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PRISONBREAK: The Influence Network Citizen Lab Tied to Israel's June 2025 Strikes

In Plato's cave, someone carries the objects in front of the fire. In 2025 a university lab found a group of fake accounts carrying objects in time with the bombs.

The finding​

The University of Toronto's Citizen Lab found a network it named "PRISONBREAK": more than 50 inauthentic X profiles whose activity "appears to have been synchronized, at least in part, with the military campaign that the Israel Defense Forces conducted against Iranian targets in June 2025." Its best assessment of the operator: "an unidentified agency of the Israeli government, or a sub-contractor" (Citizen Lab, 3 October 2025). The lab states the attribution as its hypothesis.

Why it matters​

  • Synchronized with strikes. An influence operation timed to military action is part of the war, not commentary on it.
  • Aimed at regime change. The report's own title describes AI-enabled operations "aimed at overthrowing" Iran's government, the same goal the President announced on 28 February 2026 ("take over your government").
  • It fits a record. Ynet documented a fake Iranian nuclear quote repeated by Israel's prime minister and U.S. officials (The Fake Vahidi Quote); Joe Kent described "high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media" deploying "a misinformation campaign." Israeli officials also spoke openly about operations inside Iran during the January 2026 protests: Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, "I can assure you that our people are working there right now," and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, "Happy New Year to every Iranian in the streets. Also to every Mossad agent walking beside them" (as quoted in comments on r/iran; the original posts were not opened).

Oxford researcher Vira Ameli warned in January 2026 that reporting on Iran "omits key context about the unleashing of organized armed actors and covert operations, publicly acknowledged by Israeli officials," and that "unexamined data and erased context... produces a misleading narrative that functions to manufacture consent for predetermined escalations" (X, 26 January 2026).

Every government runs these​

Iran runs influence operations too; an Anthropic report described three Iranian state-aligned operations using AI during the war, one operator describing the goal as "Not to be the narrator, but the director" (as summarized by @destinationXIX, 20 September 2026). The question for an American parent is which operations are shaping what Americans believe about whether their own sons should fight on Iranian soil, and which government asked the United States into this war. The State Department's lawyer answered the second question: Israel.

Sources​

Status: Amichai Eliyahu: Alive. Mike Pompeo: Alive. Vira Ameli: Alive.

Last Updated: 2026-09-26

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