How the Iranian regime used the networks to spread fake news during the raid on Israel

5 mins

In a country where the audiovisual landscape is very regulated, the dissemination of the Iranian regime’s propaganda took a central part in the military operation launched by Iran on the night of April 13 to 14. Forty-eight hours after the missiles were launched, no significant damage was reported. The army spokesperson said the Nevatim air base in the Negev had been “ slightly affected » by Iranian ballistic missiles. The Israeli army released a video showing some craters and construction equipment repairing what appears to be a taxiway.

At the time of publication, it is impossible to accurately and independently assess the damage that occurred at the Nevatim air base housing the F-35 fighters recently purchased from the United States by the Israeli army. Devices used in the raid against the Iranian consulate in Damascus in early April.

On the Iranian side, the head of the Iranian armed forces, General Mohammad Bagheri, however welcomed the fact that the attack had “ achieved all its objectives “, in particular by putting ” out of service an intelligence center and an air base “. He specified that no urban or economic center had been targeted by Iranian drones and missiles

Media excitement?

However, in the minutes and hours following the announcement of the Iranian raid, the Iranian state channel IRINN broadcast images suggesting that a deluge of fire fell on Israel. One image particularly caught our attention: that of a horizon in flames and explosions in the distance, while in the foreground, a line of trees stands out. The image bears the logo of the public channel Islamic Republic of Iran News Network. This regime-dependent 24-hour news channel broadcasts in Farsi (Persian) and has an Arabic language section. It can be received in Europe by satellite. We found the extract where a speaker comments live on the strikes on Israel. We listen to it here.

He speaks in Arabic: “ You see on the screen, images that we find on social networks (…) images of missiles that fell on Israel. ” He adds : “ If the United States retaliates, or if other countries come to its aid against Iran, they will regret it. » We can also hear the voice of a guest who assures that “ this response is not only the response to the bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus, but the response to the demand of the Palestinian and Lebanese people “.

The message therefore takes up the political position of the Iranian regime towards Arab countries. The journalist is careful to affirm that the images broadcast by this state media come from social networks, but does not say that they have nothing to do with Israel. Whatever happens, they will feed the propaganda. Internet users quickly found the origin of the images: it is not the Iranian bombings, but the gigantic fire at Villa del Mar in Chile.

The franceinfo channel which also looked into the question states that on April 14: “ The original video, broadcast on the social network TikTok, has seen its counter explode since the attack on Iran, reaching 7.5 million views on Sunday afternoon. » On the 15th, at the end of the day, this video was still inaccessible.

Let us add that on the networks, many comments first mentioned images of forest fires in Texas in March, before corrections were made, as evidenced by this post.

Concealment and fabrication of Infox

The Mehr News Agency, another organ of the regime, whose main mission is to disseminate the ideals of the Iranian Islamic revolution, broadcasts the same images, visible here by then titling on its website “ massive fire in Israel’s Negev region due to Iranian missile attacks “.

This statement is false and it is deliberately ambiguous, because the images do show a fire, but it is in no way linked to the Iranian strikes in Israel. Moreover, by paying close attention to the video’s soundtrack, we hear the voices of people speaking… in Spanish, which leaves little doubt about the real origin of the video. Mehr News Agency entered into a partnership with the Russian agency Sputnik in 2018.

For her part, journalist Ghoncheh Habibiazad, working for the BBC, spotted another video, viewed more than 5 million times and broadcast by the Iranian media, suggesting a wave of panic on the evening of the Iranian strikes in Israel. These images actually showed a crowd movement in Buenos Aires, Argentina.