22.01.2026
A fog of misinformation
Shutting down the internet has been hugely costly for ordinary people and allowed lies to flourish as never before. Yassamine Mather exposes the false narratives and finds hope in the largely ignored working class
Before we can discuss what is actually happening in Iran, we need to clear away the mountain of misinformation - fake news, recycled footage, deliberate lies, and AI-generated or AI-enhanced fabrications - that currently dominates coverage.
The near-total shutdown of the internet is designed to prevent news of protests and repression from circulating. Even though we are not currently seeing huge, nationwide, mass protests, the authorities remain deeply fearful.
In this vacuum, misinformation has flourished. Viral videos have circulated, claiming to show protestors successfully attacking police vehicles, only for close inspection to reveal visual inconsistencies that expose them as fake. Reports have emerged alleging that Indian nationals among the protestors had been arrested - claims so widespread that the Iranian ambassador was forced to publicly deny them in the Indian media. Inflated death tolls, far beyond what is plausible, have also been widely shared.
There have even been allegations of chemical weapons use by security forces, supported by recycled footage from earlier protests in Iran or from entirely different contexts. Clips from 2022 demonstrations, protests in the United States, and even footage of the Los Angeles riots have been repackaged and presented as supposedly taking place in Tehran. The scale of this misinformation is extraordinary.
Alongside this, a flood of pro-Pahlavi content has appeared online. Some of this, in my view, has been actively promoted by Israel’s Mossad and at least encouraged by European state institutions. Interestingly, Trump has not fully embraced this narrative - perhaps because he understands more about the limitations of the former shah’s son than some European policymakers. On X, I quoted in Persian a comrade who told me last Sunday how surprised he was that, after living in the US for decades, Reza Pahlavi’s English was so poor. The tweet went viral and, as I write, has had 208,000 viewers!1
Poor English is the least of his problems. In a recent video he appears to know next to nothing about the Middle East, referring to Saddam Hussein invading Iraq! American comedian John Stewart has done us a favour by adding his own commentary.2
The climate of misinformation, combined with reports of mass casualties, has fed a renewed wave of regime-change theories. Commentators such as John Mearsheimer have outlined supposed stages of regime change, framing recent events as part of a CIA-Mossad strategy that will eventually culminate in US military intervention.
There is some truth in parts of this framework. Iran has faced severe sanctions, currency manipulation and economic warfare. There have been protests, and there is evidence that provocateurs have played a role in escalating violence. But this does not amount to a coherent path toward regime change.
Sanctions are central to understanding Iran’s current crisis. They not only target oil exports: they also effectively block Iran from participating in, for example, Swift (the international banking system). As a result, Iran struggles to sell its oil or receive foreign currency payments. Although it does sell oil to China, it does so at a steep discount. Oil tankers cannot be insured through normal channels, forcing Iran into complex and costly logistical arrangements. Payments are often not made in dollars or euros, but are held in Chinese banks in yuan, or settled through barter. This money does not circulate through Iran’s wider economy.
The beneficiaries of this system are not ordinary Iranians, but state-linked oligarchs, private elites and institutions such as the Revolutionary Guards. The result is deepening poverty, inequality and economic instability for the majority of the population.
Iran’s foreign assets remain frozen in western countries, preventing the state from stabilising its currency. Foreign direct investment has collapsed. Contrary to earlier assumptions, the most recent currency crisis was not a gradual decline, but a sudden fall of around 30%, triggered in part by developments in the UAE. Dubai functions as a key external hub for Iranian currency exchange and, when confidence collapsed there, the sudden fall became inevitable.
Economic protests
It is misleading to claim that the protests were purely economic at first and only later became political due to foreign interference. In a dictatorship, economic protests always become political. The Iranian state was simultaneously negotiating, repressing and attempting to contain unrest.
Claims that protests were sparked by calls from Reza Pahlavi are simply not credible. Even Pahlavi himself has now distanced himself from that nonsense, denying that he called on people to take to the streets. Nonetheless, global media outlets - including the BBC and its wider echo chamber - continue to promote this narrative.
Foreign agents
There is evidence of some external involvement. Israeli officials and media have proudly claimed covert activity inside Iran, and credible reports suggest that armed, organised individuals played a role in escalating violence on specific nights. But these actors were not leading a revolutionary movement. They functioned as provocateurs within much larger, popular protests.
