Reddit Ignored A Year's Worth Of User Warnings About Iranian Propaganda

from the fake-plastic-trees dept

Not to be outdone by their friends over at the Russian Internet Research Agency, Iran has also amped up its online disinformation efforts in a bid to fill the internet with an additional layer of hate and nonsense. Like Russia's efforts, the goal appears to be focused on pouring some gasoline on the United States' deep, existing partisan, racial, and ideological divisions. According to recent analysis by security firm FireEye, the Iranian effort included a rotating crop of fake social media identities and websites, all of which pushed policies of interest to the Iranian government.

The effort included numerous bogus news websites and hundreds of fake accounts on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Earlier this month Facebook announced it had removed hundreds of accounts and pages tied to this effort, with one of the fake organizations ("Liberty Front Press,") having 155,000 Facebook and 48,000 Instagram followers. Twitter also subsequently announced that it had purged 770 different Twitter accounts found to be engaging in "coordinated manipulation" originating in Iran. It's a game of Whac-a-Mole that isn't likely to end anytime soon.

Of interesting note, Reddit users and a moderator had uncovered a number of these accounts more than a year ago. Some of these users were immensely-successful in getting Reddit love, with at least a quarter of the users considered Reddit "power users" with more than 10,000 karma (one of the suspended accounts, elikh13 had the top overall post on Reddit just last week). Iran's effort most heavily targeted r/WorldNews, the site’s third-largest subreddit with more than 19 million subscribers.

From July 2017 onward, a group of volunteers including a Reddit moderator from California named Alex Brown brought the bogus accounts to Reddit's attention more than two-dozen times, but were repeatedly ignored:

"Brown and other amateur researchers notified Reddit, but the website...did not respond." In total, there were more than two dozen times that the group of Reddit power users, led by Brown, notified Reddit employees of the Iranian disinformation operation, starting in July 2017, according to correspondence viewed by NBC News. The two most recent messages identifying Iranian propaganda to Reddit's paid administrators came on Aug. 16 and 18, just days before Facebook's pulldown."

After the FireEye report became publicized, Reddit joined Facebook and Twitter in shutting many of the accounts down. The company acknowledged that it had confirmed 143 accounts that were part of the Iranian effort, 126 of which were created between 2015 and 2018, and 17 of which dated back to 2011. From a post by Reddit CTO Christopher Slowe:

"We believe this type of interference will increase in frequency, scope, and complexity. We're investing in more advanced detection and mitigation capabilities, and have recently formed a threat detection team that has a very particular set of skills. Skills they have acquired...you know the drill. Our actions against these threats may not always be immediately visible to you, but this is a battle we have been fighting, and will continue to fight for the foreseeable future. And of course, we’ll continue to communicate openly with you about these subjects."

Reddit has reached out to Brown and the other volunteer researchers and apologized, and the company says it's continuing to work on standards and procedures to police evolving propaganda efforts moving forward. Brown told NBC News he appreciated the apology, but noted that sites like Reddit still aren't doing enough to police disinformation and propaganda. The website still has no hard rule prohibiting propaganda, though these users may occasionally run afoul of Reddit's restrictions on spamming.

It remains entirely unclear what actual impact these efforts had on the 2016 election and American discourse, but as the recently-revealed Macedonian disinformation efforts make clear, we're only just scratching the service of how deep this particular rabbit hole goes, which countries and governments are involved, and just how much cross-coordination has taken place.

Filed Under: content moderation, iran, trolls, warnings
Companies: reddit

Iran's President Comes Out Against His Country's Ban On Telegram

from the okay-then dept

We had just been talking about how Russia and Iran appeared to be taking similar, if not coordinated, actions to block the secure messaging app Telegram from their respective countries. While both countries couched the removal of this useful tool from its own people in the usual concerns over terrorism and national security, it was clear from the beginning that in both cases the concern was much more about dissent against the government rather than any actual violence. After all, with Telegram refusing to give away its encryption keys to these governments, the obvious interest by these countries is to be able to spy on the communications of their peoples.

