’s difficult for users to tell which accounts are actually tweeting from within Iran.

But there’s one crucial thing to keep in mind, according to Mahsa Alimardani, a researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute: “Twitter isn’t super relevant to Iran. In terms of the amount of users that exist inside the country, it really pales in comparison to Telegram and Instagram.”

On those platforms, Alimardani added, pro-regime narratives casing Soleimani in a reverential light appear to be dominating. That’s an abrupt u-turn from just months ago, when the regime faced huge protests after increasing gasoline prices.

“The moderate elements are also writing about this,” Alimardani said. “They are writing about how this is an injustice.”

Those narratives have also been pushed by propaganda organs. Lee Foster, a senior manager for information operations analysis at cybersecurity firm FireEye, told VICE News that a network of dozens of existing sites, like USJournal.net, quickly jumped on Soleimani’s death to create new pro-regime content. Real and fake social media accounts the propelled it across the internet.

“We’re seeing this evolution toward more sophisticated methods and efforts to cover tracks to make it harder to identify these kinds of campaigns,” said Foster, whose firm has studied Iranian disinformation extensively. He added that they include impersonating political candidates and journalists.

On Wednesday, for example, Twitter suspended an account posing as a journalist for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz and inflating reports of American casualties from Iranian missile strikes Tuesday night.

“It’s not just large networks of bots,” Foster added. “It’s much more nuanced than that.”

This new fog of war could be particularly dangerous for an American administration in which an erratic president relies on sycophantic media and shares bizarro internet memes.

More at link.

 

[dannno]

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/...eg-of-misinformation-trump-just-lit-the-match



More at link.

Fake news.

 

[AngryCanadian]

Fake news.

And Fox news is more Fake News then Vice.

 

[dannno]

Jones also sampled nearly 10,000 Twitter accounts sharing the hashtag #IraniansDetestSoleimani. Almost 13% of them included references to either Trump or the right-wing conspiracy theory QAnon in their bios which suggested users on the American right could be helping to push the narrative.

This is the problem with the left. Nearly half the country likes Trump, his approval rating is close to 50%. Yet they assume everybody hates Trump, and so why would 13% of Iranians who hate Soleimani like Trump??

Well, if Trump came in and kills your oppressor, in your country, who you hated, then it seems likely to me that they would like Trump. Like, at least 50% maybe.

 

[dannno]

And Fox news is more Fake News then Vice.

No, it isn't. It was from 2001 - 2008 or so, but that's about as far as she goes.

 

[Zippyjuan]

Only Alex Jones and "Q" have the real news.

Tucker Carlson was very critical of Trump killing Soleimani.

 

[Swordsmyth]

No different from the republicans on the web claiming censorship.

Which is admitted to be true.

 

[AngryCanadian]

Nope.

Try this:

The new leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' elite Quds Force once boasted that U.S. troops have “suffered more losses from us than we have suffered losses from them” and has repeatedly ripped President Trump and America’s allies.
Brigadier Gen. Esmail Qaani, 62, now spearheads the special military unit following the death of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed Thursday in a U.S. airstrike at Baghdad International Airport in Iraq. He had served as Soleimani’s deputy commander since 1997 – and the Treasury Department says he has used his power to direct funding toward terrorist groups like Hezbollah.
Qaani, like many other Iranian government and military officials, also has a history of making hostile and inflammatory statements against the U.S.
“America has suffered more losses from us than we have suffered losses from them,” the Middle East Institute quoted him as saying during a 2017 ceremony in commemoration of Iranian forces and Iranian-backed militias battling in Syria and Iraq.

More at: https://www.foxnews.com/world/esmail...ce-iran-us-foe

The original IRANIAN source:
https://www.tasnimnews.com/fa/news/1...AF%D9%87%D8%AF

Translated:
https://translate.google.com/#view=h...8%A7%D9%85%2F*

Your using Fox News? thats rather comical. And among that a NeoCon Think Tank..

Qaani, like many other Iranian government and military officials, also has a history of making hostile and inflammatory statements against the U.S.
“America has suffered more losses from us than we have suffered losses from them,” the Middle East Institute quoted him as saying during a 2017 ceremony in commemoration of Iranian forces and Iranian-backed militias battling in Syria and Iraq.

Iranian forces and Iranian-backed militias battling in Syria and Iraq
You Americans are no different from what you are doing in Syria and Iraq and Yemen while supporting, Arming, funding American/Saudi backed militias. You have being doing this since the 90s.

