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2025-07-16 Cyber
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Report claims to expose Iran-backed bots targeting UK that went dark during war
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[IsraelTimes] Cyabra says 1,300 fake profiles reached 200 million people with posts about Brexit, Scottish independence and more, but shifted to pro-Iran messaging after wartime disappearance
When Israeli strikes hit Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate Jews Zionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
on June 13, it wasn’t only nuclear sites and senior Iranian commanders that were taken out: A covert army of bots meddling in British politics went dark, too.
That’s according to Cyabra, a Tel Aviv-based disinformation detection company that uncovered the operation.
For 16 days, the network — which began operating in May — vanished, according to a Cyabra report published last week. No posts, no replies, no trace of the 1,300 fake profiles that had posed as British users and fueled online debate around Scottish independence, Brexit, and institutional collapse.
By that point, the accounts had already reached more than 200 million people through over 3,000 posts, the company said.
When the network returned after Iranian communication was restored, its tone had changed. The same AI-generated personas that had previously blended into UK political discourse were now sharing pro-Iranian content and ridiculing Western leaders, according to the report.
Cyabra analysts said the 16-day gap offered a rare before-and-after snapshot of direct, time-linked evidence of state-sponsored interference online.
"The sudden disruption to Iran’s influence operations capabilities due to their war with Israel exposed the entire operation," said Dan Brahmy, Cyabra’s CEO. "It was like watching state-backed disinformation self-destruct in real time. When Iran paused, so did the bots, revealing the strategy, the propaganda, and the 224 million views their fake campaign had already amassed."
According to the report, roughly 26 percent of the 5,083 accounts engaged in Scottish independence conversations on X were fake — "substantially higher than platform norms."
Cyabra’s investigation found that many of the accounts recycled existing content, used identical phrasing, and engaged in coordinated bursts of activity. Hashtags like #FreeScotland, #BrexitBetrayal, and #ScottishIndependence were repeatedly deployed to insert state-aligned messaging into organic conversations.
Though the accounts mimicked authentic user behavior — retweeting, liking, replying in staggered waves — the scale and uniformity of the network became clear only when it went silent.
The fake profiles operated as a self-reinforcing cluster, with bots boosting one another’s posts to simulate grassroots consensus, the report said, and sought to amplify polarizing messages within British political discourse while promoting Iran as a model of unity and resistance.
Cyabra’s platform uncovered the network by analyzing "engagement clusters, linguistic patterns and behavioral anomalies," Brahmy told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
"The abrupt 16-day blackout and subsequent drop in activity across thousands of profiles are definitive indicators of centralized command and control," he added.
NETWORK RETURNS POST-WAR WITH PRO-IRAN MESSAGES
After the blackout, the messaging took on an overtly geopolitical tone. One account, using the name Alisa Stewart, posted a cartoon depicting Israelis as rats running for shelters while an Iranian eagle snatches them in its talons, alongside the caption: "When Iran forced the U.S. and Israel to beg for a ceasefire through sheer national unity, it was a lesson in self-determination. Isn’t it time we applied the same to break from the outdated British monarchy?"
Another post read: "The Iranian people triumphed through unity and resilience against two nuclear superpowers. Why shouldn’t we follow their example to win our independence from the British monarchy?"
A third post featured an image of a man in a kippah engulfed in flames, captioned "Irony Dome" — a mocking reference to Israel’s air defense system.
Military officials have suggested that the bot operation may be part of a wider effort involving Russia, a longtime practitioner of digital influence warfare. Speaking to the Daily Mail, former British military intelligence officer Colonel Philip Ingram warned that the campaign bore hallmarks of joint coordination.
"The threat is huge," he said. "I believe Russia has coordinated a lot of this. It’s something more than a strong tangible link — Russia and Iran are working together. This could then indicate Russia was heavily involved in Iran’s planning with Hezbollah and Hamas
 ..always the voice of sweet reason...
, and would suggest Russia might be involved in Hamas’s attack into Israel."
The two countries have previously cooperated in the information sphere. Following the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel, Iran, Russia and China used state broadcasters and bot networks to amplify pro-Hamas content and undermine the United States and Israel.
A FIFTH OF ACCOUNTS CELEBRATING BOULDER FIREBOMBING WERE BOTS
According to a November 2023 report in The New York Times
...which still proudly claims Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
, one in four accounts on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X posting about the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response ...
war during its first month appeared to be fake, with US and Israeli officials saying the disinformation volume was "unprecedented."
Cyabra is a for-profit company that counts former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo as a board member and Elon Musk as a former client; he hired Cyabra to analyze bot activity on Twitter before he acquired the platform in 2022.
The company recently worked with the Combat Antisemitism Movement, a nonprofit, to analyze social media activity in the wake of the fatal Molotov cocktailing of Israeli-hostage demonstrators in Boulder, Colorado, finding that 22% of the antisemitic accounts celebrating the attack were inauthentic, yet they garnered millions of views. 
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Posted by trailing wife 2025-07-16 2025-07-16 03:44||
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