Disinformation Firm Uncovers Iranian Bot Network Targeting Scottish Independence

An Iran­ian bot net­work tar­get­ing Scot­tish inde­pen­dence has been exposed by a dis­in­for­ma­tion secu­ri­ty firm inves­ti­ga­tion that revealed the state-con­trolled nature of a mas­sive dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paign tar­get­ing UK uni­ty. In July 2025, Cyabra report­ed that 1,332 fake pro­files sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly pro­mot­ed Scot­tish inde­pen­dence nar­ra­tives before abrupt­ly ceas­ing activ­i­ty dur­ing Iran’s nation­wide black­out on June 13, 2025, then resum­ing with pro-Iran­ian mes­sag­ing after the Israel-Iran con­flict. The report begins:

This report presents an in-depth analy­sis of the online dis­course on X between May 11 and June 28, 2025, with a spe­cif­ic focus on the inter­sec­tion of Scot­tish inde­pen­dence nar­ra­tives and mes­sag­ing favor­able to Iran­ian inter­ests. The pri­ma­ry objec­tive is to assess whether this con­tent reflects a delib­er­ate­ly orches­trat­ed cam­paign, pre­dom­i­nant­ly exe­cut­ed by fake accounts attrib­uted to Iran, tar­get­ing audi­ences in the U.K and across West­ern soci­eties. Cyabra’s inves­ti­ga­tion seeks to uncov­er evi­dence of coor­di­nat­ed inau­then­tic behav­ior, eval­u­ate efforts to manip­u­late pub­lic sen­ti­ment, and sup­port the broad­er assess­ment that Iran sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly deployed fake pro­files as a means of embed­ding pro-Iran­ian mes­sag­ing with­in organ­ic Scot­tish polit­i­cal con­ver­sa­tions. These activ­i­ties aimed to inten­si­fy inter­nal divi­sions, and reshape geopo­lit­i­cal nar­ra­tives in Iran’s favor.

           Read more: https://lp.cyabra.com/hubfs/Reports%20Fiels/IRANIAN_BOT_NETWORK_EXPOSED_July_2025.pdf

Key Points

• 26% of ana­lyzed pro­files were iden­ti­fied as fake, col­lec­tive­ly pub­lish­ing over 3,092 pieces of con­tent pro­mot­ing Scot­tish inde­pen­dence and anti-Brex­it narratives
• The fake accounts sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly pro­mot­ed nar­ra­tives fram­ing the UK as oppres­sive while por­tray­ing Brex­it as a betray­al imposed on Scot­land against its demo­c­ra­t­ic will
• Coor­di­nat­ed bot net­work gen­er­at­ed over 126,000 user engage­ments and reached an esti­mat­ed 224 mil­lion poten­tial views through hash­tags like #Scot­tishIn­de­pen­dence and #Brex­it­Be­tray­al
• Fol­low­ing the 16-day silence, the same accounts piv­ot­ed to ampli­fy­ing pro-Iran­ian vic­to­ry nar­ra­tives while mock­ing Israel and the Unit­ed States as weak

Iran Disinformation Operations: AI, Cyber Tactics, and Global Influence Networks

Iran’s dis­in­for­ma­tion oper­a­tions have evolved into a sophis­ti­cat­ed, mul­ti-pronged cam­paign that lever­ages cyber­at­tacks, covert net­works, and AI-gen­er­at­ed con­tent to advance Tehran’s strate­gic inter­ests and under­mine adver­saries. Tehran’s dig­i­tal influ­ence strat­e­gy has reached new heights, with tac­tics such as AI-pow­ered video fab­ri­ca­tion on plat­forms like Tik­Tok being used to ampli­fy nar­ra­tives of mil­i­tary prowess and soci­etal divi­sion, often achiev­ing viral reach among glob­al audi­ences through emo­tion­al­ly charged, mul­ti­lin­gual mes­sag­ing. These oper­a­tions are not lim­it­ed to the Mid­dle East; exten­sive net­works in Europe, includ­ing the use of aca­d­e­m­ic part­ner­ships and cul­tur­al cen­ters in Italy, serve both to pro­mote regime ide­ol­o­gy and to sur­veil and intim­i­date dis­si­dents. In the Unit­ed Kingdom,

Iran­ian-linked actors have orches­trat­ed hybrid shad­ow warfare—combining dis­in­for­ma­tion, cyber intru­sions, and phys­i­cal threats against jour­nal­ists and oppo­si­tion fig­ures—while exploit­ing legal and finan­cial loop­holes to embed influ­ence with­in British insti­tu­tions. The Islam­ic Repub­lic of Iran Broad­cast­ing (IRIB) remains cen­tral to these efforts, blend­ing state media with forced con­fes­sions and inter­na­tion­al pro­pa­gan­da to rein­force Tehran’s ide­o­log­i­cal objec­tives. As West­ern intel­li­gence agen­cies and tech firms dis­rupt these cam­paigns, Iran’s adapt­abil­i­ty and inte­gra­tion of new tech­nolo­gies con­tin­ue to pose a per­sis­tent threat to infor­ma­tion integri­ty and demo­c­ra­t­ic resilience world­wide, with oper­a­tional link­ages span­ning from tar­get­ed cyber­at­tacks on oppo­si­tion media to the manip­u­la­tion of polit­i­cal dis­course in key Euro­pean states.

Exter­nal References:

1. U.K. Faces Ris­ing Threat From Iran­ian Plots, Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee Says

2. Israel-Iran con­flict unleash­es wave of AI disinformation

3. Hybrid War­fare Unfold­ed: Cyber­at­tacks, Hack­tivism and Dis­in­for­ma­tion in the 2025 Israel-Iran War

Disclaimer

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.