In the weeks after a White House briefing declared the American-Israeli war with Iran effectively over, a loose constellation of social accounts calling themselves arms of Iran's military has found a vast audience for its updates. Like many chapters in the long history of propaganda, the story is less about any single voice than about the economics and structure of attention: cheap, repetitive, urgent-looking content that flows faster than anyone can verify it. Whether the accounts are driven by money, by political purpose, or by some tangle of both, their effect is to keep a particular pictur
DW Fact Check: Iran-themed 'military' accounts with millions of views show content farm patterns
One post claiming "the war has officially started" passed 41 million views.
Mark
Why does it matter that these accounts look like content farms?
Mimi
Because the format is the tell. Repetitive "BREAKING" posts, cheap AI video, identical images with identical captions on the same day across accounts.
Mark
One account is actually verified by Iranian state media, right?
Mimi
Linked to a Facebook account state media verified as authentic. But state media also said only one account was genuine, and that one looks just like the rest.
Luke
So are these state operations?
Mimi
Not established. The ISD found no links to state-affiliated actors in the X networks it analyzed.
Luke
And ownership generally?
Mimi
DW says it can't always be verified. The shared traits are suggestive, not proof of who runs them.
Mark
What about the numbers?
Mimi
150 million views for one account, 353 million across ten others. Big, but they are view counts, not measures of belief.
Luke
Also the ISD's Ayad supplied those figures, and the "soft war" link to Khamenei is his reading of the strategy, not a documented directive.
Mark
Anything pointing to a motive beyond politics?
Mimi
"Iranian Force" is listed in Pakistan, has changed its name six times and once posted an appeal in Urdu. That hints at something other than a purely Iranian operation, but it's unexplained.
Luke
Right, and the source doesn't say what's behind it.
O Pulso
- Posts about the Iran war surged again after a White House declaration that the conflict was effectively over, and the accounts rode that wave straight into the feeds of millions.
- "Iran Military Media" alone has racked up over 150 million views with repeated "BREAKING" alerts, many of them AI-generated, pressing urgency on every scroll.
- Researchers at DW, NewsGuard and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue are tracing ownership, coordination and cross-promotion, though the true operators remain hidden behind shifting usernames.
- Platforms have suspended some prominent accounts since March, yet the network is spread across languages and services, so the trajectory points toward more takedowns and new accounts rising to replace them.
In the weeks after a White House briefing declared the American-Israeli war with Iran effectively over, a loose constellation of social accounts calling themselves arms of Iran's military has found a vast audience for its updates. Like many chapters in the long history of propaganda, the story is less about any single voice than about the economics and structure of attention: cheap, repetitive, urgent-looking content that flows faster than anyone can verify it. Whether the accounts are driven by money, by political purpose, or by some tangle of both, their effect is to keep a particular picture of Iranian strength alive in the public mind, and to make the truth harder for ordinary people to find.
On November 9, at a White House briefing, President Donald Trump said the US-Israel war with Iran was "effectively over," and the US was simply keeping the status quo. Within days, war posts surged online again, and a growing set of accounts presenting themselves as arms of Iran's military began collecting millions of views.
DW Fact Check looked closely at several of them and found the familiar signs of content farms: networks that churn out large volumes of cheap content very quickly. Some appear motivated by money, others by political influence. Many use the Iranian flag as a profile picture and some version of "Iran Military" in the name, and ownership is often impossible to pin down.
The most visible is "Iran Military Media," linked to a Facebook account that Iranian state media have verified as authentic. It has hundreds of thousands of followers across platforms and posts several times a day, often AI-generated video under a "BREAKING" label that mimics a news bulletin. Since late 2025 it has produced over 1,600 posts on X, drawing more than 150 million views. Ten similar accounts together generated 353 million views in the same period, and researchers say the strategy is replicated across Facebook in many languages.
Other accounts follow the same playbook. "Iranian Force" posts many times a day and was listed as based in Pakistan, despite its Iranian framing. NewsGuard has flagged it for false narratives. "Iran Army" mixes official briefings with AI content, and one of its "the war has officially started" posts passed 41 million views.
The broader monitoring picture is sobering. NewsGuard has counted 165 false claims about the war, watched hundreds of millions of times, and increasingly sees accurate reporting dismissed as AI-made. Identical images and captions appear across several accounts on the same day, and even the one account Iranian state media considers authentic uses the same tactics as its imitators.