The reaction to these bans has, unfortunately, largely been of the shrugging variety. The reputations of Russia and Iran in America being what they are, some of it undeserved, many simply waved this away as authoritarian regimes doing what authoritarian regimes do. With perhaps a dash of Islamophobia mixed in when it comes to Iran, care for the impact on the people there appears to have gone out the window, too. After all, the Supreme Leader chose to block the app, so what is anyone to do?

Well, it seems that, counter to the misconceptions many might have about the way Iran works, President Hassan Rouhani has come out criticizing the block on the app, saying both that he had nothing to do with it and that he disagrees with the move.

In a post on Instagram, Rouhani clarified on Friday that the blocking of Telegram was not imposed by his government and that he did not approve of it.

"If a decision has been made to restrict or block the communication of the people, the real owners of this country, which are the people, should be included in making such decisions," Rouhani said. The statement also said that the blockage was "opposite to democracy".

Cynics and hardliners might wave this away as either a show by Rouhani, or simply of no consequence as it's the Surpreme Leader that holds the real control over the country. And the former might possibly be correct, but I doubt it. Rouhani, whatever else you might say about him, is indeed more liberal than the very conservative religious rulers in the country. He is also tasked with duties that are more to do with the public in Iran, whereas the Surpreme Leader is a religious figure first and politician second, interacting far more with the religious leaders in the country than people and politicians. It would not be a surprise for Rouhani's objection for this to be very, very real.

And perhaps more practical than ideological, too. Rouhani had a front row seat to the Arab Spring that occurred in recent years in several countries in Persian and Arab nations. He saw first hand what happened when governments attempted to stave off dissent by clamping down on internet communication tools in this sort of heavy-handed way. I imagine he probably doesn't want his own country to repeat these mistakes.

Filed Under: censorship, hassan rouhani, iran
Companies: telegram

As Iran Joins Russia's Block On Telegram, The Echoes Of The Arab Spring Begin To Sound

from the history-repeats dept

As we have been discussing, Russia has engaged in something of an insane attempt to obliterate the application Telegram from its lands, following the company's refusal to hand over its encryption keys to Russia's FSB. Where this got really insane was Russia deciding to block hundreds of thousands of IP addresses, many of which are those of Amazon as Telegram had moved to the company's cloud service to get around the initial Russia blockade. As a huge swath of the internet in Russia subsequently broke, along with all sorts of Russian services that rely on the internet to function, many began to wonder what could be so severe in Telegram to warrant such a cluster bomb approach. Russia's answer was, of course, terrorism. The truth came in the form of a wave of protests in Russia, signaling that disallowing anti-government coordination via an encrypted messaging service is and always was the goal.

And now Iran has mirrored the approach of its international partner, blocking Telegram in its country as well. The sales pitch to the public as to the need to block Telegram is also the twin of the Russian approach.

Iran had previously tied Telegram to the ISIS attacks in Tehran in July of 2017. And the Iranian government had previously blocked Telegram temporarily in January during nation-wide demonstrations for what officials claimed were national security reasons. But according to Iranian press agency MNA, Iran's Parliament Committee of National Security and Foreign Policy Chairman Alaeddin Boroujerdi said in an April 1 radio interview that the service would be permanently banned and replaced with a domestically developed alternative.

It's worth putting this in the context of Iranian government enduring its own recent wave of protests. Once again, despite the wheeling out of the ISIS boogeyman, this is once again all about silencing dissent. The curtailing of internet freedoms, among more general freedom of course, has been tried in the past. In fact, if all of this sounds somewhat familiar, you may want to refer back to our coverage of the Arab Spring. While that uprising wasn't specifically to do with internet access and freedom, the attempts by Middle East governments to clamp down on the internet to stave off revolution made it no friends among the general public. Pissing off the general public is, of course, not the best way to keep a revolution at bay.

And, of course, the Iranian government is offering an alternative in an almost caricature-esque way.

The Iranian ban has had an impact on many government-connected organizations in Iran, since more than 40 million Iranians are believed to use the service. Those organizations have been moving to Soroush, the Iran-developed alternative promoted by the government that was released last week. The app comes complete with a “Death to America” emoji and “stickers” with messages supporting Iran’s leadership.

