Iran Ramps Up Digital Influence Operations Targeting Global Audiences

On 14 March 2025, The New Glob­al Order report­ed that the dig­i­tal shift in news con­sump­tion had led to con­cerns about dis­in­for­ma­tion, with Iran being notably active in this domain. The arti­cle begins:

As news con­sump­tion has increas­ing­ly moved online, con­cerns about the cred­i­bil­i­ty and reli­a­bil­i­ty of online infor­ma­tion have grown. This dig­i­tal shift has sparked inter­est in dis­in­for­ma­tion as a dri­ver for polit­i­cal influ­ence or to sim­ply mis­lead. […] Despite social media being the least trust­ed news source glob­al­ly since 2016, many inter­net users still turn to these plat­forms for cur­rent affairs, inad­ver­tent­ly expos­ing them­selves to fake news. The Iran­ian gov­ern­ment has been notably active in this domain, with Microsoft esti­mat­ing that it con­duct­ed 24 cyber-enabled influ­ence oper­a­tions through­out 2022. The threat of dis­in­for­ma­tion reach­es across civ­il soci­ety, inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions, acad­e­mia, gov­ern­ment and the pri­vate sec­tor, mak­ing it a key con­cern in glob­al risk assess­ments. Under­stand­ing Dis­in­for­ma­tion Iran’s ear­ly engage­ment with the inter­net fos­tered an envi­ron­ment of open dis­course, espe­cial­ly through inter­net cafes and online plat­forms. How­ev­er, this open­ness quick­ly shift­ed into a land­scape of cen­sor­ship, espe­cial­ly after the 2009 Green move­ment, which saw sig­nif­i­cant crack­down on dis­sent. In con­trast, Iran has increas­ing­ly har­nessed dig­i­tal plat­forms for pro­pa­gan­da and diplo­mat­ic pur­pos­es. The Islam­ic Repub­lic has a long-stand­ing his­to­ry of infor­ma­tion war­fare, high­light­ed by Aya­tol­lah Khamenei’s 2019 state­ment that pro­mot­ing con­tent is a cru­cial inter­na­tion­al weapon against adver­saries. Var­i­ous enti­ties, includ­ing the Islam­ic Repub­lic of Iran Broad­cast­ing (IRIB), the Islam­ic Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard Corps (IRGC), and Iran­ian Intel­li­gence ser­vices, are active­ly involved in these dig­i­tal cam­paigns, often obscur­ing their ties to state author­i­ties to appear inde­pen­dent from the state.

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Key Points:

• The dig­i­tal shift in news con­sump­tion has raised con­cerns about dis­in­for­ma­tion, with Iran being par­tic­u­lar­ly active in this area, con­duct­ing numer­ous cyber-enabled influ­ence operations.
• Iran’s dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paigns tar­get the US, Israel, Iran­ian oppo­si­tion fig­ures, and rival Gulf states, often mix­ing real infor­ma­tion with mis­lead­ing claims to obscure the truth.
• The Iran­ian gov­ern­ment uses var­i­ous enti­ties, includ­ing IRIB and IRGC, to con­duct these cam­paigns, which have sig­nif­i­cant glob­al impli­ca­tions, includ­ing soci­etal polar­iza­tion and polit­i­cal unrest.
• Efforts to com­bat dis­in­for­ma­tion involve rais­ing pub­lic aware­ness, imple­ment­ing cyber­se­cu­ri­ty reg­u­la­tions, and col­lab­o­rat­ing among law enforce­ment and inter­net ser­vice providers.

In March 2025, the GIOR report­ed that the Unit­ed King­dom had recent­ly required Iran to reg­is­ter all polit­i­cal influ­ence activ­i­ties in the UK, plac­ing Tehran under height­ened scruti­ny due to increas­ing­ly aggres­sive behavior.

Dis­claimer: The GIOR uti­lizes AI to gen­er­ate sum­maries of news items, includ­ing the intro­duc­tion and the key points that fol­low. Any text fol­low­ing the key points is con­text added by GIOR edi­tors. Please ver­i­fy all infor­ma­tion before using. Images are also AI-gen­er­at­ed and are for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es only—they are meant to rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als con­cerned but should not be under­stood as “real-world” photography.