Twitter wars: Israel, Iran and conspiracy theories
Wild claims are being made that Israel is harnessing Twitter to bring down the Iranian regime as evidence also emerges of fake accounts being used by Iranian hardliners to spread disinformation. Yep, it’s a Twitter war.
First the revolution and now the war. There are reports on some websites that Israel is part of a conspiracy to destabilise the Iranian government. It was only ever a matter of time before someone blamed Israel (Iranian leader Mahmoud Aminajad has pretty much made a career out of it).
The Jerusalem Post’s online coverage of events in Iran has been cited as an ostensible key element behind the Iranian “Twitter Revolution,” and characterized as being part of a purported Israeli conspiracy to stoke unrest in the Islamic republic.
It goes on to detail an article entitled ‘Proof: Israeli Effort to Destabilize Iran Via Twitter’, which appeared on the far left Axis of Logic website where the writer says “right-wing Israeli interests are engaged in an all out Twitter attack with hopes of delegitimizing the Iranian election and causing political instability within Iran”.
Apparently, the “proof” was an online entry published on Sunday on the Jerusalem Post’s ‘The Persian Abyss’ blog, in which three active Iranian Twitterers were mentioned.
The Axis of Logic post goes on to sound like a conspiracy nut maybe further evidenced by the fact the piece is not bylined.
“Why were these tweets in English? Why were all of these profiles OBSESSED with Iran? It became obvious that this was the work of a team of people with an interest in destabilizing Iran. The profiles are phonies and were created with the sole intention of destabilizing Iran and effecting public opinion as to the legitimacy of Iran’s election.”
I like that: it became obvious. Well dub, of course it did. But seriously who wouldn’t be interested in Iran? I heard there was an election brewing that at one stage looked like a one horse race. It became rather exciting when suddenly it looked like reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi had a chance, until it turned out that while many horses could race only one was allowed to finish.
On the other side of the coin Iranian interior ministry forces have definitely woken up to what Twitter may or may not be doing. A number of possible Twitter fake accounts with connections to the Iranian security apparatus have been identified.
They are being used to spread disinformation and people are being asked not to re-tweet them. I’m surprised it took them this long.
Who knows the real power of Twitter in this whole Iranian election struggle? There are a lot of people wondering about it.
I usually can’t bring myself to read Andrew Gilligan, but in the Evening Standard today he has a fairly measured piece on Twitter and Iran – ‘It may not achieve much – but Twitter is an act of faith’.
He thinks its effectiveness is overrated (I think he is right), but its impact (that faith he talks about in the headline) is far greater.
For a round of how Iranians are using social media (or not) check my ‘Social media and the Iranian election’ post
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