Disinformation on the Ongoing Processes in Iran

On  December 28, protests started in Iran which are still continuing. The claims of the demonstrators initially were of social nature, but later political slogans started to circulate. The demonstrations started from the city called Mashhen (the second largest city in Iran) and were spread all over the country.

On December 30, a demonstration was held in the capital city Tehran. Tear gas and water cannons were used against the protestors. On January 2, there was already information about 20 deaths (two of them were policemen) and 450 arrests.

The events in Iran have been very actively covered and have been accompanied with a series of disinformation.

One of the examples of disinformation is the video which was made in Bahrein back in 2011. Currently, it is widely circulated and introduced as an Iranian one. Just from this source it has received 32000 likes, and more than 18000 users shared the video.

Some media outlets also actively  circulate a photo in which the current events of Iran are allegedly shown. In reality, though, it’s a nine-year-old photo which was widely circulated  during the demonstrations in 2009.

In fact, the biggest disinformation was the arrest of the former president of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It was spread by almost all Armenian and international media outlets with a reference to the British Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper. After some time, the son and the lawyer of the former president denied the information.

It is worth noting that currently the Telegram, which is the most active non-governmental platform in Iran, is blocked. Nevertheless, the citizens continue using it through VPN.