Cool. We'll see if that kind of cute anti-American death wish is sufficient to keep from pissing the Iranian public off. I'm of the opinion that it's a matter of when, not if, change is coming to that great nation.

Filed Under: encrypted messaging, iran, protests, russia, telegram
Companies: telegram

US Might Start A Nuclear War... Because Iranians Wanted Access To Academic Papers Locked Behind A Paywall?

from the seems-a-little-harsh dept

You probably saw one of the many stories about the US government charging nine Iranians with "conducting massive cyber theft campaign on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps", as the Department of Justice put it in its press release on the move:

"These nine Iranian nationals allegedly stole more than 31 terabytes of documents and data from more than 140 American universities, 30 American companies, five American government agencies, and also more than 176 universities in 21 foreign countries," said Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein. "For many of these intrusions, the defendants acted at the behest of the Iranian government and, specifically, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Department of Justice will aggressively investigate and prosecute hostile actors who attempt to profit from America's ideas by infiltrating our computer systems and stealing intellectual property. This case is important because it will disrupt the defendants' hacking operations and deter similar crimes."

That certainly sounds pretty serious, not least because some believe the US government may use this is a pretext for military action against Iran, possibly involving nuclear strikes. But what exactly did those Iranians allegedly steal?

The members of the conspiracy used stolen account credentials to obtain unauthorized access to victim professor accounts, which they used to steal research, and other academic data and documents, including, among other things, academic journals, theses, dissertations, and electronic books.

That is, they "stole" things like "academic journals, theses, dissertations, and electronic books" -- you know, the stuff that professors routinely publish as part of their work. The stuff that they desperately want as many people to read as possible, since that's how ideas spread, and academic credit is assigned. So rather than some "massive cyber theft" on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, is this not actually a bunch of people making copies of academic materials they and others want to read? We already know that Iranians have a particular hunger for academic knowledge of exactly this kind. An article published in Science in 2016 analyzed who was downloading unauthorized copies of scientific papers from Sci-Hub. Here's one striking result:

Of the 24,000 city locations to which [Sci-Hub downloaders] cluster, the busiest is Tehran, with 1.27 million requests. Much of that is from Iranians using programs to automatically download huge swaths of Sci-Hub's papers to make a local mirror of the site, [Sci-Hub's founder] Elbakyan says. Rahimi, the engineering student in Tehran, confirms this. "There are several Persian sites similar to Sci-Hub," he says. "So you should consider Iranian illegal [paper] downloads to be five to six times higher" than what Sci-Hub alone reveals.

Given that concentration of downloads from Sci-Hub in Iran, it's almost surprising the accused needed to break into US universities at all. The Department of Justice press release says that this activity has been going on since 2013, so maybe Iranians hadn't turned to Sci-Hub at that point. And perhaps there was other information they were seeking that was not available on Sci-Hub. A surprisingly precise figure of 31 terabytes in total is mentioned: how, exactly, was that calculated? After all, making copies of documents does not remove them, and people who break into systems tend not to leave notes about what they have "exfiltrated". It's hard to escape the feeling that 31 terabytes is simply the total amount of data they could have copied with all the credentials they obtained, and is used in the press release to make the incident sound bigger than it really is in order to justify any subsequent bellicose actions.

Of course, however much of whatever material was downloaded, breaking into other people's systems and accounts using stolen credentials is never justified. It's likely that the 8,000 compromised email accounts exposed a great deal of highly-sensitive personal information, which would arguably be a much more serious matter than the fact that journals, theses, dissertations, and electronic books were downloaded.

