IUVM: Iran-linked influence content network

This case study was originally published in OpenAI’s May 2024⁠(opens in a new window) report.

We banned a small number of accounts linked to people associated with the International Union of Virtual Media (IUVM)⁠(opens in a new window), an Iranian entity that has been studied by the open-source community since 2018.

This campaign targeted global audiences and focused on content generation in English and French. It used our models to generate and proofread article⁠(opens in a new window)s, headlines and website tags. This content was then published on IUVM’s current website, iuvmpress.co (earlier IUVM domains were seized by the FBI in 2020⁠(opens in a new window)).

The articles were typically created the day before they were published; the website tags were created immediately before publication and were likely automated. On one occasion, we identified a set of website tags that included our model’s response message, suggestive of automation (or poor proofreading).

The content that this network generated consisted of long-form articles, headlines and website tags. This content was typically anti-US and anti-Israel and praised the Palestinians, Iran, and the “Axis of Resistance”.

IUVM’s online presence has been reduced by repeated social media takedowns⁠(opens in a new window) and the FBI’s seizure of its domains⁠(opens in a new window). Beyond its website, as of May 23, 2024, we identified IUVM-branded accounts on TikTok, VKontakte and Odnoklassniki. These social media accounts had, respectively, 10, 76 and 274 followers or subscribers.

Using the Breakout Scale⁠(opens in a new window) to assess the impact of IO, which rates them on a scale of 1 (lowest) to 6 (highest), we would assess this as a Category 2 operation, marked by posting activity on multiple platforms, but with no breakout or significant audience engagement in any of them.

We identified the following domains as being associated with this campaign.

• iuvmpress.co
• iuvmarchive.org