Clever video propaganda from Iran

…And yet another addition to my growing list of examples of how the Internet can be used for propaganda. WSJ on the new types of provocations occuring on the Iranian Internet: A video posted Monday morning on foreign events blog enduringamerica.com, hosted by a University of Birmingham professor, showed someone burning a poster of Ayatollah ...

...And yet another addition to my growing list of examples of how the Internet can be used for propaganda. WSJ on the new types of provocations occuring on the Iranian Internet:

…And yet another addition to my growing list of examples of how the Internet can be used for propaganda. WSJ on the new types of provocations occuring on the Iranian Internet:

A video posted Monday morning on foreign events blog enduringamerica.com, hosted by a University of Birmingham professor, showed someone burning a poster of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader, before a crowd of cheering people. Several readers thought the image was suspicious, in part because it didn’t show the burning poster and the crowd in the same shot.

It also didn’t appear to match other video taken at the university, said Scott Lucas, a professor of foreign policy at the university who started the blog.

"We consulted several people when the doubts arose," said Mr. Lucas, who added that it is possible backers of the regime make such videos to discredit the opposition. "We pulled it after it was up for about two hours."

Other Web sites showed video of protesters and the burning photos in the same frame.

Evgeny Morozov is a fellow at the Open Society Institute and sits on the board of OSI's Information Program. He writes the Net Effect blog on ForeignPolicy.com

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