{"id":9876,"date":"2019-06-16T12:12:29","date_gmt":"2019-06-16T07:42:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/?p=9876"},"modified":"2021-10-25T12:41:35","modified_gmt":"2021-10-25T09:11:35","slug":"mek-fake-writers-and-state-funded-trolling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/posts\/9876","title":{"rendered":"Iran disinformation &#038; the curious case of Heshmat Alavi"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>US-Iran debates: Fake writers and state-funded trolling | The Listening Post <\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>On The Listening Post this week: Taxpayer-funded smears and a well-published but fake activist &#8211; worrying twists in the US-Iran online battle. Plus, the YouTube influencers of the Algerian protests.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<div style=\"width: 640px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-9876-1\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/mp4\" src=\"https:\/\/dlb.nejatngo.org\/Media\/Report\/Aljazeera_Alavi_MEK.mp4?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/dlb.nejatngo.org\/Media\/Report\/Aljazeera_Alavi_MEK.mp4\">https:\/\/dlb.nejatngo.org\/Media\/Report\/Aljazeera_Alavi_MEK.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n<p>As the Trump administration continues with its hawkish talk on Iran, we need to look at how that story is being crafted and by whom: Heshmat Alavi was once cited by the White House as a credible commentator on Iran. Shame he doesn&#8217;t exist.<br \/>\nIt turns out he is a fictional persona reportedly created by the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), a shadowy group opposed to the Iranian government and supported by Washington.<br \/>\nThen there is the Iran Disinformation Project funded entirely by the American taxpayer, ostensibly to counter Iranian propaganda, it trolls and sometimes smears Iranian-American commentators and journalists online.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Contributors<\/strong><br \/>\nNegar Mortazavi &#8211; consultant editor, The Independent<br \/>\nMaral Karimi &#8211; author, The Iranian Green Movement of 2009<br \/>\nTrita Parsi &#8211; founder, National Iranian American Council<br \/>\nTara Sepehri Far &#8211; Iran researcher, Human Rights Watch<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>US-Iran debates: Fake writers and state-funded trolling | The Listening Post On The Listening Post this week: Taxpayer-funded smears and a well-published but fake activist &#8211; worrying twists in the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9878,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[24456,90,20],"module":[27],"ctype":[26],"blog":[106],"class_list":["post-9876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mujahedin-khalq-proxy-force","tag-heshmat-alavi","tag-mujahedin-warmongers","tag-third-view-mek","post_format-post-format-video","module-reports","ctype-videos","blog-al-jazeera"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9876"},{"taxonomy":"module","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/module?post=9876"},{"taxonomy":"ctype","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ctype?post=9876"},{"taxonomy":"blog","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog?post=9876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}