Still, this story doesn't really seem to be about 1337 Iranian government haxxors trying to undermine the US university system with a "massive cyber theft", as the over-the-top press release rather implies. It's more a bunch of unscrupulous individuals using fairly simple phishing techniques to get their hands on otherwise unavailable academic material, apparently to sell to others, at least according to the Department of Justice. It also suggests that if more of this academic work were freely available under open access licenses for everyone's benefit, rather than locked up behind paywalls, there would be less of an incentive for people to engage in this kind of illegal behavior. To say nothing of less risk of a nuclear war.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: cyber theft, cybersecurity, doj, hacking, iran, islamic revolutionary guard, open access

Iran Cracks Down On Movie Pirates In The Most Inception-Esque Manner Possible

from the pirate-vs.-pirate dept

For those of us that pay attention to copyright matters throughout the world, a story out of Iran has had us riding a strange sort of roller coaster. Late in September, the Iranian government arrested six people it says run the movie-streaming site TinyMoviez. That site is like many others on the web, focusing on the streaming of Hollywood movies in a manner that is pretty clear-cut piracy. Iran does have copyright laws on the books, which include punishments for "anyone who publishes, distributes or broadcasts another person's work without permission," ranging from imprisonment for a few months to three years for violating that law. There are, however, no agreements on copyright between American and Iran, for obvious reasons, so the application of Iranian copyright law tends to be focused on Iranian content. Many were left scratching their heads wondering why the arrest had been made.

Well, it turns out that the government carried this out at the request of several other websites dedicated to pirating Hollywood content in Iran. Iranian pirate sites that are officially licensed, in fact.

However, according to a source cited by the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), the site was targeted because rival pirate sites (which had been licensed to ‘pirate’ by the Iranian government) complained about its unlicensed status.

“In July and August [2017], there was a meeting between a number of Iranian start-up companies and [current Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Javad Azari] Jahromi, who was asked by film and TV series distributors as well as video game developers to help shut down and monitor unlicensed rivals,” a film distributor in Tehran told CHRI.

“The start-ups made the request because they could not compete with a site like TinyMovies,” the source added.

We live in very strange times, friends. Essentially, the Iranian government licenses websites that stream or upload Hollywood content for pirating, and TinyMoviez wasn't of the licensed variety. The licensed pirate sites complained to the government that they could not compete with an unlicensed pirate site and asked the government to shut them down. If you feel like you're trapped in a showing of Inception at this point, I won't blame you, as the concerns from licensed pirate sites sound almost identical to Hollywood itself. Pirates getting pirate sites taken down is a notable occurrence.

For its part, the Iranian government has suggested it took down TinyMoviez for far more banal reasons in the Iranian tradition.

“Tehran’s prosecutor, after referral of the case to the Cyberspace corruption and prostitution department, said that the defendants in the case, of whom six were currently detained, produced vagabond and pornographic films and sold them in cyberspace,” Tehran Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi said in an announcement.

“This gang illegally operated the largest source for downloading Hollywood movies and over the past three years, has distributed 18,000 foreign films and series after dubbing, many of which were indecent and immoral, and thus facilitated by illegitimate funds.”

Yet the site's offerings were essentially indistinguishable from that of the licensed pirate sites. This was all about the license, it seems. I'm not sure what it says about the state of copyright or ownership culture when we've reached the stage where pirates are getting pirate sites taken down by governments. Maybe this is the sort of thing that could only happen in a country like Iran. Or maybe the capture of the state through lobbying efforts has reached a new low. Either way, strange times.

Filed Under: copyright, iran, licensing, piracy

Iran The Latest Country To Use 'Fake News' As An Excuse For Widespread Censorship

from the be-careful-what-you-wish-for dept

Ever since people started flipping out about the so-called "fake news" problem on Facebook, we've been warning that this is going to lead to calls for outright censorship of certain ideas. In the US, we've already seen Rep. Marsha Blackburn argue that companies have some sort of obligation to make "fake" news disappear.

But even more concerning is that we're seeing authoritarian governments jumping onto the bandwagon, knowing that they can now use the banner of "fake news" to censor all sorts of content they don't like. A few weeks ago, China announced that it was ramping up internet surveillance efforts to "combat fake news," and now Iran appears to be doing the same thing. The Iranian government has decided that in order to crack down on "fake news," it's going to expand regulations covering public news channels on the instant messaging app Telegram.

As reported by Tasnim News, a hardline news agency affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, Iranian ICT Minister Mahmoud Vaezi made the announcement at a press conference during the National Conference on Public Service. Vaezi cited the dangers “unofficial news channels” pose in Iran's rural and less developed regions, where fake news and misinformation have gained sizeable audiences.

