The New York Times:

By Steven Lee MyersNatan Odenheimer and Erika Solomon

During last month’s war between Israel and Iran, the countries turned social media into a digital battlefield, using deception and falsehoods to try to sway the outcome.

In the hours before Israeli forces bombed Evin prison in Iran’s capital on June 23, posts appeared on social media in Persian, foreshadowing the attack and urging Iranians to come free the prisoners.

Moments after the bombs struck, a video appeared on X and Telegram, purporting to show a blast at an entrance to the prison, which is notorious for holding political prisoners. One post on X included a hashtag, in Persian: “#freeevin.”

The attack on the prison was real, but the posts and video were not what they seemed. They were part of an Israeli ruse, according to researchers who tracked the effort.

It was not the only trickery during the conflict. Over 12 days of attacks, Israel and Iran turned social media into a digital battlefield, using deception and falsehoods to try to sway the outcome even as they traded kinetic missile strikes that killed hundreds and roiled an already turbulent Middle East. The posts, researchers said, represented a greater intensity of information warfare, by beginning before the strikes, employing artificial intelligence and spreading widely so quickly.

Information warfare, often called psychological operations, or psyops, is as old as war itself. But experts say the effort between Israel and Iran was more intense and more targeted than anything that had come before, and seen by millions of people scrolling on their phones for updates even as bombs fell.

The reason is that today’s technology — the ubiquity of social media and the advent of generative A.I. — has transformed the ability of countries to respond to events and to speak directly to citizens and others in real time in ways that are more believable than ever before.

Iran, for example, sent alerts in Hebrew to thousands of Israeli mobile phones warning recipients to avoid bomb shelters because militants planned to infiltrate them and attack those inside, according to researchers and official statements. A network of accounts on X attributed to Israel spread messages in Persian trying to erode confidence in Iran’s government, including ones narrated by an A.I.-generated woman.

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