Social media users have spread both true and false information about the social movement in Iran. Photo courtesy of Matt Hrkac via Wikimedia Commons.
By Sophie Glasco ’26
Staff Writer
Since September, women’s rights protests have erupted throughout Iran following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. Amini was, by eyewitness account, detained by the Iranian government, killed in police custody after her arrest by Iran’s morality police for “allegedly wearing her headscarf too loosely,” the Times reported.
Three days after the police arrested Amini, she was dead. Police claimed the death to be a result of a heart failure, but Amini’s family believes her death was the result of physical violence at the hands of the police, according to the source. Amini’s death has sparked women-led protests across the country, many arguing her death was unjustifiable, and fighting against the Islamic dress and behavior rules that were implemented after the 1979 revolution in Iran.
To spread awareness of the movement abroad, social media posts have surged, attempting to educate people on Amini’s death and the ensuing protests by showing footage and photos from the scene. As social media has become a platform for spreading awareness of current events, young people are increasingly leaning towards these apps to receive global news.
When asked where they get their global news from, Cora McKown ’26 said, “usually from social media, like stories from friends” as well as “famous people or influencers that I follow.” Erin Larson ’26 said now that she can’t watch news on cable TV, she relies on “The New York Times Instagram account, [or] Instagram accounts from news sources.”
The protests in Iran have followed this trend, with hashtags like “#MahsaAmini” replacing headlines, and posts from influencers with millions of followers becoming reporters, The Spinoff reported. When asked where they learned of the situation in Iran, Larson recalled specific posts from model Bella Hadid, as well as actress Jessica Chastain.
While social media allows those with platforms to spread awareness easily, it also allows misinformation to spread rapidly. Jessica Chastian’s Instagram posts about the women’s rights protests in Iran, for example, featured a warning added by Instagram on her Sept. 25 that claimed, “fact-checkers say at least one photo or video in this post contains partly false information.”
Although they both receive global news from social media apps, Larson and McKown acknowledge that with the increase of social media as a news source, warnings like those suggest that it’s a source riddled with misinformation. Larson noticed that posts, like the ones about women’s rights in Iran, are not always accurate.
Instagram posts “sometimes … [oversimplify] things,” Larson said, referencing infographics in particular. McKown expanded upon the misinformation spread between peers on social media, saying, “Sometimes, I’ll be going through my friends’ stories, and they’re all sharing information, but then some people have conflicting points. It’s confusing, because anybody can make a post. You don’t really know if it’s completely true or fact-checked.”