troll farm

Facebook removes fake accounts tied to MEK troll farm

SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook said Tuesday it has removed hundreds of fake accounts linked to an Iranian exile group and a troll farm in Albania.

The accounts posted content critical of Iran’s government and supportive of Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, a dissident group known as MEK. In many cases, the Facebook and Instagram accounts used fake profile names and photos.

Facebook FB, -0.86% determined the accounts were being run from a single location in Albania by a group of individuals working on behalf of MEK. Facebook found other telltale clues suggesting a so-called troll farm, in which workers are paid to post content, often misinformation, to social media.

For one, researchers found that the activity seemed to follow the central European workday, with posts picking up after 9 a.m., slowing down at the end of the day, and with a noticeable pause at lunch time.

“Even trolls need to eat,” Ben Nimmo, who leads Facebook’s global threat intelligence operation, told reporters on a conference call Tuesday.

MEK is a leading group opposing the Iranian government. It killed Americans before the 1979 Islamic Revolution and was labeled as a terrorist organization by the State Department until 2012. Nevertheless, U.S. politicians from both parties including Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich have given paid speeches to MEK in the past.

The network of fake accounts was most active in 2017 and again in late 2020, Facebook said. In all, more than 300 accounts, pages and groups on Facebook and Instagram were removed as part of the company’s action. Around 112,000 people followed one or more of the Instagram accounts.

In some cases, the fake accounts used photos of Iranian celebrities or deceased dissidents. A small number of the more recent Instagram accounts appear to have used profile pictures that were computer generated.

April 7, 2021 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq Organization

Facebook bans Iranian exile troll accounts

Facebook has removed hundreds of fake accounts linked to an Iranian exile group and a troll farm in Albania.

Facebook determined the accounts were being run from a single location in Albania by a group working on behalf of MEK.

MEK members working in the ‘ troll factory’ in Manez Camp, Albania

Facebook found other telltale clues suggesting a troll farm, in which workers are paid to post content, often misinformation, to social media.

For one, researchers found that the activity seemed to follow the central European workday, with posts picking up after 9am, slowing down at the end of the day, and with a noticeable pause at lunchtime.

MEK is a leading group opposing the Iranian government. It killed Americans before the 1979 Islamic Revolution and was labelled as a terrorist organisation by the US State Department until 2012.

About 112,000 people followed one or more of the Instagram accounts.

7news.com

April 7, 2021 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

The danger of MEK troll farm bolstering the propaganda of their paymaster

There is at least one more foreign policy opinion writer from the Mujahideen-eKhalq (MEK) whose existence is dubious, based on a study by a social media analyst and statements from a defector from the group. Amir Basiri, who contributed to Forbes 9 times, the Washington Examiner 52 times, OpenDemocracy, Algemeiner, and The Hill once also appears to be a fabrication.

The MEK is an Iranian exile group for which John Bolton, Rudy Giuliani, and other foreign policy luminaries have given paid speeches. Dems like Joe Lieberman and Howard Dean have also spoken on their behalf. But the group has American blood on its hands, has been accused of practicing forced sterilization, and their belief system has been described as a mixture of Marxism and Islamism. Its supporters claim they, and their front group the National Council of Resistance of Iran, are a sort of government-in-exile, despite nearly nonexistent support for the group within Iran. They also have waged a substantial disinformation campaign in the Western press, in particular targeting conservative media.

“Amir Basiri and Heshmat Alavi are two fake accounts,” Hassan Heyrani, an MEK defector told TAC.

“At Camp Liberty, near the BIAP airport in Iraq, I was in the political unit of the organization with some of the persons who grew up in America and Canada. We worked as a team to write the articles analyzing the Iranian regime. The MEK put them in The Washington Post and all the newspapers in Western countries.”

Basiri’s op-eds focus on the need for regime change in Iran which he claimed is “within reach.” The thrust of Basiri’s writing – last placed at the Examiner in October of 2018 – is to encourage American readers to take an interest and sympathize with the plight of Iranian protesters and dissidents. Basiri consistently argued against the Iran nuclear deal, downplayed terrorism against Iran, called for tougher sanctions as a method of regime change and highlighted the necessity of Trump working with the Iranian opposition.

“We are currently looking into the matter, so I won’t comment on this specific byline,” Philip Klein, Executive Editor and Commentary Editor of the Washington Examiner told TAC. “But I will say that we have recently instituted more rigorous vetting of outside contributors, including but not limited to asking for photo identification if necessary. We are especially on guard when it comes to unsolicited foreign policy commentary.”

