Tons of media outlets from Forbes to The Daily Caller ran articles pushing for regime change in Iran which were written by an “Iranian activist” named Heshmat Alavi who “appears not to exist,” according to a new report from The Intercept.
Alavi, in reality, is reportedly a creation of the Western-backed Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK) terrorist group which is working to overthrow the Iranian government.
The Intercept’s Murtaza Mohammad Hussain reports:
Hello, I have a story about that shows the extent to which the debate over Iran policy has been turned into a snake pit of disinformation that leads from social media to news outlets all the way up to the White House: https://t.co/wobaKrZEXg
— Murtaza M. Hussain (@MazMHussain) June 9, 2019
For about a year after Trump took office an Iranian activist named Heshmat Alavi wrote more than 60 articles for Forbes and other news outlets, calling for the administration to end the Iran nuclear deal and pursue an aggressive policy of maximum pressure policy against Iran. pic.twitter.com/jvBlwar0jC
— Murtaza M. Hussain (@MazMHussain) June 9, 2019
According to multiple sources this person, also very active on Twitter as @HeshmatAlavi, does not exist. In fact, he is a persona run by a team of people working for the controversial Iranian opposition group MEK to try and influence U.S. discourse on Iran. pic.twitter.com/0SNNf7k6nl
— Murtaza M. Hussain (@MazMHussain) June 9, 2019
They seem to have wild success. Among other places Heshmat’s articles have apparently been getting an audience in the Trump White House. In 2018 the WH helped justify its controversial decision to leave the Iran nuclear deal by forwarding reporters copies of his pieces in Forbes. pic.twitter.com/0xdvkpJ8nk
— Murtaza M. Hussain (@MazMHussain) June 9, 2019
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Additionally there has also been a campaign to harass Iranians disfavored by the MEK online of which Heshmat is a key. For casual observers it can really seem like tens of thousands of Iranians support their policies or at least hate the same people that they do. It works, sadly. pic.twitter.com/wjS55SRPjq
— Murtaza M. Hussain (@MazMHussain) June 9, 2019
A few years ago a popular pro-Assad online persona named Sarah Abdalla was accused of similarly being a disinformation op. But even Sarah didn’t get articles published in news outlets and read in the White House. None of those that published Heshmat ever actually spoke to him.
— Murtaza M. Hussain (@MazMHussain) June 9, 2019
In addition to those published articles his tweets are followed and sometimes shared by think tankers and his blog “Iran Commentary” is used a source for stories by other outlets, including this piece by @Kredo0 https://t.co/H58IWNQGKv pic.twitter.com/lMk5s8rBYQ
— Murtaza M. Hussain (@MazMHussain) June 9, 2019
Additionally there has also been a campaign to harass Iranians disfavored by the MEK online of which Heshmat is a key. For casual observers it can really seem like tens of thousands of Iranians support their policies or at least hate the same people that they do. It works, sadly. pic.twitter.com/wjS55SRPjq
— Murtaza M. Hussain (@MazMHussain) June 9, 2019
For someone so widely published there’s no much other online trace of Heshmat. There’s one heavily filtered side photo used for articles (left) and an unfiltered version of that photo you can find online (right). All in all it’s a shady story. pic.twitter.com/06y6jXHtVk
— Murtaza M. Hussain (@MazMHussain) June 9, 2019
Thanks also to my great editor @Ali_Gharib for his help pushing (very hard) for reporting on this persistently and advocating for it.
— Murtaza M. Hussain (@MazMHussain) June 9, 2019
ALAVI’S ARTICLES TEND to mix scathing denunciations of the Iranian government with not-so-subtle suggestions that it might be replaced by the MEK and its leader, Maryam Rajavi. The group seems to have had great success with Alavi, particularly at Forbes.
The Intercept reached out to editors at the outlets that Alavi has published articles with over the past several years. None of these outlets were able to confirm that they ever spoke with or met Alavi. He was not paid for his writing at Forbes, the Daily Caller, or the Diplomat, according to spokespeople for those publications.
