“If now forensics analysis is itself going to be doubted because we have these instances, this is now a new layer to the AI doubt,” said @mahsaalimardani.bsky.social of @witnessorg.bsky.social. “We are really going towards epistemic fracture in the information environment.”

This week the UN ITU's Radio Regulations Board is meeting on IRI’s demand to disable Starlink in Iran. This will set an important precedent for one of the key ways people are circumventing Internet shutdowns. Read the full breakdown by @farzdusa.bsky.social: iranianwomen4internet.org/blog.html

The video of the Iran war we can see is limited for many reasons. We're missing the intimate P.O.V. of amateur video. @morganmeaker.bsky.social speaks with @bellingcat.com's @eliothiggins.bsky.social, Witness.org's @mahsaalimardani.bsky.social & @hrcberkeley.bsky.social's @alexakoenig.bsky.social

There’s been a surge of AI-generated content around the military conflict in Iran. Now AI-detection tools are being weaponized to falsely discredit authentic evidence. @mahsaalimardani.bsky.social explains the brave new world of AI in wartime: lnk.to/onthemedia/b...

A wave of AI-generated images and video has emerged from the Iran war. But a new phenomenon is also observable, write shirin anlen and Mahsa Alimardani from WITNESS: the spread of technical-looking analyses used to discredit authentic evidence.

Incredible achievement: Trump has now made it possible to be simultaneously at war with the regime in Iran and allow Americans to buy and sell Iranian oil for the first time since 1996. Not even Obama’s JCPOA allowed this. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/20/w...

I am sorry to say but the Iran war took me back to X. I deleted by long time Twitter account a few years ago but I just opened a new one (had saved my names handle to avoid abuse) so I could a) contribute to demystifying the info-fog and b) sift through the fog.

nothing will induce me to go back on x but i'll note that breaking news events in the middle east don't happen here because the community for it isn't here. also? iran protests + war has been a fucking slop propaganda shitshow of x-poisoned insanity

Iran is the worst-case scenario for everything we’ve warned about: AI fakes, real footage dismissed as fabricated, and a regime that engineered the doubt itself. “The regime controls who gets to document and what gets documented.” I spoke to @morganmeaker.bsky.social for Bloomberg Weekend.

📻 Tune into this week’s show, featuring: @minnahfarshad.bsky.social, @mahsaalimardani.bsky.social, Samantha Gross @brookings.edu, and Erik Slavin @starsandstripes.bsky.social. lnk.to/onthemedia/b...

Roya Pakzad wrote this after the supreme leader was found and killed by Israel: "You see how the tools used as a system of oppression become a fragility for the oppressor?" On the irony of cameras built to police Iranians becoming the regime’s Achilles’ heel royapakzad.substack.com/p/youre-welc...

By keeping millions of people in a digital blackout but granting connectivity to a select few, Iran’s regime is openly using Internet access as a political tool. @mahsaalimardani.bsky.social explains: carnegieendowment.org/research/202...

Iran's regime stopped hiding behind security justifications. They're telling us directly: connectivity exists to control the narrative. Will the world act on this, or just condemn it? I unpack Iran's war time information ecosystemm and the solutions needed for @carnegieendowment.org

shirin anlen and I at @witnessorg.bsky.social did a deep dive into viral discrediting of authentic documentation of civilian casualties in Iran as AI-generated. The first case, fake heatmap analyses of real Tehran strike photos, spread widely. Many people I know believed it. That's the problem.

"The fog of AI does not need every piece of content to be fabricated. It needs the question ~Is this real?~ to become close to unanswerable." Great piece by @mahsaalimardani.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

The regime has been running this playbook since 2009, long before any US or Israeli strikes. But sure, you know better from the west with full connectivity @parismarx.com. Go off!

Funny, Iran's own spokesperson and Foreign Minister didn't use the cyberwarfare justification. They clearly said internet goes to those who can amplify the regime's voice. That's not a defensive posture. That's content policy.

Not to toot our own horns but I feel like we packed so much in this one hour panel with @karenhao.bsky.social and John Palfrey. You can find the recording at www.youtube.com/live/I1tJnM8...

دو تا تیک دوباره برمیگرده، نه؟ ❤️‍🩹

The AI information war in Iran is not overhyped. Spoke to France 24 about what @witnessorg.bsky.social Deepfake Rapid Response Force is tracking: synthetic media from all sides, the liar's dividend at wartime scale, authentic civilian evidence dismissed as fake. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ra87...

My piece in @theatlantic.com on what AI is doing to the information environment during the war in Iran. 175 children buried in Minab. Every fact about their deaths has been documented, verified, and geolocated. None of it has been enough to prevent the doubt from spreading faster than the evidence.

A manifesto by some of us dreamers aka Iranian Internet freedom lady nerds fed up with the internet shutdowns endangering the lives of our loved ones and our people in Iran. @azadehakbari.bsky.social @farzdusa.bsky.social @royapak.bsky.social & Afsaneh Rigot.

This is "our" Manifesto for a Free Internet. We are Iranian Women's Coalition for Internet Freedom. Happy International Women's Day! initiated by @azadehakbari.bsky.social @farzdusa.bsky.social @mahsaalimardani.bsky.social @royapak.bsky.social & Afsaneh Rigot

From Iran, in the middle of a war: “We’re pretty happy -sort of- depending on our distance from one of those Tomahawk missiles.”

