Less than a month to the upcoming United States Presidential Election between President Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Joe Biden, Facebook and the country’s Treasury Department have accused Iran of allegedly interfering in the upcoming US polls.
Facebook Accuses Iran Of Threatening And Harassing US Voters
According to the popular social media platform, Facebook, Iranian hackers have been suspected of emailing threatening messages to US voters last week and spreading fake news about compromised election systems.
In a statement issued by its Head of Cybersecurity, Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook revealed that it has suspended one fake account, which in turn led them to more than 20 other accounts on Facebook and Instagram, revealing a dormant disinformation operation that has targeted other countries such as Israel and Saudi Arabia in 2019.
Gleicher also mentioned the newly-discovered accounts which had technical links attributed to Iran’s state broadcaster, as well as “connections to individuals associated with the Iranian government,” had also attempted to spread claims about an “alleged massacre” at last year’s Eurovision contest in Israel.
Some of the accounts posed as Americans and posted in Spanish and English about topics including race relations, feminism, and the environment, Facebook said. They were identified following a tip from the FBI, it added.
The US sanctions Iranian Group
Meanwhile, the US Department of the Treasury had earlier announced its decision to sanction the Iranian groups: Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the IRGC’s Quds Force, and the Bayan Rasaneh Gostar Institute for “having directly or indirectly engaged in, sponsored, concealed, or otherwise been complicit in foreign interference” in November’s presidential elections.
“The Iranian regime uses false narratives and other misleading content to attempt to influence U.S. elections,” Steven Mnuchin, the US treasury secretary, said in the statement.
Under the sanctions, the US has frozen the group’s assets in America and prohibited American citizens from engaging with the groups.
