By Jana al-Masry | 2024-12-19

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has deployed an extensive artificial intelligence (AI) network to hunt down and silence opposition activists, with women's rights defenders facing the most aggressive digital persecution.

The Iranian regime seeks through digital influence operations to persuade audiences of democracy's weaknesses while promoting its own authoritarian system of governance, say cybersecurity watchers.

It also seeks to suppress domestic dissent through intimidation and media saturation.

This crackdown comes as Iranian authorities repeatedly accuse foreign actors of attempting to sow domestic unrest -- a claim that appears increasingly hypocritical given Tehran's own documented cyber manipulation.

"Iran has been trying for some time to keep pace with technological developments," said Mazen Zaki, director of the New Media Department at Egypt's Ibn al-Walid Center for Studies and Field Research.

Authorities are "especially focused on AI and using it to launch cyber operations and hacking" against opponents at home and abroad, he said.

In 2022 alone, a coordinated network of at least 7,000 pro-regime accounts generated more than 45,000 messages aimed at discrediting protesters.

Iranian authorities also use "cyber proxy groups" to foment discord within the opposition, Zaki said, noting that "the main focus of the Iranian authorities is ... female activists."

In mid-2022, tens of thousands of bots began systematically targeting women's rights organizations on Instagram -- one of the platforms most used by Iranian activists for raising awareness and organizing movements.

Targeting female activists

Targeting woman opponents is "a top priority for the Iranian regime because they have made a big difference in all matters related to human rights violations," political analyst Abdul Nabi Bakkar told Pishtaz.

Following the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody in 2022, Iranian authorities employed AI facial recognition to identify and harass unveiled women.

The regime also uses this surveillance technology, which matches public video footage against government ID databases, to punish businesses serving unveiled women, according to Reuters.

"After direct repression through prosecutions and arrests that netted thousands of opponents, attention is currently being given to electronic persecution and the dissemination of fake news," Bakkar said.

He called on social media platforms to dismiss "the reports sent by Iranian bots to close opposition accounts."

He also asked them to "delete posts and comments made by Iranian bots, and [dismiss] the reports that are pouring in from bots against the owners of real opposition accounts."

"If this is done, it will fully close the door and prevent the regime from using modern technologies to serve its agendas," Bakkar said.