Remembering 2022: Iran’s Gen Z army and hashtag wars
The Take
Al Jazeera
4.7 • 747 Ratings
🗓️ 16 January 2026
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Back in 2022, protests in Iran were bolder than at any time since the 1979 revolution — and that time, it was teenage girls leading the way. Gen Z used their TikTok and Instagram skills to draw the world’s attention to their demand for freedom. But with almost 300 hashtags under #MahsaAmini, their movement was also being co‑opted for others’ purposes. How could anyone tell which was which?
This is a story from the archives. It originally aired on October 19, 2022. None of the dates, titles or other references from that time has been changed.
In this episode:
- Holly Dagres (@HDagres), The Atlantic Council Nonresident Senior Fellow & MENASource and IranSource Editor
- Marc Owen Jones (@MarcOwenJones), Assistant Professor of Middle East Studies, Hamad bin Khalifa University
Episode credits:
This episode was produced by Amy Walters with Negin Owliaei, Chloe K. Li, Alexandra Locke, Ruby Zaman, Ashish Malhotra and our guest host, Halla Moheiddeen.
Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Tim St. Clair mixed this episode. Our video editors are Hisham Abu Salah and Mohannad Al-Melhem. Alexandra Locke is the Take’s executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Al Jazeera Podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | Hey everyone, Malika here. |
| 0:14.0 | After a deadly crackdown in Iran, protests that began late last month now appear to be easing, |
| 0:20.2 | with witnesses telling Al Jazeera, |
| 0:21.9 | many are staying home because of the sheer number of people killed. |
| 0:26.0 | In the U.S., President Donald Trump initially warned the United States |
| 0:30.0 | was locked and loaded if Iran violently targeted peaceful demonstrators. |
| 0:35.6 | But his rhetoric has since softened. And while protesters demand |
| 0:39.7 | profound political change, there's little evidence they're calling for U.S. intervention, |
| 0:44.9 | an idea many on the ground have rejected. This is not the first time protest movements in Iran |
| 0:50.4 | have been taken up by outside actors and used as an argument for intervention. |
| 0:55.5 | Today, we're taking you back to the 2022 Woman Life Freedom Protests to look at how foreign actors, |
| 1:03.1 | from governments to online networks, have long used Iranian descent in ways that flatten |
| 1:09.3 | internal debates and take the agency away from Iranians |
| 1:12.7 | themselves. This episode originally aired October 19, 2022, and was led by our guest host, |
| 1:20.9 | Hala Mohiattin. All dates and references are from that time. |
| 1:31.0 | This references are from that time. This weekend, a fire in Iran's notorious Avian prison provided visual evidence that after a |
| 1:38.1 | month of protests, Iran has not settled down. |
| 1:42.1 | Smoke was seen rising from the facility and gunshots were heard. |
| 1:46.0 | The Iranian government says the fire is unrelated to the protests, |
| 1:50.0 | but for many Iranians, it's hard to trust the government right now. |
| 1:54.0 | Meanwhile, the UK and the EU are sanctioning Iran's morality police and Canada's sanctioned members of Iran's |
... |
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