Banner: An employee of Press TV works in the newsroom at its Tehran headquarters, July 9, 2007. (Source: Reuters/Caren Firouz)

Sanctioned, deplatformed, and marginalized, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting’s (IRIB) English-language channel, Press TV, has struggled to build and sustain an audience, especially compared to Al Jazeera English or Russia Today (RT). As it fights to stay relevant and online – at a time when Iran’s influence has faced unprecedented challenges – Press TV is increasingly pushing its audiences toward less moderated platforms to avoid crackdowns, while attempting to bypass bans on mainstream programs through hiding its sponsorship.

Press TV’s current focus on criticisms of Israel’s war in Gaza and American foreign policy fits in well with alternative platforms, namely Rumble and Telegram, and their popularity with far-right audiences. These platforms provide new affinities for isolationist or anti-Israel messages. Press TV’s turn to alternative platforms thus offers a window into how foreign influence operations could increasingly capitalize on the fragmentation of social media and how foreign state media can use alternative platforms to spread their message.

Airing a mix of news, discussion panels, and documentary programs focused on Iran, the United States, and other global affairs, Press TV aspired to be a competitor to Al Jazeera or RT, and an answer to Voice of America and BBC’s Persian language services. Instead, Press TV never reached RT in audience size or production values, from the outset facing legal obstacles in the United Kingdom, United States, and European Union – shutting offices, limiting its ability to hire staff, and being kicked off satellites. Reflecting its production difficulties, Press TV does not have a consistent, long-running set of shows aside from news, instead routinely cycling through around ten recurring, long-form programs at any time, currently including Have It Out With Galloway, The Sobh Show (The Morning Show), Palestine Declassified, and MidEaStream.

Rather than holding itself out as alternative media for disaffected Americans and focusing on US politics, as RT sought to do during Occupy Wall Street and after, Press TV makes little effort to disassociate itself from Iran or substantively cover US affairs. For example, RT routinely covers American culture war issues, amplifying salacious stories related to transgender people, diversity policies, and “wokeness.” Instead, Press TV focuses on issues most aligned with the Islamic Republic – for example, its predominant focus on Palestine since October 7, 2023 – and attempts to push that Iran-aligned messaging as far as possible to friendly audiences.

Repeating its strategy during the 2020 US Presidential election, Iranian foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) operations (writ large) during the 2024 Presidential election were ultimately intended to escalate domestic division through exacerbating political polarization, as well as undermine the campaign of former President Trump. While Iran was responsible for perhaps the most intrusive and most discussed foreign interference episode, the breach of multiple Trump campaign advisors and a sustained attempt to plant damaging material in the press, in the end the material had a negligible impact on the political climate.

However, while Iran’s covert FIMI operations sought to exploit and escalate domestic divisions, namely through feeding on culture war and partisan issues, Press TV generally stuck to news and programming themes most germane to the Islamic Republic’s interests.  Press TV’s US political coverage ahead of the elections did not engage in the same strategy of exacerbating polarization as its covert operations or RT, and instead typically elevated Gaza as an election issue. In one segment illustrative of this approach, Press TV interviewed Arab Americans involved in efforts to boycott the election over Gaza while still including a balance of interviewing Harris voters. After the election, Press TV did not engage in partisan American discourse to the same extent as covert operations like the Iran-linked EvenPolitics, and instead downplayed election participation or criticized the incoming President often from an Iranian point of view. Whether due to strategy or resources, Press TV’s messaging was markedly different from Iran’s covert operations.

If Press TV had grand ambitions to compete with RT or BBC, it faced hurdles that other state broadcasters did not, forcing the broadcaster to turn to different strategies to foster audiences. Increasingly, Press TV appears to employ a two-part strategy to evade restrictions from social media companies: attempting to circumvent bans through hiding its association with shows while pushing viewers to smaller platforms with looser content rules, namely Rumble and Telegram.

