The posting of footage from the wedding of Admiral Ali Shamkhani’s daughter, contrary to the intentions of those who shared it, brought an unexpected blessing long desired by many well-wishers of today’s Iran. Since its release, a remarkable harmony has formed among diverse political voices — reformist and conservative alike — in condemning the act. Such collective reasoning reflects the evolution and intelligence of Iran’s political community.
Yet while this hopeful outcome deserves attention, the risks and threats posed by such incidents cannot be ignored.
Hostage-Taking of Privacy
In a world where new communication technologies are rapidly eroding the line between “private life” and the “public sphere,” politicians are more exposed to public scrutiny than ever before. With the rise of social media, every image, every word, and every gesture — especially when it involves a public figure — can, within minutes, become a headline. The issue is no longer merely what they did, but how it can be used against them.
Both domestic and foreign rivals understand that in the digital era, one no longer needs top-secret intelligence files to undermine a politician. It is often enough to show fragments of their private life — moments that millions experience daily — and, through selective editing and narrative framing, craft a story that subtly embeds itself in the collective subconscious. In the battle of narratives, even the smallest piece of data can strike with the precision of a guided missile — provided it is released at the right time. That is the moment when a politician ceases to be an actor and becomes the subject of a narrative — one that is beyond their control, and often beyond reality itself.
The release of a private video from the wedding of Ali Shamkhani’s daughter is a clear example of this warfare — a conflict in which the ammunition consists of words and images, and the target is not the body but the reputation and standing of the individual. Examined alongside the concurrent wave of intelligence and media attacks on Iran during the recent 12-day war and the targeted assassinations of state officials, it becomes evident that this incident is part of a multifaceted operation — one in which each front fuels and reinforces the others, and every phase completes what the previous one could not.
In such a battle, even a harmless private video — one containing no moral or social impropriety — can become a weapon of humiliation and character assassination. The release of such content is rarely motivated by curiosity or personal vendetta alone; it is often an exercise in perception engineering: constructing a particular image in the public mind, stirring emotions, and steering people toward emotional rather than rational judgment. The ultimate goal of perceptual warfare is not to convince the mind, but to manipulate the emotions.
This episode may well be part of a broader screenplay — one centered on taking private lives hostage in order to eliminate, weaken, or silence individuals. In this context, what matters is not what the leaked footage shows, but when it is released, why it is released, and what psychological effect it creates. The scriptwriter understands that to undermine a politician in the digital age, there is no need for complex political analysis of their record; it suffices to project an informal, intimate image of them — a glimpse from everyday family life — onto the political stage. From that moment onward, the political figure is separated from their “office” and reduced to a “subject of judgment.”
In this dynamic, the public — whether driven by curiosity, anger, or resentment — becomes, almost instinctively, part of the game. Social media, instead of serving as a forum for truth and falsehood, turns into an arena of exposure and ridicule. This is the point where politics descends into triviality, and people, instead of judging policies, start judging personal lifestyles.
But behind the noise lies a deeper question: Do politicians in the modern age still have a right to privacy? The answer is far from simple. In today’s world, transparency is one of the pillars of public trust — yet transparency does not mean the abolition of the boundary between the private and the public. What must be transparent are decisions and public actions, not personal and family moments. When that boundary is ignored, not only is individual dignity compromised, but society itself becomes vulnerable to a kind of media anarchy from which no one will remain unharmed.
We must accept that politics in the age of networks is as much a theatre of visibility as it is a field of power. But if every face, every conversation, and every moment of a politician’s life is open to exposure and interpretation, then politics, in its true sense, ceases to exist. A society that puts everything on display will eventually lose its trust — for in spectacle, truth has no place; only the stage and its performers matter. And that is the most dangerous form of politics: politics without privacy, without dignity, and ultimately, without truth.
Defending the Individual or the Cognitive Security of Society
What offers hope in this affair is the measured reaction of many media outlets and commentators across the political spectrum, who avoided sensationalism and instead emphasized a moral principle: privacy is sacred — even for public figures. This ethical consensus, if it endures, could signal a new stage of social and media maturity — one in which society learns to distinguish between the right to know and the urge to see.
Yet public responsibility in this process is no less significant than that of those who design such psychological operations. Every click, every share, and every hasty judgment functions as a bullet fired from within. If media professionals and social media users fail to recognize that they are being enlisted in a perception campaign, they unwittingly become foot soldiers in a project aimed at dismantling symbolic figures and eroding public trust.
Politics, at its core, is the realm of rational decision-making and public dialogue. But when the battle of narratives replaces the analysis of realities, politics becomes theatre — and citizens turn from participants in decision-making into helpless spectators of a stage where truth is sacrificed to sensation and imagery. In such a world, defending the privacy of politicians is no longer merely the defense of an individual — it is the defense of reason itself, and of the cognitive security of society.
NOURNEWS