LONDON: Iran has been blamed for spearheading a global disinformation campaign that impersonated major media organizations and used fake Twitter accounts to undermine 黑料社区.
At least 135 fabricated articles were published since 2016 on websites that were created to mirror global media outlets such as Bloomberg and The Guardian, according to a new report.
Researchers, who tracked the operation for two years, said many of the articles were directed at 黑料社区.
In one example, a website mimicking a Swiss publication tricked the Reuters news agency and other outlets into publishing a false report that 黑料社区 had written a letter to FIFA, football鈥檚 governing body, demanding that Qatar be barred from hosting the 2012 World Cup. The report was later withdrawn.
A few months earlier, a fake Belgian newspaper article claiming that then-French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron's campaign was being one-third funded by Saudi money was widely shared in French ultra-nationalist circles.
Ron Deibert, director of the聽Citizen Lab聽at the University of Toronto鈥檚 Munk School, the research group that conducted the analysis, said the researchers had 鈥渕oderate confidence鈥 the operation was linked to Iran.聽
This was based on 鈥渢he overall framing of the campaign, the narratives used, and indicators from overlapping data in other reports.鈥
But he said the team have no 鈥渟moking gun鈥 that the operation, named Endless Mayfly by the researchers, was run directly by the Iranian state.
The team were given a boost when in August 2018, in coordination with cybersecurity experts聽FireEye,聽Facebook,聽Google, and聽Twitter聽announced that they had removed hundreds of accounts for 鈥渃oordinated manipulation鈥 linked to Iran.聽
鈥淢any of these accounts were associated with websites that had been identified as part of Endless Mayfly鈥檚 republishing network,鈥 the 聽Citizen Lab report said.
The report warns that despite reports increasing publicity surrounding the operation, the network is still active.
