# Incident I00080: Hundreds Of Propaganda Accounts Targeting Iran And Qatar Have Been Removed From Facebook
* **Summary:** “A BuzzFeed News investigation uncovered a network of websites and accounts using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social platforms to sow propaganda targeting Iran and Qatar. The accounts, which have now been taken down, appear to have been professionally run by PR firms based in the Middle East and Africa.”
* **incident type**:
* **Year started:**
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* **Found via:**
* **Date added:**
| Reference | Pub Date | Authors | Org | Archive |
| --------- | -------- | ------- | --- | ------- |
| [https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/janelytvynenko/uae-propaganda](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/janelytvynenko/uae-propaganda) | 2019/10/04 | Jane Lytvynenko, Logan McDonald | BuzzFeed News | [https://web.archive.org/web/20240221110457/https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/janelytvynenko/uae-propaganda](https://web.archive.org/web/20240221110457/https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/janelytvynenko/uae-propaganda) |
| Technique | Description given for this incident |
| --------- | ------------------------- |
| [T0097.102 Journalist Persona](../../generated_pages/techniques/T0097.102.md) | IT00000281 “One example of a fake reporter account targeting Americans is “Jenny Powell,” a self-described Washington-based journalist, volunteer, and environmental activist. At first glance, Powell’s Twitter timeline looks like it belongs to a young and eager reporter amplifying her interests. But her profile photo is a stock image, and many of her links go to the propaganda sites.
“Powell, who joined the platform just last month, shares links to stories from major US news media outlets, retweets local news about Washington, DC, and regularly promotes content from The Foreign Code and The Economy Club. Other fake journalist accounts behaved similarly to Powell and had generic descriptions. One of the accounts, for a fake Bruce Lopez in Louisiana, has a bio that describes him as a “Correspondent Traveler noun|linking verb|noun/verb/adjective|,” which appears to reveal the formula used to write Twitter bios for the accounts.”
The Jenny Powel account used in this influence operation presents as both a journalist and an activist (T0097.102: Journalist Persona, T0097.103: Activist Persona, T0143.002: Fabricated Persona). This example shows how threat actors can easily follow a template to present a fabricated persona to their target audience (T0144.002: Persona Template). |
| [T0097.103 Activist Persona](../../generated_pages/techniques/T0097.103.md) | IT00000282 “One example of a fake reporter account targeting Americans is “Jenny Powell,” a self-described Washington-based journalist, volunteer, and environmental activist. At first glance, Powell’s Twitter timeline looks like it belongs to a young and eager reporter amplifying her interests. But her profile photo is a stock image, and many of her links go to the propaganda sites.
“Powell, who joined the platform just last month, shares links to stories from major US news media outlets, retweets local news about Washington, DC, and regularly promotes content from The Foreign Code and The Economy Club. Other fake journalist accounts behaved similarly to Powell and had generic descriptions. One of the accounts, for a fake Bruce Lopez in Louisiana, has a bio that describes him as a “Correspondent Traveler noun|linking verb|noun/verb/adjective|,” which appears to reveal the formula used to write Twitter bios for the accounts.”
The Jenny Powel account used in this influence operation presents as both a journalist and an activist (T0097.102: Journalist Persona, T0097.103: Activist Persona, T0143.002: Fabricated Persona). This example shows how threat actors can easily follow a template to present a fabricated persona to their target audience (T0144.002: Persona Template). |
| [T0143.002 Fabricated Persona](../../generated_pages/techniques/T0143.002.md) | IT00000283 “One example of a fake reporter account targeting Americans is “Jenny Powell,” a self-described Washington-based journalist, volunteer, and environmental activist. At first glance, Powell’s Twitter timeline looks like it belongs to a young and eager reporter amplifying her interests. But her profile photo is a stock image, and many of her links go to the propaganda sites.
“Powell, who joined the platform just last month, shares links to stories from major US news media outlets, retweets local news about Washington, DC, and regularly promotes content from The Foreign Code and The Economy Club. Other fake journalist accounts behaved similarly to Powell and had generic descriptions. One of the accounts, for a fake Bruce Lopez in Louisiana, has a bio that describes him as a “Correspondent Traveler noun|linking verb|noun/verb/adjective|,” which appears to reveal the formula used to write Twitter bios for the accounts.”
The Jenny Powel account used in this influence operation presents as both a journalist and an activist (T0097.102: Journalist Persona, T0097.103: Activist Persona, T0143.002: Fabricated Persona). This example shows how threat actors can easily follow a template to present a fabricated persona to their target audience (T0144.002: Persona Template). |
| [T0144.002 Persona Template](../../generated_pages/techniques/T0144.002.md) | IT00000284 “One example of a fake reporter account targeting Americans is “Jenny Powell,” a self-described Washington-based journalist, volunteer, and environmental activist. At first glance, Powell’s Twitter timeline looks like it belongs to a young and eager reporter amplifying her interests. But her profile photo is a stock image, and many of her links go to the propaganda sites.
“Powell, who joined the platform just last month, shares links to stories from major US news media outlets, retweets local news about Washington, DC, and regularly promotes content from The Foreign Code and The Economy Club. Other fake journalist accounts behaved similarly to Powell and had generic descriptions. One of the accounts, for a fake Bruce Lopez in Louisiana, has a bio that describes him as a “Correspondent Traveler noun|linking verb|noun/verb/adjective|,” which appears to reveal the formula used to write Twitter bios for the accounts.”
The Jenny Powel account used in this influence operation presents as both a journalist and an activist (T0097.102: Journalist Persona, T0097.103: Activist Persona, T0143.002: Fabricated Persona). This example shows how threat actors can easily follow a template to present a fabricated persona to their target audience (T0144.002: Persona Template). |
| [T0145.006 Attractive Person Account Imagery](../../generated_pages/techniques/T0145.006.md) | IT00000280 “One example of a fake reporter account targeting Americans is “Jenny Powell,” a self-described Washington-based journalist, volunteer, and environmental activist. At first glance, Powell’s Twitter timeline looks like it belongs to a young and eager reporter amplifying her interests. But her profile photo is a stock image, and many of her links go to the propaganda sites.
“Powell, who joined the platform just last month, shares links to stories from major US news media outlets, retweets local news about Washington, DC, and regularly promotes content from The Foreign Code and The Economy Club. Other fake journalist accounts behaved similarly to Powell and had generic descriptions. One of the accounts, for a fake Bruce Lopez in Louisiana, has a bio that describes him as a “Correspondent Traveler noun|linking verb|noun/verb/adjective|,” which appears to reveal the formula used to write Twitter bios for the accounts.”
This behaviour matches T0145.006: Stock Image Account Imagery because the account was identified as using a stock image as its profile picture. |
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