The IRGC’s digital strategy operates more like an intelligence-driven occupation of the information domain than a marketing agency. Every social media site, forum, and encrypted app is treated as a theater of “Soft War,” where the main objective is to make the truth so hazy and tiresome that the ordinary user just stops searching for it rather than necessarily winning people over to the dictatorship.
A vast, decentralized network of state-backed “influencers” and technical staff who create complete internet ecosystems rather than merely posting content forms the core of this operation. Thousands of Basij militants are trained by the IRGC to serve as digital footmen through groups like the Seraj Cyberspace Organization. These aren’t only automated bots; they are actual people who use coordinated scripts to mass-report accounts that contradict the state’s narrative, bully dissidents into silence, and swarm hashtags. This produces a psychological “chilling effect” in which the sheer volume of pro-regime rhetoric gives the impression that the populace supports them more than they actually do.
The IRGC has become quite precise in its hiring practices, shifting from noisy, ideological grandstanding to a more subdued “honey-pot” or professional soliciting style. To connect with people in the West or around the Middle East, they frequently pose as front companies, phony tech startups, or even phony NGOs. A recruit may believe they are being employed for a data entry project or a straightforward freelance research position.
The recruit has frequently already taken payment by the time they understand they are giving information to an IRGC handler, which creates a financial or legal trap that makes it very impossible to back out. They use terminology such as “Western decadence” or “anti-imperialist” to appeal to disillusioned people who feel excluded by their own governments.
In technical terms, their propaganda has developed into a “hack-and-leak” cycle that uses actual data as a weapon to fabricate narratives. They can cause domestic unrest by fabricating “hacktivist” personas and disclosing stolen material from private businesses or foreign governments. A global network of IRGC-funded news organizations then picks up these leaks and uses advanced SEO strategies and AI-generated material to make sure their version of the story remains at the top of search results. In Iran, they supplement this by creating a “halal” internet—a domestic intranet that compels users to use state-monitored apps while rendering outside platforms essentially useless. As a result, the digital world is divided into two tiers: One in which they freely disseminate their story to the world, and another in which they maintain a controlled condition of information scarcity within their own populace.
