Iran’s IRIB Propaganda Network:  “Torture TV” Operations Exposed

Iran’s IRIB pro­pa­gan­da net­work has been iden­ti­fied as the regime’s pri­ma­ry tool for sup­pres­sion and inter­na­tion­al dis­in­for­ma­tion. On June 18, 2025, the Foun­da­tion for Defense of Democ­ra­cies pub­lished analy­sis by Brid­get Toomey and Toby Der­showitz detail­ing how the Islam­ic Repub­lic of Iran Broad­cast­ing serves as “Tor­ture TV,” using forced con­fes­sions obtained through tor­ture to intim­i­date the Iran­ian pop­u­la­tion while con­duct­ing glob­al influ­ence oper­a­tions in 32 lan­guages. The arti­cle begins:

Israel struck the Tehran head­quar­ters of the Islam­ic Repub­lic of Iran Broad­cast­ing (IRIB) on June 16, dam­ag­ing a key regime media organ. IRIB is far from an inde­pen­dent news chan­nel. Rather, it is a tool of the Islam­ic Repub­lic that uses tor­ture and oth­er unlaw­ful and inter­na­tion­al­ly con­demned puni­tive tech­niques to intim­i­date the Iran­ian pop­u­la­tion and deter dissent.

Read more: https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2025/06/18/10-things-to-know-about-tehrans-propaganda-network-the-islamic-republic-of-iran-broadcasting/

Key Points

• IRIB oper­ates 19 nation­al tele­vi­sion chan­nels with near monop­oly sta­tus, while the regime restricts pri­vate satel­lites and attempts to block Star­link access smug­gled by citizens.
• The orga­ni­za­tion works with Iran’s Min­istry of Intel­li­gence and Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guards to pro­duce forced con­fes­sions through tor­ture, often lead­ing to sham tri­als and death sentences.
• Meta exposed IRIB’s covert influ­ence oper­a­tions tar­get­ing the Unit­ed States in 2021, with oper­a­tions linked to the Inter­na­tion­al Union of Vir­tu­al Media front group.
• Tehran tripled IRIB’s 2025 bud­get to $480 mil­lion, enabling glob­al pro­pa­gan­da oper­a­tions across eight inter­na­tion­al TV chan­nels and radio pro­grams in 32 languages.

Iran & the IRIB: Digital Influence and Global Disinformation

Iran’s Islam­ic Repub­lic of Iran Broad­cast­ing (IRIB) serves as a core instru­ment in Tehran’s expan­sive dig­i­tal influ­ence and dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paigns, blend­ing state media with covert online oper­a­tions to project Iran­ian nar­ra­tives glob­al­ly. The IRIB’s exten­sive mul­ti­lin­gual broad­cast­ing net­work and dig­i­tal plat­forms are cen­tral to ramp­ing up dig­i­tal influ­ence oper­a­tions tar­get­ing diverse inter­na­tion­al audi­ences, often coor­di­nat­ed with the Islam­ic Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard Corps and intel­li­gence ser­vices. These cam­paigns uti­lize a com­plex web of seem­ing­ly inde­pen­dent news out­lets and social media accounts to ampli­fy Tehran’s mes­sag­ing, as seen in the deploy­ment of coor­di­nat­ed dig­i­tal cam­paigns that obscure facts and pro­mote Iran­ian-backed resis­tance. High-pro­file events like the Tehran Media Fes­ti­val, which hon­ors for­eign activists sym­pa­thet­ic to Iran’s cause, fur­ther illus­trate the regime’s efforts to expand its soft pow­er. The IRIB’s oper­a­tions span dozens of lan­guages and hun­dreds of plat­forms, pos­ing sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges to glob­al infor­ma­tion integri­ty and neces­si­tat­ing enhanced inter­na­tion­al coop­er­a­tion to counter these per­sis­tent influ­ence efforts. Inde­pen­dent research high­lights that Iran’s influ­ence cam­paigns are deeply embed­ded in its psy­cho­log­i­cal war­fare doc­trine, com­bin­ing tra­di­tion­al pro­pa­gan­da with sophis­ti­cat­ed dig­i­tal tac­tics, includ­ing the use of bot­nets and con­tent laun­der­ing through proxy web­sites. Despite sanc­tions and plat­form take­downs, IRIB’s influ­ence appa­ra­tus remains resilient, under­scor­ing the evolv­ing nature of Iran’s infor­ma­tion war­fare in the 21st century.

Exter­nal References:

1. Iran­ian dig­i­tal influ­ence efforts: Guer­ril­la broad­cast­ing for the twen­ty-first century

2. Face­book Says It Dis­man­tles Dis­in­for­ma­tion Net­work Tied to Iran’s State Media

3. Iran’s Use of Psy­cho­log­i­cal War­fare Against Its Adver­saries and Strate­gies for Deterrence

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.