For over a decade, Press TV has struggled to keep its accounts on platforms run by Meta, Alphabet, and other American companies. American and European sanctions and other legal actions against its parent IRIB undermined Press TV’s social media presence, for example, the Department of Justice seized the presstv[.]com domain name in 2021. While Press TV still operates openly on Meta’s Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, with relatively large audience shares, its accounts and the accounts of its programs are labeled as “Iran state-controlled media” and sanctions prevent it from advertising, potentially constraining its growth and appeal.

Press TV’s coverage and criticisms of social media companies reveal its frustration with takedowns and attempts to pressure platforms to moderate IRIB accounts – blaming “the Israel lobby” for even minor inconveniences. Moreover, given Iran’s sweeping internet filtering regime, which blocks most social media platforms, such censorship allegations provide an opportunity for Press TV to point out contradictions in Western criticisms of the Islamic Republic’s human rights record.

IRIB also sought to create its own alternative video platform ‘Urmedium’ – an effort that has resoundingly flopped. Across the nearly 70,000 videos hosted on Urmedium, beginning on January 1, 2021, only 97 videos have received more than a thousand views (nearly all of which are English-language Press TV clips related to South and North Korea, for reasons unknown at this time).

Breaking up with big tech

The ever-present threat of sudden and sweeping bans looms large over Press TV’s social media accounts.  With one opaque decision from an American company, an account with millions of followers and curated selections of videos, built over years, could be irrecoverably lost. At a time when Iran was increasingly being accused of hacking and covert foreign interference, IRIB’s online presence would inevitably come under threat from the focus of American law enforcement and policymakers.

IRIB learned the hard lesson beginning in 2020 and 2021 when Facebook and YouTube deleted several accounts for its channels, including the long-time Facebook account for Press TV with nearly four million followers. Moreover, even when Facebook tolerated IRIB creating new accounts, those accounts failed to reach nearly the same audience. For example, Press TV’s current Facebook page only has 29,000 followers at the time of publication. Deletion, and labeling of accounts, clearly inhibited Press TV’s growth.

The outlier among mainstream social media platforms is X/Twitter. Press TV has thrived on X, by far the largest audience for its accounts – fitting for the platform’s popularity for news – with nearly 386,000 followers at the time of publication. Press TV’s embrace of X is reflected in its level of activity and number of affiliated accounts. In addition to its main accounts, X hosts accounts for a broader set of shows than other platforms, issue related accounts, potential unbranded affiliates accounts, and even attempts at short-form series similar to Al Jazeera’s AJ+. As X relaxed rules around content and dropped its labels and restrictions on state-sponsored media, Press TV’s presence and audience has substantially grown by 114,000 followers since Elon Musk’s takeover in April 2022, around a 40% increase.

More notably, in early 2022, after the takedown of its YouTube and Facebook accounts, Press TV began turning to alternative platforms for promoting, live streaming, and hosting its content. Rumble and Telegram (as well as briefly Odysee), which brand themselves as having looser content moderation rules, are the top new favorites.

By April 2023, Press TV appears to have decided to more aggressively push its audiences to Telegram and Rumble, as an alternative to YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. This preference is apparent in Press TV’s frequency of posting, promotion of their accounts on those services, and its coverage of those platforms. Press TV also covers at length Western pressure on Telegram, frequently accusing Israel of censoring Palestinian content, and even controversies involving Rumble.

Press TV, and other IRIB channels, are especially active on Telegram, with the main Press TV account posting frequently to an audience of 43,000 subscribers, and dedicated accounts for its programs and staff (e.g. The Sobh Show, Palestine Declassified, reporter Marwan Osman). Press TV’s mainstream social media accounts, such as on X, push visitors to Telegram, and its video content frequently promotes its Telegram channels. Ultimately, the biggest driver of followers to Press TV’s Telegram account appears to have been conflict in the Middle East, with precipitous increases around after Hamas’s October 2023 attack, Iran’s April 2024 missile attack on Israel, and its second attack in October 2024.

On Rumble, Press TV livestreams the station and uploads a selection of content that is especially critical of Israel and American foreign policy, such as Palestine Declassified. Such videos often elicit anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic comments that would otherwise be banned from other platforms. While Press TV’s presence and viewership on Rumble has grown in the past year, it is still behind its prominence on other platforms and is small compared to other Rumble accounts. Still, Rumble provides a place to livestream and host long videos that – deprived of YouTube – other platforms cannot replace, and its audience far exceeds what it was able to achieve with its own standalone Urmedium platform.