A request for comment from OpenDemocracy, a site greatly concerned about disinformation campaigns, has not been returned as of press time. Basiri’s articles on Forbes are no longer online. (Update: Julian Richards, managing editor of OpenDemocracy, writes, “This article was submitted to us through our normal process and our editor corresponded with Amir Basiri about the text. In light of the allegations you have made, we have removed the article text from our site for the time being and I have written to the email address that Amir Basiri used to ask for confirmation of his identity.”)

https://dlb.nejatngo.org/Media/Report/Aljazeera_Alavi_MEK.mp4

The list of MEK disinformation tactics also includes fake online since-deleted sites such as PersiaNow and ArabEye and questionable sites such as Iran Focus whose domain was formerly registered under the name of an NCRI spokesperson and is now anonymously held.

MEK’s recent influence campaign on Facebook spearheaded by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) was recently reported on last year by Lachlan Markey at the Daily Beast. Markey explained how NCRI lobbyist Soheila Aligholi Mayelzadeh has helped place paid ads on Facebook reaching between 500,000 to 1.4 million users as part of the campaign to sway US public opinion in favor of MEK and intervention in Iran.

The list of outright fakes recently in the realm of foreign policy analysis is significant: there is the apparent Emirati fabrication Raphael Badani to MEK sock puppet Alavi, first revealed by The Intercept, to deepfake non-existent anti-Palestinian activist Oliver Taylor, whose work was placed at highly-respected publications in the United States and Israel.

As Adam Rawnsley wrote for the Daily Beast, “Badani is part of a network of at least 19 fake personas that has spent the past year placing more than 90 opinion pieces in 46 different publications. The articles heaped praise on the United Arab Emirates and advocated for a tougher approach to Qatar, Turkey, Iran and its proxy groups in Iraq and Lebanon.”

Geoff Golberg is the founder of Social Forensics, which tracks and monitors online social media networks and disinformation campaigns. Golberg’s run-in and exposure of various pro-MEK personas, sock puppets and boosters came just prior to his Twitter suspension in July of 2019, the official reason for which was calling an account he believed to be fake and interfering in Canada’s elections a “moron.”

“Rather than suspending accounts that blatantly violate Twitter Rules, Dorsey instead opted to silence my voice. Specific to Iranian-focused platform manipulation, along with The Intercept, I helped out ‘Heshmat Alavi’ as a sockpuppet propaganda operation run by the MEK. Remarkably, despite initially suspending the fake account, ‘Heshmat Alavi’ has been reinstated by Twitter and continues to disseminate propaganda,” Golberg said, adding that Basiri – whose account is currently suspended by Twitter – is another fake persona which has been on his radar for some time. He produced the following graphic demonstrating the interconnectedness of the two accounts:

Golberg said he knows little of geopolitics or political aspects and was led to investigate sock puppet accounts fomenting war with Iran because he noticed many oddities about their networks, followers and tweeting patterns. His further research and analysis led him down a rabbit hole of connections and resulted in death threats, mass reporting of his account and accusations that he sympathized with the Ayatollah’s regime.
Rather than the hype over Russian bots, the real danger on platforms like Twitter is fake accounts and troll farm accounts which amplify hashtags, spread lies and bolster the desired propaganda of their paymaster, Golberg says.

“Despite media coverage that tends to focus on ‘bots,’ which simply means fully-automated accounts, Twitter’s much larger problem is actually fake accounts. There are more than 100K fake accounts that exist solely to create the illusion of widespread sentiment that the US should go to war with Iran,” Golberg told TAC, adding, “Take ‘Sheldon,’ @patrick_jane77, for example, an account that reflects having nearly 120K Followers. Very few of the account’s Followers are authentic accounts, yet given Twitter refuses to enforce their own rules, it is easy to mistake “Sheldon” for being a popular account. Twitter’s entire platform is propped up by misleading or inflated Followers/Following counts. Twitter’s CEO, Jack Dorsey, has built a house of cards and continues to commit ad fraud at a massive scale.”

MEK members run online information operations from France, Albania: Murtaza Hussain

Golberg sued Twitter earlier this year, alleging that the platform engaged in “deceptive practices” and hasn’t stood by its own terms of service.

Accusations from MEK supporter Hanif Jazayeri that The American Conservative itself and senior editor Daniel Larison act as a mouthpiece for the mullahs are part of a broader campaign aimed at maligning the reputation and integrity of anyone who opposes regime change in Iran. Tweets calling for investigations of TAC also came from noted MEK sock puppet Alavi, MEK spokesman Shahin Gobadi and NCRI’s Ali Safavi.
A barrage of accounts retweeted Jazayeri’s accusations, many with only a few followers and which solely tweet boosting the MEK and supporting regime change in Iran.

It’s worth noting that Heshmat Alavi was following Amir Basiri prior to his suspension, as were others closely connected to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies such as Jerusalem Post Iran hawk Seth Frantzman, @sfrantzman, Jazayeri and a number of other pro-MEK shills. It is a hall of mirrors amplifying the case for war with Iran, and the ad money from NCRI and pro-MEK accounts seems to have dampened Twitter’s desire to crack down. A request for comment from Twitter was not returned as of press time.