Some platforms have acted, suspending prominent accounts since March, including one with nearly two million followers. But researchers describe an ecosystem that is large, layered and present across nearly every major platform and messaging service. For ordinary users, telling the real from the fabricated has become very difficult, and the accounts consistently portray Iran as militarily strong and internationally backed.
On November 9, at a White House briefing, President Donald Trump said the US-Israel war with Iran was "effectively over," adding that the US was "just keeping it the status quo." Posts about the Iran war surged online again soon afterward, and a growing set of accounts presenting themselves as arms of Iran's military collected millions of views along the way.
DW Fact Check examined several of these accounts and found recurring marks of content farms: websites or social accounts, or networks of them, that turn out large volumes of cheap content in a short time. Some are driven by money, others serve as vehicles for political influence. Experts who reviewed the accounts DW supplied described them as part of a wider ecosystem of pro-Iran aggregators linked across multiple platforms. Many use the Iranian flag as a profile picture and some variation of "Iran Military" in the username. Ownership can't always be verified.
The most visible is "Iran Military Media." It is tied to a Facebook account that Iranian state media have verified as authentic, and it has more than 290,000 followers on X, 597,000 on Facebook and 17,200 on Instagram. It posts a handful of times a day, often AI-generated or AI-enhanced video, frequently under a "BREAKING" label that mimics a news update. Since late 2025 it has published over 1,600 posts on X, drawing more than 150 million views and 3.6 million likes. Moustafa Ayad, an online influence operations expert at the London-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), said such accounts distribute pro-Iranian content, from state and non-state allied media, at low cost and generate millions of views.
Ayad also looked at 10 similar "Iran Military"-themed accounts over the same period. Together they produced 12,588 posts, 353 million views and 6.6 million likes. He said the network is replicated on Facebook in numerous languages, and described the strategy as part of what the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called "soft war." Reach grows when accounts are paired with others, though only a small share of "Iran Military Media's" 150 million views came from reposts.
A second account, "Iranian Force," has more than 248,000 followers and typically posts about 10 times a day, sometimes over 30. It also leans on "BREAKING" alerts and AI content, mixed with genuine footage framed through a pro-Iran lens. X lists it as based in Pakistan, and its history shows six username changes. One post departs from Iran entirely, defending a Pakistani TikToker and appealing in Urdu to Pakistan's government. Charlene Lin, a NewsGuard analyst, told DW her group had flagged the account for multiple false narratives and said it is linked to another account spreading the same narratives in coordination.
A third, "Iran Army," posts a handful of times daily, including AI-generated video, and regularly reaches tens or sometimes hundreds of thousands of views. It shares videos of official Iranian Armed Forces briefings alongside "BREAKING" posts. One claiming "the war has officially started" passed 41 million views.
The wider picture comes from other monitors. NewsGuard has found 165 false claims about the Iran war, watched collectively hundreds of millions of times, few of them originating from Iranian state media. It says most push a pro-Iran agenda, are shifting toward AI-generated images, and increasingly label accurate reporting from authentic outlets as AI-made and false. The ISD found pro-Iran X networks showing coordination, cross-promotion and engagement tactics while spreading misleading and AI-generated war content, but found no links to state-affiliated actors.
Telling real from fake is hard for ordinary users. Earlier this year Iranian state media said only one "Iran Military" account was authentic, yet that account uses the same branding, a similar profile picture, AI content and frequent "BREAKING" updates. DW found identical images with identical captions posted the same day across "Iranian Force," "Iran Military Media" and others in its network. Despite differing authenticity, the accounts consistently portray Iran as militarily capable and internationally supported, rarely showing anything that contradicts that.
Platforms have acted in part. Since March, several prominent accounts have been suspended on X, including "Iran Military Monitor," which had nearly 2 million followers. Ayad calls the ecosystem large, multi-layered and present across almost all major platforms and messaging services, a key part of the Iranian government's ability to withstand challenges to its rule.
Citações Notáveis
The accounts are a central part of the ecosystem, distributing pro-Iranian content at relatively low cost and generating millions of views.— Moustafa Ayad, Institute for Strategic Dialogue
NewsGuard flagged "Iranian Force" for multiple false narratives and linked it to another account spreading them in coordination.— Charlene Lin, NewsGuard analyst
Quer a matéria completa?
Leia o original em Deutsche Welle ↗