Internet connectivity in Iran is now in a near-complete shutdown, down about 98% vs the previous week. The disruption began around 07:00 UTC, following reports of military strikes — and in past incidents the government has responded with nationwide Internet shutdowns.

From Iran during the early hours of the war -Iranians continue…

A great interview with @mahsaalimardani.bsky.social to re-share on the impact of comms blackouts in Iran. Regimes today weaponize the "Liar's Dividend" + AI to dismiss real images as fake and to create false narratives. Distorting truth & eroding trust in human rights documentation worldwide.

“Our technologies can anchor years of generational wisdom, not aid those creating the oppressive structures people need to navigate in order to survive."

Loved this read by Afsaneh Rigot of @thedecenter.bsky.social .

Who should embed provenance in AI content—the platforms distributing it or the developers creating the tools? India put the burden entirely on intermediaries. WITNESS argues the whole pipeline must share responsibility: developers, deployers, and platforms alike. www.techpolicy.press/india-bets-o...

India's synthetic media rules come into force Friday, the first to make platforms' legal protections depend on AI detection. On what's at stake and what India can still fix, for @techpolicypress.bsky.social www.techpolicy.press/india-bets-o...

These are mass #surveillance & censorship policies pushed as “child safety.” Threatening online anonymity. Back in 2021, De|Center’s Afsaneh Rigot explained why anonymity is essential to human rights work, including her own & for criminalized queer communities www.belfercenter.org/publication/...

I interviewed an expert on what's happening with connectivity in Iran: The longest blackout in Iran's history. Thousands dead. Documentation of war crimes dependent on Starlink. A regime that uses AI's ubiquity to undermine the credibility of evidence. www.theverge.com/policy/87184...

I wrote about Iran's protests for @theatlantic.com: how AI manipulation and the suspicion of it is being weaponised to dismiss real footage of protests. This piece draws on work from my stellar team at WITNESS and years of studying information controls in Iran and beyond.

Being an Iranian and following how an inspiring and brave movement to dismantle the tyranny that’s ruling Iran has deteriorated into possibly the worst massacre of protesters in documented history has been one of the heaviest things I've lived through --personally, professionally…hard articulate.

Cool spot line in @nytimes.com on WITNESS’ work helping frontline documenters capture video that is harder to discredit and supporting real-time authentication with journalists and fact-checkers in the age of AI. Read here: www.nytimes.com/2025/11/18/m...

AI regulation should build trust, not control. India can lead by adopting rights-based, interoperable AI transparency standards. Grateful to @internetfreedom.bsky.social whose work on India’s digital-rights landscape helped shape our intervention. www.witness.org/witness-call...

WITNESS submitted inputs to two recent EU Commission calls for input (a) Art. 50 of the EU AI Act and (b) the upcoming Digital Omnibus. Our recommendations regarding art. 50 outline how transparency can work in practice while safeguarding rights: lnkd.in/dDmjnaMq

The new Computer Says Maybe episode with @samgregory.bsky.social and @alixdunn.com dives into AI video, trust and human rights. Happy to see WITNESS’ work featured and made so accessible. www.themaybe.org/podcast/stra...

This week Open AI walked back a call for the govt to backstop financing for its trillion dollar investments in data centers. This was only the tip of the iceberg; a slow bailout for AI firms is already underway. Read more from @ambakak.bsky.social and I in @wsj.com: www.wsj.com/opinion/you-...

🚨 Do not hand your unlocked phone to law enforcement 🚨 Normalising the surrender of unlocked devices — esp at borders — is a dangerous precedent Apple is fore-fronting. Pushing an unlocked phone as standard-issue ID &commercialising #surveillance under the guise of “convenience” #privacy #digitalID

“Every participant who was detained by authorities & had biometrics enabled, said they were violently forced to unlock their phone. […]” The research is clear: those with biometrics lost the power to resist device searches. Only using passcodes had some ability to refuse, delay, or obscure access.

"How we choose to act now will determine whether our shared basis for reality — what we see and hear — remains trustworthy." Generative video's threat to visual truth and what we can do about it, and why concerted action matters now, in @transformernews.ai www.transformernews.ai/p/sora-is-he...

I had one of those difficult conversations on Venezuela with my dear @ayoub.bsky.social in @thefirethesetimes.com. I deeply appreciated having a welcoming space for such a complicated conversation and being able to keep calling attention to what is going on. thefirethesetimes.com/2025/06/10/a...

With the announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize to María Corina Machado, we're diving once again into endless debates about her political position - with media calling her "far-right" or "radical right."

📣 Germany's close to reversing its opposition to mass surveillance & private message scanning, & backing the Chat Control bill. This could end private comms-& Signal-in the EU. Time's short and they're counting on obscurity: please let German politicians know how horrifying their reversal would be.

1/Citizen Lab’s new report on PRISONBREAK is a must-read. It exposes an AI-enabled influence operation targeting Iran with deceptive media, from the infamous Evin Prison gates video to deepfake music.

Also, @haaretzcom.bsky.social @themarkup.org has an exclusive companion report here, authored by Gur Megido and Omer Benjakob 👇 www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...

1/ NEW REPORT: “We Say You Want a Revolution” - An AI-Enabled Influence Operation Aimed at Overthrowing the Iranian Regime. We call it PRISONBREAK. Keep reading to find out why. THREAD 🧵