
Pro-Soleimani messaging floods Twitter following general's drone strike - notlukesky
https://www.cyberscoop.com/soleimani-twitter-revenge-campaign-disinformation/
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notacoward
How many anti-Soleimani messages have been posted from within the US? Are
those all going to be investigated as propaganda assets too?

Any rational person knows Soleimani was a dangerous person whose orders caused
significant instability and death throughout a large swath of Asia (minor and
major). Any rational person also knows that that alone does not make his
assassination legal. (It also does not make that assassination prudent or
effective, but that's a different discussion.) When a senior leader within a
nation is murdered by agents of a foreign government without even the decency
of declaring war first, _of course_ there will be calls for revenge. I'd
expect no different from my fellow Americans if Pence or Esper or Milley had
been targeted in a similar way. Heck, I'd expect worse. One cannot conclude
that there's an organized propaganda effort until the "natural" level of such
sentiment is accounted for.

~~~
defertoreptar
> When a senior leader within a nation is murdered by agents of a foreign
> government without even the decency of declaring war first, of course there
> will be calls for revenge.

I don't see why whether there was a declaration of war or not should matter if
people want revenge. However, since you brought it up, Trump did tweet this
all-caps tirade:
[https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/10212345256266096...](https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1021234525626609666?lang=en)
. I remember being very concerned that a president would post something like
that. Anyhow, you have to admit that it shows how Trump wasn't keeping
retaliatory plans hidden from Iran.

~~~
notacoward
You're right that it might not affect people's impulsive desire for revenge,
but a declaration does affect whether the US or Iran can claim any moral high
ground that would sustain such an impulse. Targeting foreign leaders is only
permissible _in_ war. The legal term is "jus in bello" but it's not applicable
without a declaration. Trump's tweet, belligerent as it was, wasn't even
structured as a declaration and wouldn't have counted if it was. By violating
both international law and our own law (congress's sole prerogative to declare
war plus EO12333 explicitly forbidding assassination), we have magnified the
threat to the people of Iran and bolstered any claim they might make that
their response is justified as self-defense (which international law allows
even outside of formal war).

~~~
defertoreptar
From what I'm reading, the Pentagon is saying that there was clear
intelligence that he was planning an imminent threat to American lives
(again), giving the president Article II authority to use force to act in
self-defence. Unsurprisingly, the intelligence is classified.

------
nopriorarrests
idk man...

"Twitter accounts claiming to be located in Iran and throughout the Middle
East pushed out many thousands of tweets under a handful of hashtags, such as
#HardRevenge and #DeathToAmerica", well, Iran has population of 81 mln people.

I can easily see 'many thousands of tweets' by legit real supporters of Iran
regime, considering that Soleimani was considered a war hero. Honestly, for a
country with 81 mln population, 'many thousands' does not sound like a lot.
It's not even 'tens of thousands'.

~~~
defertoreptar
> The company in June 2019 removed 4,779 accounts it said we linked to the
> Iranian government. Most of those accounts tweeted international news
> stories with an angle that portrayed the government in a positive light,
> while others were focused on engaging in conversations about Israel, and
> another subset used false identities to target global conversations about
> Iran, Twitter said at the time.

Also, I can't find a recent source, but Iran censors their people's internet,
including Twitter and Facebook. This article from 2013 says they lifted the
ban, but then shortly after re-banned it. So it's not even clear to me if
legitimate users can even use Twitter.
[https://mashable.com/2013/09/16/twitter-facebook-
iran/](https://mashable.com/2013/09/16/twitter-facebook-iran/)

~~~
smnrchrds
Everyone and their grandmother (literally) uses proxies and VPNs in Iran.
Telegram is also banned and censored, yet it remains the most popular
messaging/social network in Iran.

~~~
nopriorarrests
yeah, interesting tidbit about Iran and telegram is that russian telegram
channels who monetize themselves with ads can easily buy tens of 10k's of fake
iran followers to boost their 'social capital'. And since telegram does not
allow to check the geolocation of channel followers, some channels are growing
from like 3K followers to 100K overnight.

~~~
smnrchrds
I don't know about the fake accounts. But (almost) every real person I know in
Iran is on Telegram.

~~~
nopriorarrests
Yes, this surprises me too, since telegram accounts are tied to SIM cards, and
my best guess was that it's not easy to get a bunch of SIM's in Iran. But for
some reason, Iran bots are considered the cheapest ones out there...

~~~
phreeza
Very easy to get SIM cards in Iran when I was there some months ago.

