US Department of Justice blocks 27 websites "linked to the Revolutionary Guard"
On Wednesday, November 4, the US Department of Justice announced in a statement that it had seized and blocked 27 websites associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that were spreading false information.
The US Department of Justice, noting that on October 7, it also seized and confiscated 92 internet domains used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, says that these actions against websites affiliated with the Corps are part of the US government's efforts to combat the spread of disinformation by foreign countries in the US elections.
The statement stated that these websites were trying to influence an American audience, despite the fact that some of them were entirely in Arabic or covered Middle Eastern news.
The Ministry of Justice has stated that some of these websites contained anti-American, anti-Saudi, and anti-Israeli content in line with Iran's foreign policy.
According to the report, some of these websites collected other people's material and published it under their own name. For example, a website called Critical Studies claimed that Senator Bernie Sanders was one of its authors and copied Senator Bernie Sanders' 2018 article from an American newspaper.
"Thanks to our ongoing collaboration with Google, Facebook, and Twitter, the FBI has been able to disrupt the Iranian government's campaign and propaganda machine. We will continue to confront any efforts by foreign actors to spread disinformation in our country," said Craig Fair, the FBI's special agent in charge of the case, in a statement.
The US Department of Justice says it was able to seize these websites because they were purchased from US-based domain registrars.
Twitter also announced last month that it had removed about 130 accounts that appeared to be linked to Iran.
According to Twitter, these accounts were attempting to disrupt the public discussion of the first US presidential election debate.
William Oyana, director of the US National Security and Counterintelligence Center, said in August that Iran was “trying to undermine the democratic institutions of the United States and President Trump and to divide the country ahead of the 2020 elections.”
He added that Tehran's motivation "is based on the perception that Donald Trump's re-election will lead to continued US pressure on Iran."
Source: Radio Farda
