Disinformation Wars and the Real Voices of Iran
"I'm not a bot," a man’s voice speaks in Persian. “I’m a Baluch. From Jiroft.”
The short video begins with a view of his shoes and the ground beneath them, a simple, uncut shot showing that he’s filming inside Iran. Then he raises the phone and declares his support for Prince Reza Pahlavi. The son of Iran’s last Shah, who was overthrown in the 1979 Revolution, Pahlavi has become the most visible Iranian opposition figure calling for a secular liberal democracy to replace the Islamic Republic. More than that, he’s become a symbol to many Iranians of a free and democratic future.
This man from Jiroft was one of hundreds of Iranians who recently sent similar videos to me from every corner of the country, often through encrypted channels, risking arrest or worse just to say: we are real, and we are not bots.
Each clip follows the same format I asked for in a livestream I hosted, calling on Iranians inside the country to film short, verifiable messages of support for Pahlavi. Start from the ground, show your surroundings, speak clearly and without any edits, so that no one can claim the audio is altered. The result is a mosaic of real people from nearly every ethnic group in the country, including Baluch, Kurdish, Persian, and Azeri. They stand in city squares, near mosques, beside cars, or on quiet rooftops, all recording proof of their existence.
What sparked this wave was a lie. An October 2025 report in Haaretz, a left-leaning Israeli newspaper known for its longstanding hostility toward Israel’s right-wing governments, claimed that online support for Prince Reza Pahlavi was fake — the work of Israeli bots, sock puppet accounts, paid influencers, and artificial intelligence. To Haaretz and other like-minded voices on the Israeli left, anything advancing the narrative that the Iranian people desire a regime change benefits the hawkish Israeli right. As such, the Iranian support for Pahlavi was automatically regarded with a suspicion that, in this instance, veered directly into false assertions.
The accusation that the support for Pahlavi was manufactured as part of an Israeli disinformation war spread fast, making its way through Persian and English media circles in hours. But the response from inside Iran came faster, not through statements or press releases, but through hundreds of videos from ordinary Iranians who decided to show the world they were human.
The Haaretz piece pointed to a report by the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab as its main source. That report examined about 40 to 50 social media accounts that might have been coordinated; however, its authors conceded “we cannot attribute this to a particular entity.” Yet Haaretz turned those vague technical findings into a sweeping conspiracy about the Israeli government, fabricating an online cabal of Likudnik war hawks and their AI minions stoking regime change in Iran.
The claim made little sense. The Citizen Lab report itself admitted that the accounts it studied were small, scattered, and mostly insignificant, many with just a few hundred impressions. To call that a state operation, especially given the known sophistication of Israeli intelligence, is absurd. But Haaretz did not stop there. It named Israel’s Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel and linked her previous meetings with Pahlavi to its invented theory.
The result was a story that served no one except the Islamic Republic. For Tehran, the Haaretz article was a gift. It gave the regime an Israeli publication to cite as “proof” that Iranians who support Pahlavi are not real.
For Iranians inside the country who risk prison for even uttering his name, it was more than a lie — it was a weapon that could be used against them.
Within days of the Haaretz article, hundreds of Iranians began sending me videos to prove that they were real people, not bots or paid actors. Clips flooded in from every part of the country, including Tehran, Shiraz, Mashhad, Tabriz, Bandar Abbas, Isfahan, and small towns most people have never heard of. A young woman filmed herself at the edge of the Persian Gulf, saying, “Zendeh bad Reza Pahlavi, zendeh bad Israel” (“Long live Reza Pahlavi, long live Israel”). A man recorded himself near Milad Tower and said, “We are not AI. We are Iran.” Another whispered, “Even if they find me, I want this said.”
Each video followed the same pattern, yet each one told a different human story. Some speakers were proud and loud. Others spoke softly, fearing who might be listening. But all shared a common purpose: to show that real Iranians, living under the Islamic Republic’s control, are openly declaring their support for Prince Reza Pahlavi and for a secular, democratic future.
As I collected the videos together, the scale was overwhelming. I received so many submissions that I could not include all of them in one broadcast. I edited and posted dozens, then later uploaded the full half-hour compilation to social media. Within hours, it was viewed and shared widely by Iranians and Israelis alike.
What began as an accusation of “bots” turned into one of the most visible demonstrations of support for Pahlavi ever recorded from inside Iran.
The Haaretz article was not merely wrong. It was dangerous. By claiming that Iranians supporting Prince Reza Pahlavi were creations of Israeli propaganda, the newspaper handed the Islamic Republic exactly what it needed: an excuse to discredit and persecute real people. Inside Iran, the regime already calls dissidents “agents of foreign powers.” Now it could point to a publication from Israel itself as confirmation. Pro-regime Persian-language media echoed the Haaretz story without verifying it, and pro-regime activists shared these articles and segments online as proof that the Pahlavi movement is fake. Even some Western journalists and analysts who should have known better chimed in.