Bypassing Bans and Unbranded Accounts

While its YouTube channel was deleted in 2013 and then again in 2020, Press TV has attempted to circumvent bans through recreating official accounts, apparent accounts that conceal their branding, or accounts that seem to be cutouts for the broadcaster. 

As of publication, there is once again a YouTube account claiming to belong to Press TV, hosting Press TV content and livestreaming the channel. However, the authenticity of the account is uncertain since the channel links to a different Facebook account than the official page. Both pages are substantially less professional than other official accounts, and neither are marked as state media.

What is clearer is that Press TV has started hiding behind its shows, concealing their ties with Iran. In recent months Press TV has begun creating separate channels for its programs with no Press TV branding, seemingly to avoid bans or public association with Iran. Have It Out With Galloway, hosted by former U.K. member of parliament, George Galloway, hosts content in his own channels with no association to Press TV, including by omitting the Press TV logo, unlike clips hosts posted to PressTV[.]ir or X/Twitter. The Sobh Show did so until it was apparently removed from YouTube around December 9, 2024, similarly hiding Press TV logos. Palestine Declassified additionally ran a YouTube channel, until it was taken down after complaints from an organization in the U.K. over its ties to Iran. Additionally, YouTube has not applied state media labels to Have It Out With Galloway or The Sobh Show, when the latter account was operational.

Have It Out With Galloway and other Press TV shows raise another risk for platforms’ attempts to label or restrict state media. There are blurred lines between what is ‘state-controlled media’ and contractors or ideological co-travelers. George Galloway has hosted shows on Press TV for over a decade, however, despite 700,000 views, YouTube has not labeled Have It Out With Galloway’s channel. Galloway also hosts, and seems to more actively promote a show (‘Mother of All Talk Shows’) that is similar in format but has no apparent links to Press TV.

While Meta has been more thorough than other platforms in labelling IRIB media, Have It Out With Galloway’s Instagram account is not labelled either (nor is its TikTok account). More broadly, Press TV recruits social media personalities to run shows similar to Galloway, for example British YouTuber Richard Medhurst, and has begun syndicating online content – creating a set of reporters and commentators that routinely show up across Press TV programs. As Press TV turns to these alternative strategies, it becomes increasingly difficult for social media platforms to externally understand where Press TV’s financial relationships and editorial control begins and ends, even where it is promoting and hosting shows.

Press TV’s evolving strategies for evading bans and limits on social media, and for reaching new audiences, show that dealing with state-sponsored media is not as straightforward as it once seemed.

State broadcasters can take advantage of the increasing fragmentation of social media and create thorny predicaments for platforms. If Meta and Alphabet continue to label and restrict overt state media, then entities like Press TV can attempt to fly under the radar with new accounts – a resource issue as the companies cut back on content moderation teams. Alternatively, this situation can create an uncomfortable dilemma through funding or amplifying independent media – both a resource and potentially a political issue, such as labeling or deleting the accounts of a former Member of Parliament.

Finally, while Press TV is unlikely to ever reach a mass audience, it can help shape perceptions of, and benefit from attention to, particular geopolitical interests of Iran, notably conflict in the Middle East. In such a case, even smaller platforms, such as Rumble, can help reach new, potentially more engaged, audiences and seed the Islamic Republic’s point of view. All the more so if its competitors are not active on those same platforms.

Taken together, the slow erosion of Meta and Alphabet’s dominance over social media is not solely an opportunity to be heard once again, but to be heard by audiences that wouldn’t otherwise seek out Iranian state-sponsored media. A bygone halcyon day for handling state media now increasingly past.

Simin Kargar is an non-resident fellow at the DFRLab.

Simin Kargar, “Iran’s Press TV in the foreign influence wilderness,” Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab), February 6, 2025, https://dfrlab.org/2025/02/06/press-tv-telegram-rumble/.