As the conflict between Iran, the United States, and Israel intensifies, the battlefield has expanded far beyond physical borders, and as expected, into the digital world.

Along with threats to US company-owned data centers and other tech infrastructure in the Middle East, Iran and its supporters have deployed a sophisticated online influence campaign designed to sow confusion, boost its own military image, and weaken the public’s trust in Western leadership.

Disinformation as part of asymmetrical warfare

As we’ve previously discussed, Iran’s targeting of data centers, and its closure of the Strait of Hormuz are part of its asymmetrical warfare strategy. They cannot face the US and Israel head on, militarily.

Disinformation is also part of that, with the goal of shaping global perceptions and narratives, with the hopes of a shorter war.

According to Tine Munk, senior lecturer in criminology at Nottingham Trent University and a specialist in digital warfare, quoted by France24, the goal is to “create doubt and uncertainty” by flooding the internet with a mix of recycled, fabricated, and misleading content.

Common themes include overstating Iranian military successes — such as claims of destroying Israeli nuclear facilities or the Ben Gurion Airport — and portraying Western leaders as being in a state of failure or cowardice, as NewsGuard has found.

For example, widespread false claims, propagated by pro-China accounts, suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fled to Germany at the start of the war.

According to NewsGuard, of 50 false claims identified in the first 25 days of the war, 92% were pro-Iranian. The other 8% were pro-Israel and pro-US. The number offers a peek at how Iran may be more active with the use of disinformation as part of its information warfare and propaganda strategy.

US President Donald Trump, like Iran, has been pushing his own claims that the war has been extremely successful for them.

Trump, after the ceasefire agreement, told Agence France-Presse: “Total and complete victory. 100%. No question about it.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also said at a Pentagon press conference on April 8: “Operation Epic Fury was a historic and overwhelming victory on the battlefield, a capital-V military victory.”

However, the reality may not be as clear-cut and easy to assess. Politifact by the Poynter Institute wrote: “It will take time to fully assess what the US achieved — as well as any shortcomings or failures. More details will emerge to answer key questions: Will commerce flow through the Strait of Hormuz at its previous levels? When will gas prices decline? How will Iran’s new leaders exercise their power? And how long will it take for the US to restock its now-depleted military arsenal?”

In their analysis, victories for the US include dealing significant blows to Iran’s naval fleet, weapons factories, air defense systems, drones, and ballistic missile capabilities. On the other hand, foreign policy experts warn that the war may lead to a more radicalized regime in Iran, strained relationships between US and NATO allies, and Iran firmly establishing itself as the gatekeeper of the globally crucial Strait of Hormuz.

There might also be a chance that, in the future, the war could encourage other states to establish a nuclear weapons program to deter a US attack. “Iran faced this war precisely because it didn’t yet have a nuclear weapon. If it had, the attack almost certainly wouldn’t have happened,” Kelly A. Grieco, a senior fellow at foreign policy think tank The Stimson Center, told Politifact.

Rise of ‘slopaganda‘

A significant new development in this conflict is the intentional use of generative AI to create “slopaganda” — a term coined to describe AI-generated “slop” used for political manipulation.

According to The Conversation, this includes everything from AI-generated deepfakes of battlefield strikes to bizarre videos of political leaders, like Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, styled as Lego figurines.

These AI tools allow for the creation of “fake armies” of online personas that can act without human oversight. While some of this content is obviously fake, such as the Lego videos, it is effective because it is emotionally arresting and aims to create negative associations with Western powers.

According to Melanie Smith, an expert in information operations at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue quoted by France24, this conflict marks the first time AI has been used so “intentionally to sow chaos and confusion” about real-time events on the ground.

China and Russia’s supporting roles

Iran is not acting alone; it is supported by what researchers call an “axis of disinformation” involving Russia and China. According to a report from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), these authoritarian allies share technology best practices and amplify each other’s anti-Western narratives.

China, specifically, has been caught pumping out war disinformation to boost Iran and undermine the West. According to NewsGuard, Chinese state media frequently repeats Iranian falsehoods.

