Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Fake journalists spread anti-Israel disinformation, may be part of Iranian plot

(JTA) — Three fake journalists who seeded dozens of anti-Israel and anti-American stories on social media may have been part of an Iranian disinformation plot, a report said.

A Daily Beast investigation published Tuesday identified three purported journalists as posting stories on social media that seemingly came from reputable news outlets but were fake. Other fake stories were posted by accounts impersonating real people. Some of the fake stories eventually made it to legitimate news sites.

Characteristics of the fake news blitz were consistent with a known Iranian-aligned disinformation campaign, according to the Daily Beast, which reported that Facebook and Twitter were removing the fake postings.

Among the fake stories were an account of the head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency visiting with U.S. troops in Iraq; a phony threat of a Yemen-based terrorist group attacking an Israeli peace initiative launched in Bahrain; and a conspiracy by Israel and the United Arab Emirates to win President Donald Trump a second term.

Some of the stories were bizarre: One impersonated a French politician and claimed he got the coronavirus infection from chicken McNuggets.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.