Considering that people have to trust the news released on these channels, it was decided that channels with more than a certain number of members will require a license.

Minister Vaezi's announcement builds on discussions now underway inside Iran's Supreme Council of Cyberspace, the country's chief authority on Internet policy. According to Vaezi, the ICT Ministry will manage the new licenses alongside the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance — the state agency responsible for regulating Iran's media. Vaezi says the government will form a committee in the coming months, and news channels with more than 5,000 subscribers will be required to win the committee's approval to continue operating legally.

So, for all of you complaining about fake news -- a broad term with no real meaning, and which allows people to claim that anything they dislike, or anything with a small error in it counts as "fake news" -- beware that you're basically handing an easy tool of censorship to governments like China and Iran that have long histories of stifling any kind of dissent. "Fake news" isn't necessarily a good thing, but freaking out about it is playing into the hands of censors worldwide.

Filed Under: censorship, fake news, iran, media

8 Years Later: Saeed Malekpour Is Still In An Iranian Prison Simply For Writing Open Source Software

from the free-saeed dept

We talk a great deal on Techdirt about the importance of free speech alongside the importance of not damning technological tools for the way third parties choose to use them. These matters can delve into minutiae in the American and Western forms of this conversation, with discussions about Section 230 protections and the like. But in other parts of the world, the conversation is much different.

Back in 2008 in Iran, for instance, the government there elected to imprison a Canadian resident of Iranian lineage, initially under a death sentence, but later commuting that sentence to mere life imprisonment. His crime? Saeed Malekpour created some open source code for sharing photos on the internet that others within Iran used for pornography.

Saeed was living in Canada as a permanent resident before he embarked on what was supposed to be a short trip to Iran in October 2008. While visiting his father in Iran, authorities decided to target Malekpour for his open source software program that others had used to upload pornographic images to the Internet.

His story is one of many that exemplify the fear Iranian authorities use to control the nation's Internet space. Saeed was charged with threatening the nation's Islamic ideals and national security via propaganda against the system, but evidence against him was scant. He spent time in solitary confinement and gave forced confessions — widely publicized on national television in 2010 — that were extracted under torture, including beatings, electrocution and threats of rape.

This follows the Iranian tradition of tamping down on the freedom and outcry of its own citizens by making examples of others. The guilt or innocence of these others is hardly relevant to this practice. In the case of Saeed, the target was the sharing tool, not the porn that others might have used it for. It's no mistake that Saeed's arrest came directly in the wake of the Iranian government's 2008 legislation blitz aimed at curtailing a free and open internet presence within its borders.

While groups like the EFF have been calling for his release for some time now, they are also currently running a campaign to help him through a letter-writing blitz targeted at Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. On Tuesday, the anniversary of Saeed's arrest, #FreeSaeed made its way around Twitter.

For those of us who believe in not only a free and open internet, but in the freedom to create and evolve digital tools -- without having to fear being targeted for the actions of others, particularly for benign actions like pornography -- it's a cause worth joining.

Filed Under: free speech, iran, open internet, open source software, photo posting, saeed malekpour

Literal Fashion Police Arrest Hundreds Of WhatsApp And Instagram Users In Iran

from the seems-reasonable dept

I'll admit I've had some fun in these pages with my friends over in the Iran over the years. In my defense, they have at times made the job quite easy for me, between trying to bolster their military reputation through video game footage, trying to suggest that the West carve out a non-free speech zone when it comes to criticizing Islam or members of its faith, and the country's policy of futility in trying to block its citizens from using the wider internet. These are actions worth criticism and scorn.

But things got a just a bit more dangerous for some in Iran this past week, as the country has announced it is cracking down on its citizens for actions against Islam and for infractions of fashion on display on several social media services. It seems some portion of the Revolutionary Guard has quite literally become the Fashion Police.

Iran has arrested or summoned about 450 social media users, a website linked to the Revolutionary Guards has reported. Users of apps such as Instagram, Telegram and WhatsApp have been targeted.