On April 4, a US fighter jet was confirmed to have been shot down by Iran. But prior to that, on March 2, NewsGuard found that there had been a claim by Iranian state media that Iran shot down a US F-15 fighter jet, which spread on Chinese social media, reaching more than a million views. During this time, according to the US military, three planes were inadvertently shot down by Kuwait, not by Iran.

These campaigns also target Taiwanese audiences to potentially reduce their confidence in the US as a reliable security partner.

Meanwhile, Russia leverages its long-standing expertise in laundering disinformation through vast bot networks to give these stories more reach, according to FDD.

Stoking opposition within the United States

To pressure the US government to end the war, Iranian influence operations specifically target American public opinion.

According to a study by Clemson University, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) operates networks of fake social media accounts that pretend to be ordinary citizens — such as “Latina” women in Texas or California — to discuss divisive local issues like immigration such as the aggressive deployment of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) officers.

Once these accounts build an audience, they pivot to posting pro-Iranian war propaganda.

There were also two groups of accounts claiming to be from England, Scotland, or Ireland that had previously pushed content on issues relating to those respective countries. But when the war began, these groups also started to push pro-Iran propaganda.

The Clemson study wrote: “Facing an existential threat, Iran clearly prioritized content that might best shorten the conflict and they employed all available resources to do so, even those that might not best reach the US or Israeli homefront.

“Finally, we should point out that we believe these accounts to be only a portion of a broader campaign.”

The study warned: “The accounts operated in pods, and our detection methods very likely did not identify all accounts on each platform within the available time. It will be important to continue to monitor communities found to be at particular risk of foreign influence to mitigate potential harms to authentic discourse.”

Within 24 hours of the war’s start, all these accounts, which previously discussed local issues like Scottish independence or US immigration, simultaneously shifted to posting identical pro-Iranian war propaganda.

“Iran has been fairly successful, certainly more successful than the US and Israel, in reaching a broad audience and gaining more support than they might otherwise have,” said one of the authors of the Clemson study, Darren Linvill.

An Ipsos survey in mid-March found that overall, “58% say they disapprove of US military strikes against Iran, compared with 38% who say they approve.”

“A large majority of Americans (85%) say they are very or somewhat concerned about the risks to the lives of American military personnel as part of US actions in Iran. The idea of deploying US ground troops to Iran is deeply unpopular: 78% say they would oppose this, compared with just 17% who would favor it,” the survey found.

The use of video games as “evidence”

This is not unprecedented as it has happened before such as during the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

Video games continue to be a source of fake war footage.

According to NewsGuard, a widely shared video allegedly showing Iranian missiles striking a US Navy ship in the Strait of Hormuz was actually footage from a video game. Careful analysis revealed a mouse cursor visible in the frame and low-resolution “animated” water, but the site couldn’t specify which video game.

Interestingly, both sides have been accused of this; the White House has also posted videos that combined war footage with clips from action movies and video games like Grand Theft Auto.

Takeaways, lessons

Once again, the lessons from Iran’s digital warfare suggest that other nations must view the “information battlefield” as a primary front in modern conflict, rather than a secondary concern.

The FDD warned that the reduced funding for agencies that could have countered these campaigns were a blow for the US.
It said: “Washington has a critical role to play in combating the spread of AI-enabled disinformation. However, significant cuts to the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force, the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, and the Foreign Malign Influence Center at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence have greatly diminished the government’s ability to counter foreign influence operations.”

For social media companies, it said that platforms must “begin to consider nonfinancial consequences to disempower state-sponsored sources of disinformation.”

Specifying X, it said that the platform’s policy of suspending creators who shared unlabeled AI war videos only addressed those seeking to “monetize controversial content.” But the policy “does nothing to deter state-aligned accounts whose purpose is to spread disinformation, not to make a profit.”

Furthermore, according to The Conversation, industry-wide technological fixes such as watermarking AI-generated content and holding tech giants accountable through taxation to fund digital literacy programs are essential to protect the “shared truth” of a society. – Rappler.com