As a matter of journalistic ethics any organization engaging in systematic dishonesty like this has provided a very good reason to blacklist them. Failing to do so will encourage other foreign interests to do the same in the future, so conservative publishers should decline all content and interviews from the MEK in the future. This is not a matter of foreign policy differences: if you wish to see the U.S. pursue regime change in Iran, the MEK does not help make that case. Any publishers or think tanks who are aware of this dishonesty and still treat them like a legitimate opposition group should be considered part of a campaign not wholly different from the last time we were lied into a Mideast war.

By Paul Brian and Arthur Bloom

Arthur Bloom is the managing editor of TAC.

Paul Brian is a freelance journalist. He has reported for the BBC, Reuters, and Foreign Policy, and contributed to The Week, The Federalist, and others. You can follow him on Twitter @paulrbrian or visit his website www.paulrbrian.com.

September 5, 2020 0 comment

Missions of Nejat Society Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The MEK-made Nasty environment

Liberal in Richmond Hill faces smear campaign in bid for re-election

Liberal MP Majid Jowhari is being fiercely targeted by online activists, trolls, and angry Liberal members in his own riding. What’s behind the hate?

Angry protesters showed up multiple times at Liberal MP Majid Jowhari’s Richmond Hill constituency office last week, holding signs plastered with his picture that read, “Shame on You. You will not Re-elected” and “NO to Lobbyist of Islamic Terrorist Regime in Iran.”

Meanwhile, local residents received cryptic emails from a former Liberal politician, Reza Moridi, saying he and three other former Liberals are “unable” to vote for Jowhari. The email offered no explanation for the statement.

Still other voters that had placed Jowhari campaign signs in front of their homes reported finding papers dropped on their lawn or placed on car windshields. The documents, obtained by Ricochet, are titled “A Better Introduction to Mr Jowhari’s Family” and slander his wife, mother and brothers, suggesting they are connected to international drug business and other criminal activities.

ICC Condemns Foreign-Linked Smear Campaign Against Richmond Hill MP

And on Thursday, a highly followed but fake Twitter account associated with the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), a cult-like group from Iran that has a history of engaging with Canadian politicians, added to an ongoing online smear campaign against Jowhari by tweeting a long thread urging Canadians to unseat him.

Sources close to the Jowhari family and campaign told Ricochet it’s been a “horrible” time for the family and that they often feel unsafe.

“They [his critics] have painted him as the complete opposite of everything he stands for. It’s not even remotely close to who he is,” said one source who asked not to be identified due to fear of being targeted themselves.

“It’s all sophisticated and interrelated,” they added. “I’ve had to contact police before. People don’t understand that fake news can actually kill you.”

Jowhari’s most vocal offline critic, Reza Moridi, is a former Liberal MPP for Richmond Hill and former Ontario minister of research, innovation and science. He denies there’s a smear campaign against Jowhari. “It’s not an attack or targeting,” Moridi told Ricochet last Friday, in reference to the cryptic email he had sent to local residents on Oct. 9. “It’s a reverse endorsement, that’s all.”

The email sent to local residents included photos of Moridi and three others: Bryon Wilfert, former Liberal MP for Richmond Hill; Sarkis Assadourian, former Liberal MP for Brampton Centre; and Richard Rupp, former president of the Richmond Hill Federal Liberal Association. Above the photos, a single line read: “As concerned Richmond Hill Liberals we regret that on October 21, we are unable to vote for Majid Jowhari, the Liberal Candidate in Richmond Hill.”

When asked why he decided to send the email to voters, particularly without an explanation of why he and the others were “unable” to vote for Jowhari, Moridi said, “These are Liberal MPs and also two former Liberal riding presidents. We came to the conclusion that we cannot support him. People can make their own decisions.

“We reviewed media reports over the past four years and also records of the candidate. I’m sure every voter is doing their own research of the candidates. We’re just saying we did that research and came to that conclusion. Coming to that decision is not difficult.”

In response, Jowhari’s office posted a response on his Facebook page the next day: “This communication represents the worst type of campaign tactics – a non-specific note from a group who do not have the courage of their convictions to say what party and policies they do support but are prepared to say only what they don’t support without providing any rationale or substantiation.”

But voters were met with another shock a few days later when the Shahrvand, a Farsi-language newspaper, came out with Moridi’s photo splashed on the front page, along with a proclamation of his support for Richmond Hill’s Conservative candidate, Costas Menegakis. The idea that a former Liberal leader was overtly canvassing for voters in his riding to vote blue sparked coverage in conservative outlets The Toronto Sun and Rebel Media.

