Iranian-linked websites set up targeting US minority, veteran voters

A network of fake news websites with pro-Iranian leanings is spreading disinformation linked to the upcoming U.S. elections, targeting minority and veteran voters among other groups, according to findings from a hawkish think tank made public Friday.

The websites are the latest indication of Iranian-linked efforts to interfere in the U.S. election process, and the findings are likely to exacerbate concerns about how widespread Iran’s disinformation efforts are on U.S. websites.

Researchers at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies identified a network of at least 19 websites that posed as either news or as analysis sites. These sites, findings on which were shared first with POLITICO, include “Afro Majority,” a website that spreads favorable content on Vice President Kamala Harris and on Black Lives Matter, among other initiatives. Another site is “Not Our War,” which publishes posts critical of both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump mostly aimed at U.S. veterans.

Five of the websites in the network had been previously identified by other researchers. The FDD findings show that those sites are part of an expansive and coordinated influence operation.

All the websites appeared to spread at least a few pro-Iranian fake news or op-ed pieces, such as items praising the Iranian government’s response to recent protests on U.S. college campuses against the war in Gaza.

While FDD did not formally link the sites to the Iranian government, five of the websites have been previously linked by other organizations to Tehran.

Microsoft exposed two of the websites, billing themselves as “Savannah Time” and “Nio Thinker” last month as having ties to the Iranian government . Savannah Time billed itself as a news outlet for the city of Savannah, Georgia, a swing state region, while Nio Thinker posed as a left-leaning site with content aimed at reducing support for Trump.

Many of the websites used artificial intelligence, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, to generate content for the pages. OpenAI also flagged Savannah Time and Nio Thinker last month, along with three other linked websites, and described them as part of an “Iranian influence operation.” A website titled “Westland Sun” was also found by OpenAI, which appeared to target U.S. voters in Michigan, a key swing state for the November election.

Many of the sites are hosted on servers outside of the United States, and are still operating — including the websites first called out by Microsoft and OpenAI a month ago.

FDD called on the U.S. government to work with international partners on taking down the sites. FDD experts told POLITICO they had informed the Biden administration of their findings prior to publication, but declined to comment on which agencies were involved. POLITICO reached out to both the White House and the FBI, neither of which immediately responded to requests for comment.

The analysts said they were motivated to look into whether there was a wider array of websites linked to the effort after the Microsoft and OpenAI findings were released.

“When we first looked at this web hosting server, we saw a lot of domains,” Max Lesser, senior analyst on emerging threats at FDD and one of the report’s authors, said. “We don't believe that every domain on that server is related, but when we came through and actually looked at each domain on the primary server that was shared between the three domains that Microsoft exposed … we found that these appear to be Iranian influence operations.”

While most of the websites at first glance appeared to be more sophisticated and well designed, many of the websites do not have authors bylines on articles, or if they do, the individual does not appear to exist, and linked to social media accounts from the sites did not work.

The findings were made public weeks after the Trump campaign was hit by a hack and leak operation , which multiple U.S. agencies later attributed to the Iranian government. The campaigns of Biden and Harris were also targeted. In addition, Google Cloud’s Mandiant published evidence last week of an Iranian counterintelligence operation using dozens of fake pro-Israeli websites to find potential dissidents both in Iran and abroad that might be supportive of Israel.