Iran is losing its intelligence battle against the virtual world giant

Ahmed Lamloum

Facebook, the social networking giant, announced on Friday that it had deleted 82 pages, groups and accounts for “false behavior” originating in Iran, targeting people in the United Kingdom and the United States.

The deposed accountants identified themselves as US citizens, in a few cases as British citizens, and posted messages on politically sensitive issues such as inter-ethnic relations and immigration, as well as opposition to US President Donald Trump, according to the company’s statement.

“Our team discovered our threat in this activity for the first time in a week, because of the elections, we took action as soon as our preliminary investigation was completed. We shared information with government officials in the United States and the United Kingdom,” the company added in its statement.

US voters are due to go to the midterm elections on January 2, a general election in the United States in the middle of each four-year term, renewing the membership of some members of Congress and governors of some states And local officials.

The world’s attention was focused on the activities of various intelligence agencies on the Internet following the US presidential election in 2016. Numerous media reports reported that Russian intelligence intervened in the election process through false accounts that published information and news that misled American voters.

“This is not the first time that Internet service providers have faced suspicious activity originating in Iran. In August, Facebook stopped a campaign of hidden disinformation on its platform, originating in Iran and Russia,” said Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of facebook.

Pointing out to the closure of a number of accounts as part of the fight against false news, and the number of these accounts reached 650, defined as «network accounts mislead people».

Last month, the social networking site Twitter deleted 300 accounts run by Iran, publishing false information, as well as deleting 39 Iranian channels directly linked to the state-run radio of the Republic of Iran.

Google, which owns the YouTube site, said it had uncovered attempts by “Iranian state-sponsored representatives” and blocked them in recent months as they suspected a “misleading propaganda” of Iranian origin targeting citizens in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Trump is urging online service providers to track and tighten Iran’s Internet activities as part of its main plan to tighten the screws from all directions on Iran after its country’s nuclear deal with Iran last May.