Emily Schrader, the Israeli-American journalist who had closely reviewed the evidence, was one of the first to expose the truth. She pointed out that the Citizen Lab report, the only source Haaretz had, never mentioned Prince Reza Pahlavi at all, and that its data were minimal and inconclusive.
What the editors of Haaretz may not have realized is that their story put Iranian dissidents in greater danger. For people already risking their lives to film a short clip saying “Zendeh bad Reza Pahlavi”, being branded as part of an Israeli operation could mean arrest, torture, or execution. In its attempt to attack Israel’s right-wing leadership, Haaretz ended up echoing the propaganda of one of the world’s most brutal — and far-right — regimes.
The sad irony is that while Haaretz accuses Israel of manipulating Iranians with fake accounts, the real disinformation empire has always been run from Tehran.
The Islamic Republic maintains an extensive network of propaganda outlets and online agents whose sole purpose is to spread confusion, distort reality, and silence dissent. Thousands of regime-linked accounts flood social media platforms every day, denying the crimes of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, attacking exiled activists, and fabricating stories about life inside the country.
Emily Schrader and others who monitor these networks regularly see hundreds of accounts created within weeks, all repeating identical pro-regime talking points. Many of them even comment under posts about women’s rights, pretending that the “hijab is now optional” or that “Iranians are happy.” These are not spontaneous opinions. They are orchestrated narratives designed to hide repression and erase the people who resist it.
Compared to this vast propaganda machine, Haaretz’s supposed “Israeli influence network” of 50 accounts looks absurd. But that did not stop the newspaper from publishing its story. The result was a tragic inversion of truth, a real regime that fabricates reality accused of being the victim of fake voices, and real Iranians fighting for freedom accused of being fake.
Meanwhile, the true picture was unfolding in full view of the world. In 2025, the Iranian opposition galvanized around Prince Reza Pahlavi, entering a new stage of organization and visibility. Major gatherings took place in Germany, beginning during the Munich Security Conference and later the Convention of National Cooperation to Save Iran on July 26. These meetings drew representatives from across the Iranian opposition and showed a level of coordination not seen in decades.
The movement’s message had also evolved. It now emphasized inclusion of Iran’s full diversity, including ethnic and religious minorities such as Kurds, Arabs, Baluch, and Christians, as well as gay, lesbian, bi, and trans activists, who were given such a platform for the first time in any Iranian political gathering. What began as a monarchist current has become a broad, pro-freedom coalition uniting people around secular democracy. Behind it stand real institutions. The National Union for Democracy in Iran (NUFDI) provided policy structure and outreach. The Iran Prosperity Project released detailed economic and governance plans for rebuilding the country after the fall of the Islamic Republic. A new campaign hub, Iran ra Pas Migirim, meaning (“Iran, We Take It Back”), connected activists around the world and coordinated efforts. To help local organizing, the Garde Jâvidân Iran booklet gave ordinary Iranians practical guidance on forming small, secure cells to resist the regime.
All of this showed that the movement was not a random online surge or a creation of bots. It was a maturing, structured network linking people inside Iran with a global diaspora that had learned how to plan, fund, and coordinate. These were the people behind the videos. From the streets of Tehran to conference halls in Munich, they were building the foundation of a future Iran while proving that their voices could no longer be erased.
Each of those videos from inside Iran was more than a political statement. It was an act of resistance against silence itself.
For decades, the Islamic Republic has tried to erase the idea that Prince Reza Pahlavi or the prior ruling monarchy still has support inside the country. Western media has often accepted that narrative without question. But the voices that arrived in my inbox told a different story. They were factory workers, students, mothers, engineers, and soldiers, each taking a personal risk to be seen and heard.
What united them was not nostalgia for a past king but belief in a future where Iran could again stand free, secular, and connected to the world. When they said “Zendeh bad Reza Pahlavi”, they were not repeating a slogan. They were defying a system that punishes hope. In that sense, these recordings were not propaganda but proof that Iranians are ready to reclaim their identity from both their oppressors and the foreign commentators who misrepresent them. Proof that courage can still travel through firewalls and fear, crossing from whispered phones in Iran to millions of screens abroad. The lie that began in a newspaper ended up revealing something far greater than it tried to hide. It showed that truth itself has become the most powerful form of protest.
One of the last videos I received came from a woman who kept her face hidden. She filmed from a quiet street at night. Her voice was calm but steady.
“They said we are not real. Then let them see us.”
That line stayed with me. It summed up the entire movement better than any speech or report ever could.
Videos continue to arrive in my inbox. Each one carries the same message: that even under the weight of one of the world’s most repressive regimes, Iranians will still find a way to speak. Haaretz called these people bots. What it accidentally uncovered instead were the real hearts and voices of a nation that refuses to disappear.
Published Dec 08, 2025