"These people were carrying out immoral activities, insulted religious beliefs or had illegal activities in the field of fashion," the Gherdab website said.

Details in the report or scant, but it's likely that those that have partaken in criminal fashion activities are undoubtedly female, and the criminal activity almost certainly involves perceived infractions against modesty that are taken so seriously in Islamic theocracies. This should provide a wonderful example of the benefits of secularism over theocracy, certainly, but it should also serve as a beacon of hope for change in a country run in the most unfortunate of fashions. Although, that previous statement comes along with the caveat that even the founders of secularism can manage an insane over-correction, such as what's currently going on along the beaches of Southern France, for example.

If we've learned anything over recent years, it's that demand for internet access and the ability for expression on its mediums will only grow, not shrink. And, if citizens of countries less free than others are bucking the rules, routing around the censorship and barriers to internet access, and partaking in expression so yearned for but considered illegal, no amount of claimed providence will keep those young men and, more importantly women, from growing up and changing their society to match their values.

Facebook and Twitter are banned in the Islamic republic, though software that provides access is easily available. More than half of Iran's 80 million population is online.

That's a good thing.

Not so good is potentially the fate of those caught in the current crackdown. Still, there is a reason that Iran makes such an effort of blocking its citizens from joining the rest of the networked world, and seeing so many of them streaming around the borders of the barriers means there is hope.

Filed Under: fashion police, iran, social media
Companies: instagram, telegram, whatsapp

State Dept. Press Briefing Video Had Tough Fox News Questioning Excised, Streisand Effect Takes Over

from the hmmm dept

We have covered all kinds of Streisand Effect type stories here at Techdirt, but I don't recall a whole ton of them featuring the actual United States federal government. Typically, those stories mostly deal with individuals and companies trying to keep something hidden and instead mega-upping the interest in that very would-be-hidden thing. This is different, as this story consists of the State Department apparently attempting to disappear some tough questioning by a Fox News employee. And, man, is it stupid.

Some background is in order. Back in 2013, the State Department held regular media briefings on the Iran nuclear deal. During one of those briefings, Fox News' James Rosen pressed then State Dept. spokeswoman Victoria Nuland as to whether the negotiations had begun in 2013, as the administration indicated, or in 2011, as some reports were indicating. The reason why the question is important is because the Obama administration has always portrayed this deal as having coincided with the ouster of former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, considered a hardliner, and the introduction of new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, considered a moderate. If it was found that Obama's State Department was actually negotiating with the hardliner, well, that's a story of public interest. Nuland denied to the press that any such previous negotiations had taken place.

Fast forward to later that same year, where we have another press briefing conducted by new spokeswoman Jen Psaki. Rosen, having continued to hear reports of previous negotiations, recited the previous exchange with Nuland for Psaki and then posed the same question to her. She didn't answer directly, prompting Rosen to then ask if it is the State Department's view that lying to the press to facilitate this kind of foreign affairs negotiation was kosher. Psaki's response was illuminating.

James, I think there are times where diplomacy needs privacy in order to progress. This is a good example of that. Obviously, we have made clear and laid out a number of details in recent weeks about discussions and about a bilateral channel that fed into the P5+1 negotiations, and we’ve answered questions on it, we’ve confirmed details. We’re happy to continue to do that, but clearly, this was an important component leading up to the agreement that was reached a week ago.

That's as close as it gets to a State Deparment official admitting that, yes, they're happy to lie to the press when it suits them. Now, fast forward again to the present, with a recent profile of Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communication, by the New York Times' David Samuels. In his piece, Samuels again accuses the Obama administration of lying to the press and the public about when these negotiations took place, stirring all this up once more. That prompted Rosen and Fox News to go back to the State Department video archives to review the briefing Psaki had conducted.

Rosen's questions and Psaki's answers had been deleted from the video recording. To blame? Well, first the State Department said it was a glitch in the video, one which apparently only removed the exact recording time of a tough question and answer exchange. But shortly after, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs John Kirby admitted the footage was removed deliberately.

