Disir
Platinum Member
- Sep 30, 2011
- 28,003
- 9,607
- 910
On Oct. 20 and 21, 2020, just two weeks before Election Day, Iranian actors sent out spoofed emails to thousands of American voters in Florida, Alaska and Arizona. The emails were designed to appear as though they were sent by the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group, and threatened “we will come after you” if recipients did not vote for Donald Trump. Some of the emails were also accompanied by a link to a video depicting Trump calling vote-by-mail “a terrible thing” and followed by what was made to look like a demonstration of how to fraudulently produce a mail-in ballot. Government officials and cybersecurity experts debunked the video’s demonstration, but the video continued to circulate on social media. Within 48 hours, then-Director of National Intelligence (DNI) John Ratcliffe attributed this disinformation campaign to Iran, alleging that Iran’s purpose was to undermine Trump’s presidential campaign.
In the past few years, Iran has become increasingly sophisticated and active in online communities targeting the American public. And its brazen tactics leading up to the election could mark a shift in the country’s influence strategy toward the United States. According to the public record, this is the first time that Iranian actors have engaged in an election interference campaign targeting the United States utilizing stolen voter information in influence operations.
But to the extent that Iran targets U.S. audiences in sustained disinformation campaigns, it still typically aims to broadly promote Iranian interests—such as denigrating sanctions against the country and bolstering their moral standing compared to the U.S.—rather than attempting to induce a specific result in American domestic affairs. More importantly, Iran is almost certainly expending far more of its resources on its geopolitical sphere of influence in the Middle East and North Africa.
www.lawfareblog.com
This is a pretty thorough article on what has been going on with Iran's disinformation attempts. Makes me wary when I see the half-baked attempts to argue a pro-Iranian.
In the past few years, Iran has become increasingly sophisticated and active in online communities targeting the American public. And its brazen tactics leading up to the election could mark a shift in the country’s influence strategy toward the United States. According to the public record, this is the first time that Iranian actors have engaged in an election interference campaign targeting the United States utilizing stolen voter information in influence operations.
But to the extent that Iran targets U.S. audiences in sustained disinformation campaigns, it still typically aims to broadly promote Iranian interests—such as denigrating sanctions against the country and bolstering their moral standing compared to the U.S.—rather than attempting to induce a specific result in American domestic affairs. More importantly, Iran is almost certainly expending far more of its resources on its geopolitical sphere of influence in the Middle East and North Africa.
How to Understand Iranian Information Operations
To the extent that Iran targets U.S. audiences in sustained disinformation campaigns, it still typically aims to broadly promote Iranian interests rather than attempting to induce a specific result in American domestic affairs.
This is a pretty thorough article on what has been going on with Iran's disinformation attempts. Makes me wary when I see the half-baked attempts to argue a pro-Iranian.
