Israel-Iran conflict unleashes wave of AI disinformation

A wave of disinformation has been unleashed online since Israel began strikes on Iran last week, with dozens of posts reviewed by BBC Verify seeking to amplify the effectiveness of Tehran's response.

Our analysis found a number of videos - created using artificial intelligence - boasting of Iran's military capabilities, alongside fake clips showing the aftermath of strikes on Israeli targets. The three most viewed fake videos BBC Verify found have collectively amassed over 100 million views across multiple platforms.

Pro-Israeli accounts have also shared disinformation online, mainly by recirculating old clips of protests and gatherings in Iran, falsely claiming that they show mounting dissent against the government and support among Iranians for Israel's military campaign.

Israel launched strikes in Iran on 13 June, leading to several rounds of Iranian missile and drone attacks on Israel.

One organisation that analyses open-source imagery described the volume of disinformation online as "astonishing" and accused some "engagement farmers" of seeking to profit from the conflict by sharing misleading content designed to attract attention online.

"We are seeing everything from unrelated footage from Pakistan, to recycled videos from the October 2024 strikes—some of which have amassed over 20 million views—as well as game clips and AI-generated content being passed off as real events," Geoconfirmed, the online verification group, wrote on X.

Certain accounts have become "super-spreaders" of disinformation, being rewarded with significant growth in their follower count. One pro-Iranian account with no obvious ties to authorities in Tehran - Daily Iran Military - has seen its followers on X grow from just over 700,000 on 13 June to 1.4m by 19 June, an 85% increase in under a week.

It is one many obscure accounts that have appeared in people's feeds recently. All have blue ticks, are prolific in messaging and have repeatedly posted disinformation. Because some use seemingly official names, some people have assumed they are authentic accounts, but it is unclear who is actually running the profiles.

The torrent of disinformation marked "the first time we've seen generative AI be used at scale during a conflict," Emmanuelle Saliba, Chief Investigative Officer with the analyst group Get Real, told BBC Verify.

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Accounts reviewed by BBC Verify frequently shared AI-generated images that appear to be seeking to exaggerate the success of Iran's response to Israel's strikes. One image, which has 27m views, depicted dozens of missiles falling on the city of Tel Aviv.

Another video purported to show a missile strike on a building in the Israeli city late at night. Ms Saliba said the clips often depict night-time attacks, making them especially difficult to verify.

AI fakes have also focussed on claims of destruction of Israeli F-35 fighter jets, a state-of-the art US-made plane capable of striking ground and air targets. If the barrage of clips were real Iran would have destroyed 15% of Israel's fleet of the fighters, Lisa Kaplan, CEO of the Alethea analyst group, told BBC Verify. We have yet to authenticate any footage of F-35s being shot down.

One widely shared post claimed to show a jet damaged after being shot down in the Iranian desert. However, signs of AI manipulation were evident: civilians around the jet were the same size as nearby vehicles, and the sand showed no signs of impact.

Another video with 21.1 million views on TikTok claimed to show an Israeli F-35 being shot down by air defences, but the footage actually came from a flight simulator video game. TikTok removed the footage after being approached by BBC Verify.

Ms Kaplan said that some of the focus on F-35s was being driven by a network of accounts that Alethea has previously linked to Russian influence operations.

She noted that Russian influence operations have recently shifted course from trying to undermine support for the war in Ukraine to sowing doubts about the capability of Western - especially American - weaponry.

"Russia doesn't really have a response to the F-35. So what it can it do? It can seek to undermine support for it within certain countries," Ms Kaplan said.

Disinformation is also being spread by well-known accounts that have previously weighed in on the Israel-Gaza war and other conflicts.

Their motivations vary, but experts said some may be attempting to monetise the conflict, with some major social media platforms offering pay-outs to accounts achieving large numbers of views.

By contrast, pro-Israeli posts have largely focussed on suggestions that the Iranian government is facing mounting dissent as the strikes continuer

Among them is a widely shared AI-generated video falsely purporting to show Iranians chant "we love Israel" on the streets of Tehran.

However, in recent days - and as speculation about US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites grows - some accounts have started to post AI-generated images of B-2 bombers over Tehran. The B-2 has attracted close attention since Israel's strikes on Iran started, because it is the only aircraft capable of effectively carrying out an attack on Iran's subterranean nuclear sites.

Official sources in Iran and Israel have shared some of the fake images. State media in Tehran has shared fake footage of strikes and an AI-generated image of a downed F-35 jet, while a post shared by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) received a community note on X for using old, unrelated footage of missile barrages.

A lot of the Disinformation reviewed by BBC Verify has been shared on X, with users frequently turning to the platform's AI chatbot - Grok - to establish posts' veracity.

However, in some cases Grok insisted that the AI videos were real. One such video showed an endless stream of trucks carrying ballistic missiles emerging from a mountainside complex. Tell-tale signs of AI content included rocks in the video moving of their own accord, Ms Saliba said.

But in response to X users, Grok insisted repeatedly that the video was real and cited reports by media outlets including Newsweek and Reuters. "Check trusted news for clarity," the chatbot concluded in several messages.

X did not respond to a request from BBC Verify for comment on the Chatbot's actions.

Many videos have also appeared on TikTok and Instagram. In a statement to BBC Verify, TikTok said it proactively enforces community guidelines "which prohibit inaccurate, misleading, or false content" and that it works with independent fact checkers to "verify misleading content".

Instagram owner Meta did not respond to a request for comment.

While the motivations of those creating online fakes vary, many are shared by ordinary social media users.

Matthew Facciani, a researcher at the University of Notre Dame, suggested that disinformation can spread more quickly online when people are faced with binary choices, such as those raised by conflict and politics.

"That speaks to the broader social and psychological issue of people wanting to re-share things if it aligns with their political identity, and also just in general, more sensationalist emotional content will spread more quickly online."