Bogus Bylines: AI Lets One Iran-Origin Operation Run the Full Influence Playbook

Seven self-described Western journalists, none of whom exist, have placed nearly 100 articles in online outlets since July 2025.

On October 8, OpenAI disclosed that it had banned ChatGPT accounts originating in Iran that ran these personas as part of an operation it dubbed “Bogus Bylines.”

The case shows how AI empowers a single influence operation to run a wide range of tactics at once, from drafting and pitching articles to building personas and posting comments — work that once required fluent English writers, editors, and social media operators.

One Operation, Many Tactics

The Iran-based operators prompted ChatGPT in Persian to refine English-language articles, check them against outlets’ submission criteria, and draft pitches to editors.

They had the model write at least one persona’s biography and backed personas with accounts on X, Facebook, Instagram, Medium, and Threads. Outlets that ran the articles included London-based, pro-Hamas Middle East Monitor and the left-wing magazine CounterPunch. The publications generally focused on international affairs and the Middle East, sometimes from an antiwar or progressive point of view, but the operation also reached local American news: the Port St. Joe Star ran one of the operation’s articles, “The cost of American power in the Iran War,” which it received through PeaceVoice, an antiwar syndication service.

Output rose sharply after the U.S.-Iran war began in 2026. Once articles ran, the operators generated comments praising them, along with batches of replies portraying the United States as the aggressor, Israel as an unreliable ally, and Iran as a victim. They also produced more than two dozen batches of hostile Persian-language replies to social media posts by Iran International, a London-based broadcaster critical of the regime, which Tehran has declared a terrorist organization.

OpenAI rated the article placements Category 4 on the six-point Breakout Scale, signifying that the operation gained mainstream attention, unlike many foreign-influence operations.

An Old Playbook, Run at Scale

Iran-linked actors have long used false fronts. In 2019, FireEye found suspected Iran-linked personas with invented names, some posing as American journalists, placing letters and guest columns in U.S. outlets. In 2024, FDD identified a network of at least 19 websites posing as independent news outlets, whose articles typically carried no named authors. Bogus Bylines revived the persona approach at far greater volume, with AI helping refine its English-language drafts.

Washington has acted when it could attribute such activity. In October 2020, the Department of the Treasury designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Bayan Rasaneh Gostar Institute, an IRGC-Quds Force propaganda front, for interfering in that year’s presidential election, and the Justice Department seized 92 IRGC-linked domains, including four posing as U.S. news outlets. In 2021, Treasury sanctioned Emennet Pasargad, an Iranian cyber company that Treasury said led a state-sponsored campaign to influence the 2020 election. In 2024, the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency publicly identified fake local news sites run by Iranian government or proxy actors.

Strengthening Attribution

Imposing costs, such as sanctions and indictments, requires the U.S. government to identify who ran an operation, which OpenAI could not do. Early warning also could limit the articles’ spread: across 30 operations, OpenAI found that those placing content in real outlets tend to have the highest potential reach. Congress designated the Foreign Malign Influence Center (FMIC) within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) as the government’s primary organization for integrating foreign malign influence intelligence. Yet in August 2025, then-Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard called FMIC redundant and announced that its functions would be refocused and integrated into other ODNI components.

Congress should ask ODNI for an assessment of Bogus Bylines, drawing on FMIC’s statutory duty to provide Congress with assessments and warnings of foreign malign influence. The administration should designate a clear point of contact for threat reporting from AI companies and platforms and brief outlets that accept freelance submissions on how false-front personas operate. If the operation is attributed to Tehran, Treasury should build on the precedent set in the Emennet Pasargad case and sanction those responsible.

Jacob Breach is a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). For more analysis from the author and FDD, please subscribe HERE. Follow Jacob on X @JBreach. Follow FDD on X @FDD. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on foreign policy and national security.