Iranian officials experience "gotcha" politics on YouTube

We noticed this video rising today on YouTube and asked an Iranian colleague here at YouTube just what was going on. Apparently, the two men in the video are the president and vice president of a bloodbank in Yazd, Iran, and they're trying to promote blood donations by giving blood themselves. Only problem is, they were faking it. When the videographer was brave enough to pull back the gauze on their arms, he revealed the needle wasn't breaking the skin.

In the video description and the comments, there's a debate going on over the incident. Some state that the head of the blood bank was replaced because of the video. Others claim that he was ready to donate blood, but the reporter asked him to let them shoot the video before the blood donation instruments would be ready, and he accepted - only to fall into the trap. Our colleague says it's hard to confirm which is true, due to the unreliability of Iranian state TV.