Iranian diplomats using X to crowdsource soldiers seems bad?

Also, spotted some unimpressive CIB around this effort, apparently tied to the Ahlulbait Indonesia.

I feel very seen right now

In the AI propaganda war, Iran is winning A joyless theocracy produces wittier videos than the Trump administration

The Economist cited our findings. On an unrelated note, I'll be retiring now.

www.economist.com/culture/2026...

There was a similar spike in likes and shares. I'm not 100% sure what's going on, but at least part of this engagement looks inorganic.

I'm going to continue live tweeting my spreadsheets.

Collectively, Iranian diplomats on X have received 30 times more likes since the war began than during the same period before it.

It jumped from 660K likes to 21M likes. Stunning numbers.

Iran’s embassy in South Africa gained more views on X in the first 49 days of the war than 150 diplomatic accounts did in the 49 days before the war.

A masterclass in shitposting (and potential bot use).

Something big funky going on with Iranian embassy posts.

Iran's embassy in Tajikistan posted an AI video of Jesus knocking Trump's head off. It gained 13 million views in a single minute.

How pro-Iran networks gained a billion views on war propaganda - Institute for Strategic Dialogue Two pro-Iran X networks gained over a billion views via coordinated misleading content and Premium verification under algorithmic amplification.

Messed around and found a couple pro-Iran networks on X that gained more than a billion (with a B) views in a month.

They were boosted by X's For You feed and alerts. Iranian and Russian diplomats reshared them. These are great examples of small networks gaming X.
www.isdglobal.org/digital-disp...

This is what they're cooking up

Iranian diplomats on X are going insane and putting up insane numbers. It's a total reversal of what they were doing pre-war.

Here's the numbers for 125 embassy / diplomatic accounts:

46 days before the war: ~ 500K likes on 9K posts
46 days since the war: ~ 18M likes on 39K posts

I usually don't like to brag, but I can spend full days pulling data, adjusting the query, and pulling it again.

That's probably my most valuable skill.

Iranian diplomats on the blockade

Earthquake in Hungary: Orbán defeated after 16 years in power It's a stunning rebuke to one of the Western world's most entrenched populist leaders.

BREAKING: Orbán defeated in Hungary after 16 years in power

Tripped up by misinformation? Here's a refresher on identifying AI Here are some tips for distinguishing AI-generated content from reality in an online world where that continues to get harder.

I'm a huge fan of PBS. It's so cool to see our research, which we'll published a piece on in the next couple days, highlighted in this piece.

www.pbs.org/newshour/nat...

Spoke to AFP about how Iran has crafted a wartime propaganda strategy tailored for the age of AI slop.

It's amazing how shitposting (and bad US policy) has helped recast one of the world’s most repressive regimes as a witty underdog.

www.france24.com/en/live-news...

The numbers in my first post were for the past week.

Since the start of the war, Iranian diplomats on X have had 193 posts with 1M+ views. State media has had 14.

Wolf warriors are looking very quaint these days.

How Iran’s Information War Machine Operates Online In just 69 minutes, Iran took advantage of a global network of accounts and media channels to spread its narrative around the world.

Very cool minute-by-minute breakdown of how Iran spread a claim that it shot down an F-18.

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

At least when you compare similar timeframes.

1516 is going pretty hard at the Hungarian election.

By my count, its volume of campaigns targeting Hungary is roughly on par with the number it carried out ahead of the 2024 US presidential election.

Iranian diplomats are shit posting their way to massive engagement numbers.

The Iranian embassy accounts we track on X have nearly 50 distinct posts with over a million views. Iranian state media accounts have hit that number just four times.

SCOOP

The Iranian group producing the Trump LEGO videos have a secret weapon.....Americans who send them tips and ideas to make their content better

www.wired.com/story/inside...

Iranian diplomats are taking a victory lap

Russia, if you're listening, LEGO videos are big right now, not whatever this animation is.

He's back! And with more 1516

This is happening on TikTok, Insta, Facebook, and everywhere else I've looked, too, with a couple posts saying it's part of a paid partnership.

What a time to have internet access.

Someone is paying YouTube accounts to post AI-generated videos of Iranian women telling people to visit Iran. There are so many of these.

‘Operation Epstein Fury’: Iran employs AI propaganda as w... The Iranian regime purports to be avenging the financier’s victims in its latest skirmish with the US, but the use of artificial intelligence further muddies the water between fact and fiction

Spoke to the Observer about the pro-Iran content we're seeing spread across platforms.

This is the first time I've worked the word "vibes" into an interview. I'm officially hip and young. observer.co.uk/news/interna...

Iran's LEGO videos put up numbers. But that's an anomaly. Their propaganda and IOs before the war consistently fell flat.

So, before we give them credit for studying and learning how to exploit American culture. Maybe we should consider how we've become such an easy target over the past few years.

its_The_Dr's X account is no more. It was one of the most popular accounts that consistently shared Storm-1516 content. But it's not the only one.

Last week on a whim, I looked at accounts that shared links to a sample of Copy Cop articles. 50+ accts with over 100K followers that had done so.

It’s a huge moment for pro-BRICS grifting on X. We’re looking into two separate networks: one with ~50 accounts and over 750M views since the war, and another with only 9 accounts and 145M views.

Crazy numbers.