IUVM: Iran-linked influence content network
May 1, 2024
OpenAI banned accounts associated with the Iran-origin operation "IUVM", using AI to generate and translate pro-Iran, anti-Israel and anti-US website content.
Actor
Behavior
This campaign targeted global audiences and focused on content generation in English and French. It used our models to generate and proofread article(opens in a new window)s, headlines and website tags. This content was then published on IUVM’s current website, iuvmpress.co (earlier IUVM domains were seized by the FBI in 2020(opens in a new window)).
The articles were typically created the day before they were published; the website tags were created immediately before publication and were likely automated. On one occasion, we identified a set of website tags that included our model’s response message, suggestive of automation (or poor proofreading).
Content
The content that this network generated consisted of long-form articles, headlines and website tags. This content was typically anti-US and anti-Israel and praised the Palestinians, Iran, and the “Axis of Resistance”.
Impact assessment
Using the Breakout Scale(opens in a new window) to assess the impact of IO, which rates them on a scale of 1 (lowest) to 6 (highest), we would assess this as a Category 2 operation, marked by posting activity on multiple platforms, but with no breakout or significant audience engagement in any of them.
Indicators
We identified the following domains as being associated with this campaign.
- iuvmpress.co
- iuvmarchive.org