The creation of new accounts “is a repeated hallmark of dis- and misinformation actors… [who] participate in the conversation to push a narrative,” said Steph Shample, a non-resident scholar with the Middle East Institute’s Cyber Program. Content from such accounts is not trustworthy, she said.
The harm comes “more when important public figures, such as politicians or educators, retweet the false narratives of controlling countries and their politicians,” said Shample.
Any account on any social media platform that is successfully posting pro-Iranian government material while most of the country is cut off from those services is suspect, she said. “It is very, very dangerous to take things at face value anymore.”
Shample suggests that the government itself could be behind some of the anti-regime tweets in an effort to track those who support the movement.