In a report titled “Fake Accounts, Likes and the Shah of Iran: Israel’s Digital War Against the Islamic Republic in the Shadows,” Le Figaro wrote about Israel’s campaign against the Islamic Republic on social media, which, according to the newspaper, is one of its clear goals “to promote Reza Pahlavi, the former crown prince of Iran.”
The Figaro newspaper wrote that after the twelve-day war, “another online battle” is underway on social media by Israel.
According to the newspaper, since Israel is closely following developments in Iran, and in a situation where the ruling Islamist power in Iran appears “fragile” under internal pressures and the threat of a possible American intervention, although after the attacks last June, “the pace of operations has slowed on the military front; but on social media, the war has never stopped.”
According to the report, in recent months, researchers and experts in the field of disinformation have reported an increase in coordinated campaigns targeting Iranian audiences; “campaigns directed from abroad and relying on a network of fake accounts and content manipulated or generated by artificial intelligence.”
Le Figaro wrote that these experts “point the finger of blame at Israel” as a country “that both intends to support the protests and highlight the image of Reza Pahlavi.”
Jeff Goldberg, founder of the independent organization Social Forensics (a specialist in analyzing manipulations on digital platforms), says: “The scope and complexity of the manipulations observed in the Persian-language space indicate the involvement of a state actor.”
Figaro quotes the researchers as saying that the methods described rely on “volume and coordination,” in which “networks of accounts repost similar messages with the same hashtags” to create artificial peaks of activity. “This accumulation of signals is enough to cause some content to rise to the top of the trend, regardless of the actual reception by users,” they say.
Le Figaro wrote that social forensics identified 4,765 accounts that each posted more than 100 messages per day, totaling 843 million tweets over their lifetime. Another 11,421 accounts also had unusually high engagement, registering a total of 1.7 billion “likes.” 8,830 accounts also changed their usernames multiple times, “a practice usually associated with coordinated operations.” Ultimately, 3,361 accounts linked to these conversations were suspended by the platform.
In his article, Figaro refers to a report published in the fall of 2025 by Citizen Lab, a cybersecurity lab affiliated with the University of Toronto, and cited by Haaretz, which speaks of an “infiltration campaign” using fake profiles. These profiles were created in 2023 and remained largely inactive for nearly two years, but suddenly became active in early 2025, at the same time as military tensions between Israel and Iran increased.
Citizen Lab shows that some content was published before similar information was reported by local sources or Iranian media. The researchers point to classic signs of coordination—such as simultaneous publication timings and the lack of credible identities—and write: “The degree of coordination observed is not consistent with organic dynamics and suggests centralized planning.”
According to Or Yissachar, an Iran expert at the David Institute in Jerusalem, this strategy is part of a global trend but with distinct Israeli characteristics: “All major powers today conduct infiltration operations on social networks. The difference with Israel is not in intent, but in the level of technological and narrative mastery.”
Le Figaro wrote that among the apparent goals of these campaigns is the “promotion of Reza Pahlavi”: “He enjoys the support of Israel and the monarchist narrative is reinforced on the networks.”
“Someone is working hard, especially on X, to portray Reza Pahlavi as the man of the moment, the voice and face of the opposition,” writes Philip May, a researcher at the Social Media Lab at Metropolitan University of Toronto. “Some accounts are sending their messages to a single audience, the President of the United States, to convince him to take action against Iran and support Reza Pahlavi,” he adds.
As a result, the X network has become filled with accounts with the “crown” emoji; fake identities used to simulate popular support. The technique, called “astroturfing,” creates “the illusion of mass mobilisation.” The Social Forensics report estimates that more than 95 percent of “crown” accounts are fake.