The only reason Trump admin is upset is because your side is losing in both areas in the middle east. Just accpet defeat and get out of Syria and Iraq.

 

[dannno]

Only Alex Jones and "Q" have the real news.

Where should we get our news? From you??

You just posted that twitter is banned in Iran, so these twitter users are likely bots.

I posted that twitter users in Iran use a VPN.

Then you posted a tweet that said 97% of the tweets from that hashtag were outside Iran. Duh. That's how VPNs work.

Then you post a story from a shitty progressive news site whose only argument is "there are a bunch of twitter users with opinions I don't like, and they like Trump, so they must be bots!! They must be Russian bots!!"

Are they Russian bots, zippy? Are the Russians now supporting regime change in Iran?

This is your version of "news"???

 

[Swordsmyth]

Your using Fox News? thats rather comical. And among that a NeoCon Think Tank..




Iranian forces and Iranian-backed militias battling in Syria and Iraq
You Americans are no different from what you are doing in Syria and Iraq and Yemen while supporting, Arming, funding American/Saudi backed militias. You have being doing this since the 90s.

The only reason Trump admin is upset is because your side is losing in both areas in the middle east. Just accpet defeat and get out of Syria and Iraq.

Attacking the sources will get you nowhere because I provided the original IRANIAN source.

They brag about being at war with us and killing us.

We are leaving and Trump always said we would but we don't have to smile and take it when another illegal foreign interventionist kills our people and attacks our embassy while we get there.

 

[Swordsmyth]

Where should we get our news? From you??

You just posted that twitter is banned in Iran, so these twitter users are likely bots.

I posted that twitter users in Iran use a VPN.

Then you posted a tweet that said 97% of the tweets from that hashtag were outside Iran. Duh. That's how VPNs work.

Then you post a story from a $#@!ty progressive news site whose only argument is "there are a bunch of twitter users with opinions I don't like, and they like Trump, so they must be bots!! They must be Russian bots!!"

Are they Russian bots, zippy? Are the Russians now supporting regime change in Iran?

This is your version of "news"???

They won't even accept old Iranian sources that prove their talking points wrong.

 

[AngryCanadian]

They won't even accept old Iranian sources that prove their talking points wrong.

You might as well get your sources from pro netanyahu sites when it comes to Iran and the middle east i am sure his very reliable as he was with Iraq......

 

[pcosmar]

Have you ever heard of a protection racket?
The Iranians brag about being at war with us and killing our people, the killing was entirely justified to protect our people and probably will pave the way to peace and bringing our troops home now that the Ayatollah no longer has to deal with a warmonger who held all the real power.

Swordsmyth you are a LYING Sack of PIG Excrement..

do not understand why your filth has been tolerated this damn long.

 

[Swordsmyth]

Swordsmyth you are a LYING Sack of PIG Excrement..

do not understand why your filth has been tolerated this damn long.

I wonder how many times you get to hurl insults like that without consequences.

 

[pcosmar]

I wonder how many times you get to hurl insults like that without consequences.

Keep being a Lying Troll..

You hang on like a hemorrhoid,

 

[Swordsmyth]

Keep being a Lying Troll..

You hang on like a hemorrhoid,

Keep being what you are for everyone to see.

 

[juleswin]

Keep being a Lying Troll..

You hang on like a hemorrhoid,

Be careful m8, these people are trying to get people to insult them and when you do, they will report you and get you banned. They wanna kill the forum and to them, its not dead enough as it is.

 

[pcosmar]

Be careful m8, these people are trying to get people to insult them and when you do, they will report you and get you banned. They wanna kill the forum and to them, its not dead enough as it is.

Welcome to try that too,, up to the forum owners..

but arguing with these Trumptards has certainly lowered the level of discourse..

and the Q beams are as bad as Stormfront ever was pushing their crap here.

 

[AngryCanadian]

Welcome to try that too,, up to the forum owners..

but arguing with these Trumptards has certainly lowered the level of discourse..

and the Q beams are as bad as Stormfront ever was pushing their crap here.

So some Trumptards in here are trying to on propose to ban users in here? hmm whatsoever happened to their tolerance of others and respecting other opinions?

 

[Influenza]

You have no understanding of power, very few people are actually religious and most of the IRGC etc. would follow the orders of their commander and benefactor rather than the Ayatollah.

Iran is the "protection" part of the deepstate empire's protection racket.

Actually, many tens of millions of Iranians are religious. They don't need to choose between following the orders of their commander and their Ayatollah, because the commander is already following the orders of the Ayatollah. Now stop your ridiculous conspiracy theorizing.