MEK troll farm

The MEK troll farm is a troll farm reportedly run by People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK) in a camp located Tirana, Albania. The troll farm is estimated to have more than 1000 members who promote the opinions of MEK supporters, and attack the Iranian government. In 2021 Facebook removed hundreds of accounts associated with the group. The MEK has denied the existence of the troll farm and MEK's umbrella group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said that neither the MEK nor any of its accounts had been removed.
Reports and interviews
A report by the UK's Independent spoke over "the existence in the camp of what amounts to a Twitter troll factory." Also, 10 former MEK members were interviewed by The New York Times in February 2020, who said that the MEK's Albania camp managed a troll farm that promoted the ideas of MEK supporters, such as Rudy Giuliani and John Bolton, while criticizing the Iranian government. The MEK though said that former MEK members were spies for the Iranian government. A former MEK member also told The Guardian regarding a troll farm having 1,000 people inside the Albanian camp. He said the group spread pro-Rajavi and anti-Iran propaganda on Facebook, Twitter, Telegram, and newspaper comment sections in English, Farsi, and Arabic. A MEK spokesperson described these allegations as "lie". However, according to Marc Owen Jones, an academic who works on political bots on social media, "thousands" of suspicious Twitter accounts who had "Iran" as their location and "human rights" in their description or account name appeared in early 2016, all of which supported Trump and the MEK. Marc Jones added that these accounts were made in batches and used the hashtags #IranRegimeChange, #FreeIran, and #IstandwithMaryamRajavi to boost Trump's anti-Iran rhetoric.
According to Al Jazeera, the exiled MEK has constructed a center at its Albanian headquarters where 1,000 to 1,500 "online soldiers" are taught to spread hashtags in support of overthrowing the Islamic Republic. According to a former MEK member who spoke with Al Jazeera's Listening Post, the Albania-based MEK troll farm was instructed to tweet pro-MEK misinformation. He stated that members in Tirana received daily directives and that it was their responsibility to applaud anti-Iran statements made by politicians worldwide. On the other hand, MEK troll farm attacked anyone who was not sufficiently critical of Iran or who was critical of MEK.
Facebook intervention
In 2021, Facebook company removed hundreds of fake accounts which were associated MEK troll farm based in Albania. The company said that it deleted more than 300 accounts from a network associated with Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK) and that despite the group's limited success in attracting a major audience, it was operated by what looks to be a well organized troll farm affiliated with an exiled Iranian militant opposition organization. In some instances, the bogus profiles used images of Iranian celebrities or dissidents who had passed away. A small number of newer Instagram accounts seem to have utilized computer-generated profile images.
A statement from the MEK's umbrella group, the National Council for Resistance in Iran, said that neither the MEK nor any of its accounts had been removed. The group also denied the existence of an Albanian troll farm connected to the MEK.<ref name=":1" />

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