I heard a first-hand account of one protestor, telling me that the section of a demonstration she was on was shot at from behind - in other words, from inside the demonstration. A relative told me he witnessed shooting of the protestors by security forces, but what has made him sleepless is the beheading of someone who appeared to be a fellow protestor. Clearly it was not just the Islamic Republic’s security services who were killing the demonstrators. The Palestinian Authority’s ambassador to Iran, Salam Al-Zawawi, was hospitalised after an attack on her residence during protests in northern Tehran. It is difficult to imagine anti-government protestors targeting her. This has all the hallmarks of Mossad.
What is left after the protests is anger - not just against the regime, but also those who were telling Iranians to protest, as ‘help’ in the form of military intervention was on its way: ie, Trump, Netanyahu and Pahlavi.
We now know that thousands have been killed. Based on available and relatively reliable information, the toll likely exceeds 4,000. Supreme leader Ali Khamenei himself has acknowledged that the number of deaths runs into the thousands, even as he attempts to shift blame onto foreign agents.
I would argue that, if there is any truth in this claim, this admission means that after nearly half a century in power the Islamic Republic is incapable of preventing mass infiltration by foreign agents - or many citizens are willing to collaborate with them. This represents a devastating indictment of the Islamic Republic. A state that cannot protect its own citizens from foreign agents cannot plausibly claim to be in control of the country.
Meanwhile, the ongoing internet shutdown has intensified fear and uncertainty, both inside Iran and across the diaspora. Families cannot contact their loved ones. Journalists, doctors and emergency workers are unable to function effectively. Everyday systems - from education and healthcare to traffic enforcement and banking - depend on internet access.
The economic consequences are severe. Large sections of Iran’s workforce survive through precarious and gig-based employment. When the internet shuts down, these workers lose all income, not just part of it. Hunger, anxiety and poverty deepen. Attempts to bypass the shutdown through satellite services such as Starlink have largely failed due to state jamming and the cost involved.
In recent days, some shops have reopened, but consumer activity remains extremely low and cash dispensing machines do not function. Interviews - while uneven in reliability - consistently point to despair and hopelessness. This is not surprising.
External media had raised expectations of imminent regime collapse and foreign support. But when repression returned with full force, the psychological impact was devastating. This sense of loss can be more damaging than the conditions that existed before the protests began. The Financial Times on January 18 reported from a busy square in eastern Tehran:
… the shoppers and commuters that typically fill this bustling commercial hub of eastern Tehran have been replaced by black-clad riot police. At least one masked sniper is visible, perched on top of one of the armoured vehicles that now dot the square. At the centre of the scene is the charred shell of a municipal bus, burned down in the protests that tore through Iran this month. Draped across its blackened remnants is a banner bearing a blunt message reminding citizens of the cost of the unrest: “This was paid for with your taxes.”3
Rooted organisation
Despite repeated threats and contradictory statements from Donald Trump, direct US military intervention has not materialised. Claims that Trump personally prevented mass executions are implausible.
Several factors explain this restraint: the strategic risks of regional war, pressure from US allies, such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and fears of wider instability. Turkey, pursuing its own rivalry with Israel and regional ambitions, positioned itself firmly against any Pahlavi restoration, while seeking to bolster its pro-Palestinian credentials.
There was also no consensus on who would replace the Islamic Republic. Reza Pahlavi lacks credibility, organisational capacity and popular support inside Iran. Even within the limited field of the bourgeois opposition, he is arguably the least viable option. Rumours that the US was negotiating with Iranian regime ‘reformists’ seem well founded. But these figures lack the support of the Revolutionary Guards, who remain firmly loyal to the supreme leader.
Appeals to international human rights institutions will not deliver liberation for Iran. The same global order that issues UN resolutions and ICC rulings has done nothing to stop genocide in Gaza. Associating Iranian protests with Netanyahu or western intervention only discredits them further. The Iranian people face two enemies: a brutal internal dictatorship and a predatory external imperialism. Aligning their struggle with either is disastrous.
The most important - and most ignored - voices in this crisis are those of Iran’s working class. Oil workers, bus drivers, sugarcane workers and other organised labour groups have issued statements and leaflets that are clear, principled and consistent. They reject the shah’s son, oppose foreign intervention and stand against the Islamic Republic.
These voices point toward the only viable path forward: independent working class struggle rooted inside Iranian society itself. Everything else - media speculation, regime-change fantasies and external ‘saviours’ - lead only to defeat. That is the reality we must confront.