In June 2012, Fars released an interview with Egyptian PresidentMohamed Morsi in which Morsi is said to have told Fars that he wanted to restore ties with Iran and wanted to "review" the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty. Morsi later disputed the authenticity of the interview. Fars responded by providing what it said was audio of the interview. Arabic newscaster Al Arabiya quoted unnamed experts who said it was not Morsi's voice.
Reposted story by ''The Onion''
In September 2012, the agency picked up a story from The Onion, a satirical newspaper, about a supposed survey showing "an overwhelming majority of rural white Americans would rather vote for Iranian PresidentMahmoud Ahmadinejad than U.S. President Barack Obama in the upcoming U.S. elections". The Iranian version copied the original word-for-word, even including a made-up quote from a fictional West Virginia resident who says he would rather go to a baseball game with Ahmadinejad because "he takes national defense seriously, and he'd never let some gay protesters tell him how to run his country like Obama does." Fars News Agency later apologized for its mistake, but claimed that a majority of Americans would prefer anyone outside of the American political system to President Obama and American statesmen.
In April 2013, the agency carried a story claiming a 27-year-old Iranian scientist had invented a time machine that allowed people to see into the future. A few days later the story was removed, and replaced with a story quoting an Iranian government official that no such device had been registered.
In January 2014, Fars posted a series of articles that suggested U.S. security policy was being driven by an "alien/extraterrestrial intelligence agenda" The report said that proof was found in a Federal Security Service report carried out by Edward Snowden. The report said that the United States government had been secretly run by a "shadow government" of space aliens since 1945.
Iranian state News Agency, Fars, an associate of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps, has been blocked by the new sanctions applied by US treasury's Office. These sanctions started on 25 January 2020.
Popularity
In the first half of 2020 the website farsnews.com was one of the most popular sources in Persian Wikipedia. According to Alexa, the website farsnews.ir is the 51st most popular website in Iran.
