In an Asymmetrical War, Iran Seeks an Edge With Its Information War

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In an Asymmetrical War, Iran Seeks an Edge With Its Information War

Propaganda and disinformation have flooded the internet in a sophisticated effort to undermine support for U.S. and Israeli attacks.

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A billboard in Valiasr Square in Tehran this month.

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Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times

By

Steven Lee Myers

Tiffany Hsu

and

Stuart A. Thompson

March 28, 2026,

5:03 a.m. ET

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The videos and posts relentlessly mock President Trump or vilify him and as a bloodthirsty leader who strikes civilian targets indiscriminately. They make up content about attacks on American and Israeli targets, including one on Wednesday that featured a fabricated video of a missile striking Liberty Island in New York Harbor. They regularly mention Jeffrey Epstein.

Iran is waging what researchers have described as a sophisticated information war, aided by Russia and China, that is spreading content designed to exploit worldwide opposition to the U.S.-Israeli military campaign and deflect from the country’s considerable losses on the battlefield.

Nearly a month into the war, Iran’s state media outlets and covert operatives are producing a steady torrent of propaganda, overstated narratives and outright disinformation. They are often wielding generative A.I. tools to create increasingly realistic-looking images and videos, according to human rights organizations and research groups studying foreign influence.

Much of the false content has been debunked, but not before reaching millions of people on X, Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and other social media platforms.

The information war, the researchers say, has given Iran’s beleaguered leadership a weapon almost as potent as its ability to

disrupt the world’s energy economy

by throttling shipments of oil through the Strait of Hormuz. While the impact of the information war can be difficult to measure, experts said it appeared to have stoked popular anger and unease about the conflict in the United States and beyond.

“They’re winning the propaganda war,” Darren L. Linvill, a director of Clemson University’s Media Forensics Hub, said of the Iranians. “They were prepared for it more than the administration, because they’d been preparing for this entire conflict for 50 years.”

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