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Anthropic Disrupts Iran’s Use Of Claude To Spread Propaganda, Spy On Dissidents
By RFE RL
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By Frud Bezhan
Key Takeaways:
- Anthropic’s Sept. 11 threat report (Dec. 2025–Aug. 2026) says it blocked state users—including from Iran and China—from using its models to push propaganda and watch dissidents and ethnic minorities.
- It names Iranian cultural and propaganda bodies it says used Claude for “cognitive warfare,” campaign plans, personas, and target lists, including work on Khamenei’s July funeral. It also says it stopped an MEK-linked influence push that scraped 500-plus social channels to profile people inside Iran.
- Other claims: state-aligned users built surveillance tools (including a malicious Firefox add-on and watch lists of opposition accounts). The firm also says criminals, agencies, and researchers in places such as Russia and China used AI models to design weapons and pathogens—company allegations, not court verdicts. No methods.
Anthropic said it has disrupted attempts by Iran, China, and other countries from using its artificial intelligence (AI) models to disseminate state propaganda and spy on ethnic minorities and dissidents.
That is according to the AI company’s latest threat intelligence report issued on September 11, which covers incidents from December 2025 to August.
The report also said criminals, state institutions, and scientists, including in Russia and China, were using AI models such as Claude and Gemini to design missiles and bombs as well as create deadly pathogens.
‘Cognitive Warfare’
Anthropic named several Iranian state institutions it said were using its AI models to shape public opinion inside and outside the country.
The entities include the Islamic Culture and Communications Organization, which operates under the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance and oversees Iran’s official cultural diplomacy and international relations abroad; the Islamic Propaganda Office, a religious organization; and the Islamic Propaganda Organization, a religious and cultural group.
Anthropic accused the institutions of running “cognitive warfare” campaigns and promoting narratives created by the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the elite branch of Iran’s armed forces that plays a prominent role in politics and the economy.
“In each case, the operation relied on Claude to build campaign plans, doctrine manuals, persona systems, target databases, and ministerial planning documentation,” said Anthropic’s report.
“Using the model in this manner allowed them to generate complex organizational frameworks and assets that would otherwise have required a fully staffed program office to produce.”
In one case, the Islamic Culture and Communications Organization used Claude to “complete organizational plans” for the state funeral of slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that took place from July 3-9, Anthropic said.
Recruitment Tool
Anthropic also said it disrupted an “influence operation” by the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an exiled opposition group that seeks to overthrow the Islamic republic and that Tehran regards as a terrorist organization.
The operation, the AI company said, “used a shared AI agent to impersonate real people and recruit inside Iran.”
“The operation successfully scraped over 500 social media channels to build detailed profiles of individuals inside Iran,” the report said.
“They then grouped these targets by city, age, occupation, political alignment, and arrest history likely to help them tailor their messages to the specific audiences.”
Surveillance Operations
Anthropic said it also disrupted operations by state actors, including Iran, that used Claude to “build, run, and otherwise facilitate surveillance operations.”
In one case, Iran-based actors used Claude to build and deploy a malicious Firefox extension that harvested users’ identities from social media networks, the AI company said.
In another case, an Iranian actor used Claude to analyze hundreds of thousands of social media posts and chose 39 opposition accounts to monitor.
“The operators were state-aligned organizations that targeted the same diaspora and dissident communities these regimes have historically targeted,” Anthropic said.
- Frud Bezhan is Senior Regional Editor in the English-language Central Newsroom at RFE/RL, leading coverage of the Middle East, South Asia, and Central Asia. Previously, he was the Regional Desk Editor for the Near East, with a primary focus on Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. As a correspondent, he reported from Afghanistan, Turkey, Kosovo, and Western Europe.
About RFE RL
RFE/RL journalists report the news in 21 countries where a free press is banned by the government or not fully established.
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