Will the Real Disinfo Threat Please Stand Up?
Move over Russia and China, the US government is telling us we’ve got a new leading foreign disinformation threat — run for the hills!
Last week, on Sept. 4, The New York Times published a lengthy news report, titled, “Iran Emerges as a Top Disinformation Threat in U.S. Presidential Race.” The article regurgitated US intelligence assessments that say the Iranian government is running fake websites, bot networks and hacking operations that primarily “appear intended to undermine former President Donald J. Trump’s campaign to return to the White House.” The report notes that “according to the U.S. government, company officials and Iran experts,” Iran’s “propaganda and disinformation efforts have grown more brazen, more varied and more ambitious.”
Buried in the Times report, however, is this other casual assertion, printed without any evidence or citation: “Across the United States this spring, Iran also used social media to stoke student-organized protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, with operatives providing financial assistance and posing as students, according to American intelligence assessments.”
This is an astonishing claim to uncritically make in the pages of the paper of record. One would imagine if there were actually clandestine Iranian agents pretending to be American college kids there might be some actual evidence for that, let alone arrests and indictments. Meanwhile, there was no mention of the verified social media influence campaigns run by Israel against US lawmakers, despite the fact that the Times itself had previously reported this very thing as recently as June.
The implication — and purpose of the syllogistic claim — is crystal clear. Apparently, American students wouldn’t otherwise be outraged at the ongoing slaughter of tens of thousands of human beings funded, defended and encouraged by their own government without some nefarious Iranian-sponsored social media hype and Persian-speaking crisis actors appearing on campus goading them to build encampments and pressure administrators to divest from Israel. Without an Iranian thumb on the activist scale — we’re suppose to believe — there’s no organic American opposition to genocide.
Where did this claim, now laundered into seriousness by the Times, come from exactly? One hint may be found in a series of recent Houston Public Media reports. On Aug. 14, HPM reported, “After pro-Palestinian protesters repeatedly showed up at his home, Houston Mayor John Whitmire is pushing for an ordinance banning protests and picketing within 200 feet of a targeted residence. At a press conference on Wednesday, Whitmire added more details to his assertion that the groups consist of ‘paid protestors.’” The report quotes Mayor Whitmire claiming that “intelligence reports” that he wouldn’t disclose suggest that pro-Palestinian protesters “are being paid by Iran.” Whitmire added, without irony, “It’s dangerous if it’s true.”
On Sept. 4, HPM reported, that “after Houston Public Media submitted a public records request for those intelligence reports, the City of Houston said ‘there are no responsive documents’ related to the claim.”
The claim was already running in The New York Times before the truth had its boots on. Protesters were painted as Iranian stooges, discrediting their calls for ceasefire and divestment in the minds of New York Times readers. Perception management is a fundamental feature of disinformation efforts. In this case, the malicious disinformation threat reported by the New York Times was actually coming from inside the house.
This blog post was originally published on September 13, 2024, as part of the Disinfo Defense League‘s “Narrative Takes.” DDL is a distributed national network of organizers, researchers, scholars and strategists dedicated to disrupting online racialized disinformation infrastructure. Spitfire has supported the work of DDL since its inception in June 2020.
The “Narrative Takes” newsletter for DDL members features keen insights, errant thoughts and brief reflections on our ever-evolving socio-political landscape from narrative strategists and cultural thinkers who sit on the DDL Narrative Council. Below is a slightly edited version of my latest entry.