A portion of the State Department’s December 2nd, 2013 press briefing was missing from the video that we posted on our YouTube account and on our website. That missing portion covered a series of questions about U.S negotiations with Iran. When alerted to this, I immediately directed the video to be restored in its entirety with a full and complete copy that exists and had existed since the day of the briefing on the Defense Video and Imagery Distribution system website otherwise known as DIVIDS. I also verified that the full transcript of the briefing which we also post on our website was intact and had been so since the date of the briefing. I asked the office of the legal advisor to look at this including a look at any rules that we had in place. In so doing, they learned that a specific request was made to excise that portion of the briefing. We do not know who made the request to edit the video or why it was made. To my surprise, the Bureau of Public Affairs did not have in place any rules governing this type of action therefore we are taking immediate steps to craft appropriate protocols on this issue as we believe that deliberately removing a portion of the video was not and is not in keeping with the State Department’s commitment to transparency and public accountability. Specifically, we are going to make clear that all video and transcripts from daily press briefings will be immediately and permanently archived in their entirety. In the unlikely event, that narrow compelling circumstances require edits to be made such as the inadvertent release of privacy protected information, they will only be made with the expressed permission of the Assistant Secretary of Public Affairs and with an appropriate level of annotation and disclosure. I have communicated this new policy to my staff and it takes effect immediately.

Laudible aims, but the damage has been done. In predictable fashion, the original exchange that was supposed to be buried is now not only unearthed but is making headlines once again, three years after it originally occurred. All because someone in the State Department wanted it covered up. And that someone will likely not be found, as the State Department appears to be uninterested in investigating this any further.

It's exactly the wrong thing to do. First, nothing is gained by the attempted coverup. In fact, the story is more widely known now than it would have been otherwise. And now we can add a dash of intrigue to this mix, by adding the story of the video edit on top of it. For a subsection of the population, this will confirm their paranoia and mistrust. And, looking at this story, it's tough to blame them.

But, thanks to the Streisand Effect, at least we know that the State Department is perfectly happy to lie to the press to achieve its goals, and then attempt to cover it up. I wonder if there are any current politicians running for office that this might reflect poorly on?

Filed Under: iran, james rosen, jen psaki, nuclear deal, state department, tough questions, transparency, victoria nulan, video editing

Iran Joins The Using Video Game Footage To Pump Up Your Own Military's Reputation Arms Race

from the fake-it-til-you-make-it dept

I suppose this was inevitable. As video games become more refined as an artform and as those games evince more realistic graphics, animations, and all the rest, I suppose it had to be that some folks out there would try to pass game footage off as real footage depicting their own power. I just never really thought it would be established nations that otherwise purport to be players on the world stage doing this. Yet, as we have seen done by Egypt, North Korea, and even Russia in the past, so too do we now find that Iran is trying to brag about its own military capability using game footage.

This all started with Iran's state-run media releasing a video it claimed to be of an Iranian sniper taking out members of ISIS.

That guy's a really good shot, right? Well, if the above footage looks somewhat familiar to you, even through the grainy capture and the fact that it's clearly video shot of a television showing the actual video, that's probably because you're played the video game Medal Of Honor.

But something about this video doesn’t seem right. That’s because the footage is actually from the video game Medal of Honor. Several details show this. First of all, when this imaginary commando kills a supposed IS group terrorist, a little symbol pops up in the bottom of the screen. It’s exactly the same symbol that appears in Medal of Honor when a gamer shoots his enemy in the head (“a headshot”). Secondly, while the soldier is shooting, you can see the words "Mfou” and "Wfou” written at the bottom of the screen. These stand for the different visors that players can use in Medal of Honor.

Oops. This isn't to say that Iran doesn't indeed have military assets taking on ISIS/Daesh. They certainly do. But when an easily debunked effort to pass off video game footage as victory marks for the war effort is put out, it will only serve to make the world wonder just how well the real effort is going. Probably horribly, because, you know, war. War never changes (See? I can do it too!).

But we'll set that aside for the moment and instead welcome Iran into the group of fake-it-til-you-make-it folks. There are snacks in the back, but they're just pictures of Mario Bros. mushrooms, so, you know....

Filed Under: iran, medal of honor, propaganda, video games