The question is not whether “he” was paid, the question is who paid these outlets to run “his” articles pushing for regime change in Iran. There’s only one world leader who has “openly express[ed] support for the escalating U.S. campaign against Iran.”
Although Alavi has published articles about Iran in a number of predominantly right-leaning publications, by far the most frequent publisher of his articles is Forbes. In a span of a year, between April 2017 and April 2018, Alavi published a staggering 61 articles for the Forbes website.
A Twitter account created under Alavi’s name in 2014 boasts over 30,000 followers, including a number of journalists and D.C.-based conservative think tank employees. The account frequently shares articles and hashtags praising Rajavi and shares footage of protests and events held by the MEK.
Alavi seems to have gained some purchase in right-wing circles in Washington. In addition to his many articles published by Forbes and other sites, Alavi also appears to run a blog called “Iran Commentary,” which describes its mission as focusing on “issues related to Iran and the Middle East.” One of its reports was recently cited as a source in an article from the Washington Free Beacon, a neoconservative site that takes an ultra-hawkish view on Iran.
The body of work published under Alavi’s name takes a consistently hawkish line toward the Iranian government and President Hassan Rouhani. Alavi’s articles also mixed criticisms of Iran and U.S. policy with overt advocacy for the MEK. His pieces in the Daily Caller, The Hill, and other outlets — though less numerous than his contributions to Forbes — employed a similar mix of advocacy against the Iranian regime and praise for the MEK. Though the MEK is known to be widely loathed among Iranians, Alavi described the group as the “main Iranian opposition group” in a 2017 Daily Caller article.
The Diplomat, a foreign policy website that published a handful of Alavi’s pieces in 2017, said that Alavi sent drafts from a Gmail account. Alavi pitched the outlet dozens of articles, though only a small number were accepted. The Diplomat stopped accepting pitches from Alavi after determining that his articles were not meeting publication standards, said a source who asked for anonymity to discuss internal matters.
This is why they want to shut down all alt-media. This is just scratching the surface of their fakery.
Though The Intercept tried to spin this as a “right-wing” thing, Forbes pushed these fake articles more than anyone else and they’re a neocon propaganda outlet.
MintPressNews’ Whitney Webb had a great article exposing The Intercept themselves last week.
You know whose a malevolent Silicon Valley influence on politics and THE guy responsible for giving a special interest group (the ADL) a key role in tech company censorship?
Your boss, Pierre Omidyar, who pays you half million dollars a year. Funny you don't bring him up… https://t.co/HEWMPGgTjY
— Whitney Webb (@_whitneywebb) June 7, 2019
A little known organization known as "The Trust Project", funded by tech billionaires in collusion with top MSM outlets, has weaponized tech company algorithms to destroy their competition: independent media.
My latest at MPN: https://t.co/ZcMVag4xgK
— Whitney Webb (@_whitneywebb) June 7, 2019
It was co-founded by Sally Lehrman who blames "competition" from non-MSM outlets for the current lack of public trust in MSM and Richard Gingras, Google VP for News. It was explicitly founded with the idea of using algos to homogenize the media landscape in MSM's favor
— Whitney Webb (@_whitneywebb) June 7, 2019
The Trust Project is funded by Silicon Valley billionaires including: Craig Newmark (Craigslist), Mike Markkula (former Apple CEO), and Pierre Omidyar (eBay, PayPal). It is also funded by Google and Facebook
— Whitney Webb (@_whitneywebb) June 7, 2019
Update: Turns out Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist and who provided seed funding for the Trust Project, is a major donor to the ADL and is on the ADL's tech advisory board. Will update my article with this shortly.https://t.co/nXHVNBduvu
— Whitney Webb (@_whitneywebb) June 7, 2019
Our media is so fake and phony it’s hard to believe.
Most news sites, even the alternative ones, are just propaganda outlets for the globalist billionaires and multi-millionaires who own them.
We’re approaching a point where you shouldn’t trust a site unless it’s being censored.
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