Fri 09 October 2020:
The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has shut down 92 websites being surreptitiously controlled by the Iranian government to spread false information and fake news.
The sites used domains registered in the US despite their links to the Iranian government, grounds which the Justice Department used to shut down the “fake news” sites. Foreign government-linked entities are required to have licenses from the Office of Foreign Assets Control.
The websites were brought to the attention of the FBI by Google. Additional information was provided by social media giants Facebook and Twitter, said FBI Special Agent in Charge John Bennett.
The websites included four heavily trafficked sites that claimed to be independent American news organisations but were actually run by the Iranian Republican Guards Corps (IRGC), the Justice Department said. The IRGC is designated as a terrorist organisation by Washington.
Among the seized websites and domains were the popular online news services Newsstand7.com, USjournal.net, USjournal.us, and TWtoday.net all four of which were found to have been promoting pro-Iranian propaganda, generating fake news, and intentionally hiding ties to the Iranian regime.
The sites were found to have been promoting pro-Iranian propaganda, generating fake news, and intentionally hiding ties to the Iranian regime. (Screengrab/new front page of Newsstand7.com)
“We will continue to use all of our tools to stop the Iranian government from misusing US companies and social media to spread propaganda covertly, to attempt to influence the American public secretly, and to sow discord,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers.
“Fake news organizations have become a new outlet for disinformation spread by authoritarian countries as they continue to try to undermine our democracy. Today’s actions show that we can use a variety of laws to vindicate the value of transparency,” he added.
DoJ officials said the four domains purporting to be independent news outlets were actually operated by or on behalf of the IRGC to target the US with pro-Iranian propaganda in an attempt to influence the American people to change US foreign and domestic policy toward Iran and the Middle East.
In addition, the remaining 88 domains targeted audiences in Western Europe, the Middle East, and South East Asia and masqueraded as genuine news outlets while actually being operated by the IRGC to spread pro-Iranian disinformation around the globe to the benefit of the government of Iran, they added.
