Why Iran meddled in Scotland's independence referendum

The news that Iran interfered in the Scottish independence referendum is not terribly surprising. The Islamic Republic, along with Russia and China, was an early entrant into the fake news market, weaponising social media to spread misinformation. The object is to destabilise Western democracies domestically and thus weaken their ability to act on the international front. Iran’s Press TV and Russia’s RT function on the same basis — and both were noticeably enthusiastic about the possibility of Scotland voting Yes.

A report commissioned by Facebook confirms Iran set up proxy accounts on social media to push nationalist messages to Scottish users in 2014, including cartoons depicting David Cameron as ‘the embodiment of English oppression’. The propaganda operation appears to have been a pitifully modest and short-lived affair. Losing Scotland was bad enough but it turns out the Yes campaign couldn’t even keep the Ayatollah on board.