Iranian bots are spreading anti-Israel propaganda on social media

A Clemson University report identified dozens of fake social media accounts tied to Iran’s IRGC.

By World Israel News Staff

The Iranian regime has invested heavily in online propaganda efforts, creating fake social media accounts to spread anti-Israel messaging and influence public discourse during the ongoing war, according to researchers from Clemson University.

Researchers at the school identified dozens of accounts across several platforms that were posing as ordinary users but were actually part of a campaign linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The accounts were active on X, Instagram, and Bluesky, and purported to be individuals living in various countries, including the United States.

Some accounts claimed to be English-speaking residents of the U.S., England, Scotland, and Ireland, while others pretended to be Spanish-speaking users in heavily Hispanic regions of the U.S. such as California and Texas. Additional profiles impersonated residents of Venezuela and Chile.

“These accounts are trolls…trying to appear to be real people, in order to integrate into very specific communities and influence those communities online,” Darren Linvill, who co-leads the Media Forensics Hub at Clemson University, told MS Now.

The investigation found that the network had a particularly large presence on X. Clemson researchers identified dozens of accounts that collectively produced nearly 60,000 posts, which were reposted thousands of times by other users. The posts may have been viewed by millions of people across the platform.

“All these accounts systematically amplify politically divisive content and disinformation aligned with IRGC narratives, and they are designed to exploit regional fault lines to advance Iranian regime interests,” the Clemson University report noted.

The report also said the posts frequently include AI-generated images and manipulated videos intended to reinforce the regime’s narrative.

“There is a coordinated inauthentic social media campaign targeting online discourse around the war between Israel, the United States, and Iran,” the report continued.

According to Clemson researchers, before the outbreak of Israel’s Operation Epic Fury and the U.S. military’s Operation Roaring Lion, the accounts were largely focused on criticizing President Donald Trump and attempting to stir domestic tensions in the United States around a range of divisive political and social issues.

However, once the war began, the network shifted its focus to promoting Tehran’s messaging about the conflict and spreading content supportive of the Iranian regime.

“Iran redirected its resources toward propaganda around the war, trying to make the war more painful for the United States,” Linvill told MS NOW.

He added the campaign was launched “clearly with the hope of shortening” the war.

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