On June 12, 2025, dozens of anonymous pro-Scottish independence accounts on X (formerly Twitter) abruptly went silent, coinciding with Israeli airstrikes on Iranian cyber and military infrastructure.

Axar.az, citing UK defence Journal, reports that these accounts, posing as British citizens (e.g., NHS nurses, Glaswegian socialists), had been highly active in spreading pro-independence, anti-UK, and progressive content. Researchers from Clemson University linked them to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), identifying them as part of a coordinated foreign influence campaign aimed at destabilizing the UK.

The accounts had produced over 250,000 tweets between 2022–2024, blending into real discourse and gaining wide engagement. Using AI-generated personas and emotionally resonant messaging, the network sought to amplify the appearance of popular support for Scottish independence without necessarily changing minds.

The accounts’ sudden disappearance—without warning, backup activity, or gradual withdrawal—strongly suggests their operations were managed centrally via Iranian infrastructure that became inoperable after the Israeli strikes. Power outages and near-total internet blackouts in Iran following the attack support this theory. Experts describe the incident as a rare and visible disruption of a long-running influence operation that used “narrative laundering” to blur foreign propaganda with genuine political debate.

Despite earlier exposure, many accounts remained active until the 2025 disruption, due in part to weak platform enforcement by X. The event highlights Iran’s broader use of low-cost, covert digital operations to exploit internal divisions in adversary states—using domestic-seeming content to strategically destabilize rival governments.