Soon after, 100 Liberal members and supporters sent a letter addressed to the Ontario Liberal Party requesting that the party leadership publicly reject Moridi’s endorsement. Former Ontario premier and current MPP Kathleen Wynne put out a statement on Moridi’s decision to endorse a Conservative candidate in Richmond Hill. “As you know, Reza Moridi has been a trusted colleague of mine for a number of years,” she wrote. “Having said that, Reza is no longer a member of the provincial legislature nor does he speak for the Liberal Party.”

Jowhari’s office declined to comment for this story, saying they wanted to stay focused on his campaign and local residents. “We are not focused on the negative voices that are out there in the wilderness,” Jowhari’s campaign manager Michele Bussieres told Ricochet.
Canada-Iran ties

The long-term rift between the two Iranian politicians stems from their ideas around Canada-Iran relations, with Jowhari advocating for a normalization in ties, while Moridi argues Iran should be kept at a distance. Moridi and other critics interpret Jowhari’s position as support and endorsement for the theocratic regime.

When questioned by reporters last week, Jowhari said the accusations of his support for Tehran have no foundation. “Our government promised in 2015 that we will keep the dialogue open. … We will establish a relationship with our eyes wide open and step by step,” he said. “That hasn’t changed. We want to make sure that we encourage diplomacy based on a proven and deliberate track record from both sides, especially on the Iranian side.

“Dialogue also doesn’t mean appeasement,” he added. “When you talk and sit at a table, you can exchange ideas, whether it’s on the issue of human rights, whether it’s freedom of press or women. We need to sit at the table…. You cannot have a dialogue behind closed doors.”

But some residents don’t believe him. Salman Sima, a former political prisoner in Iran, is one of Jowhari’s most vociferous critics on Twitter, having previously called him a foreign agent and a representative for Ayatollah Khamenei in the Canadian Parliament. Sima stands accused of starting a smear campaign against Saman Tabasinejad, an Iranian-Canadian NDP candidate in Ontario’s last provincial elections, calling her the granddaughter of a major cleric in Iran. Tabasinejad later debunked this rumour on Twitter.

Sima joined several other critics protesting when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited a Richmond Hill coffee shop on Oct. 13.

“We believe that Mr Jowhari doesn’t follow Liberal and Canadian values, including respecting human rights, respecting women’s rights and respecting LGBT rights,” he told Ricochet. “Why? Because we know and I believe that he is supporting one of the most misogynistic regimes in the world — the Islamic regime in Iran.”

Sima said the staged protests were non-partisan and unlinked to any political Iranian opposition groups, including MEK.

“I write lots of things criticizing some opposition groups, including MEK,” he said, adding he knew many residents who voted for the NDP and Liberal their whole lives but were strongly opposed to Jowhari. “Linking the protests against Majid Jowhari to MEK or any political parties is not fair because I know that lots of people come from lots of different ideas and backgrounds.”
“They are using the same tactics that the Iranian regime is using”

https://dlb.nejatngo.org/Media/Report/RT_Alavi_MEK.mp4

Regardless, it’s clear Jowhari is being watched. On Thursday, the “Heshmat Alavi” Twitter account tweeted a 17-post thread “shedding light on Jowhari being a Tehran apologist/lobbyist.” An investigation by The Intercept last June found the account was created by MEK, which is supported by Washington.

Also that week, Hassan Dai, an editor at the Iranian-American Forum website, urged Richmond Hill residents to vote against Jowhari in a tweet to his 11,000 followers.

Messages sent by Ricochet to both accounts on Oct. 17 requesting an interview and proof of the accusations levelled against Jowhari were not responded to by publication date.

‘Nasty environment’

Meanwhile, Iranian supporters of Jowhari’s campaign say they are particularly incensed over accusations that Jowhari and the Liberal Party are stooges of the government in Iran.

“They are using the same tactics that the Iranian regime is using — they’re claiming they’re against that but they’re doing the same thing here,” said a supporter of Jowhari’s campaign who did not want to be named out of safety concerns.

“They’re using all the resources they have to accuse and lie … they put our pictures up on Facebook and label us. This has led to a really nasty environment. We didn’t come here to be accused of being a lobby for another country or government. We came here to be contributing members of a democratic society.”

For her, the fight to keep a government in power who is open to dialogue with Iran is personal. “I have a friend who has cancer and no access to medications because of the sanctions. When Moridi ran a long time ago, I was one of his big supporters. We donated and helped, and I was so proud that an Iranian had come to power and could speak for us. But then he started to support sanctions on Iran.”

She pauses. “This is my country. But I can’t love Canada if I can’t love the country I come from. I have my best wishes for the people in Canada and I have the same wishes for the people in Iran.”

Ricochet.media

October 26, 2019 0 comment

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