False claims spread online after Iran missile attack on Iraqi airbases – By Jim Waterson (The Guardian) / Jan 8 2020
Iran state TV claims ‘terrorists’ killed as agency in Kuwait says its false news was result of hack
Iran’s missile attacks on two Iraqi airbases have been accompanied by a spread of online disinformation, falsely labelled images and claims of news sources being hacked, which have added to jitters in the region regarding the attacks.
Iranian state television said on Wednesday that at least 80 “American terrorists” were killed, despite the US making clear that it had not sustained any casualties as a result of rocket attacks on Iraqi military bases hosting American troops. The attacks occurred in retaliation for the US’s assassination of the powerful Iranian general Qassem Suleimani.
Iran has a long history of running state-backed disinformation campaigns which attempt to influence opinion overseas, with Facebook regularly banning Iranian pages it believes are spreading false and divisive material aimed at audiences in the US and UK.
Twitter suspended an account impersonating the Israeli journalist Jack Khoury, which had been used to promote false claims that hundreds of US soldiers had been injured in the attacks and claimed they had been secretly evacuated to a hospital in Tel Aviv by a military aircraft.
“A fake account impersonating me was pushing fake news with my name on it. It has been suspended from Twitter,” said the real Khoury, who works for Haaretz newspaper.
Kuwait’s state news agency, Kuna, has claimed its Twitter account was hacked after it was used to claim that US troops would be withdrawing from the Gulf kingdom, which borders Iraq.
Continue to article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/08/false-claims-spread-online-after-iran-missile-attack-on-iraqi-airbase
