The Atlantic

Iranian Propaganda Targeted Americans With Tom Hanks

It’s yet another attempt by a government to use Facebook to sow discord in the United States.
Source: Facebook, Tom Hanks

Facebook announced its latest takedown of what the company calls “coordinated inauthentic activity”—and this time, the propaganda network didn’t originate in Russia à la the 2016 election, but in Iran.

About a million people followed one of 82 suspicious pages, groups, and accounts on Facebook or Instagram. One of the largest, “No racism no war,” had more than 400,000 page likes before Facebook took it down, according to tracking by CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Atlantic

The Atlantic4 min readAmerican Government
How Democrats Could Disqualify Trump If the Supreme Court Doesn’t
Near the end of the Supreme Court’s oral arguments about whether Colorado could exclude former President Donald Trump from its ballot as an insurrectionist, the attorney representing voters from the state offered a warning to the justices—one evoking
The Atlantic4 min read
Your Phone Has Nothing on AM Radio
This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here. There is little love lost between Senator Ted Cruz and Representative Rashida Tlaib. She has called him a “dumbass” for his opposition to the Paris Climate Agre
The Atlantic7 min readAmerican Government
The Americans Who Need Chaos
This is Work in Progress, a newsletter about work, technology, and how to solve some of America’s biggest problems. Sign up here. Several years ago, the political scientist Michael Bang Petersen, who is based in Denmark, wanted to understand why peop

Related Books & Audiobooks