00:04Hello and welcome to The Cube, Euronews' fact-checking show.
00:07If you stumbled across these social media accounts, you would think they were run by people living in Scotland.
00:14For several months, they shared photos of Scotland post-backing Scottish independence, as well as criticism of the British government.
00:21But researchers uncovered that dozens of these accounts were carrying out a coordinated campaign by spreading the same footage and
00:28hashtags.
00:29The profile spent months building up credibility with local audiences before shifting narratives when the U.S. and Israel's offensive
00:37against Iran escalated in late February.
00:40After the war started, they completely pivoted to posting pro-Iran footage of Iranian strikes on enemies of Iran, so
00:51Israel and other places, I think maybe Saudi Arabia as well.
00:56The content included posts glorifying the deceased Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as AI-generated images claiming to show the
01:04destruction of U.S. bases in the Middle East.
01:07Researchers found that these accounts were affiliated with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an elite paramilitary unit which has been
01:15accused of peddling foreign influence operations.
01:17Two subsets of accounts were uncovered, one group claiming to be from Scotland and England, and another from Ireland and
01:24Northern Ireland.
01:25Spanish-language profiles claiming to be based in Texas, California, Venezuela and Chile carried out a similar operation, according to
01:33researchers.
01:34Many of the profiles claim to be women, but in reality use stolen or AI-generated images as a ruse.
01:40Europol, the EU's law enforcement agency, says it shut down thousands of IRGC-affiliated accounts across 19 countries between February
01:49and April.
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