As anti-government protests continue in Iran, this viral video that purports to show people protesting with cell phone flashlights is not real and was generated by AI.
New Delhi (Vishvas News). As protests against the Iranian government continue, a video purporting to be an anti-government rally in Iran has been circulating on social media, showing several people using cellphone flashlights to protest.
When investigated by Vishwas News, this claim was found to be false. This viral video was created by AI and shared with the campaign tag ‘All Eyes on Iran’.
What is viral?
Social media user Samrat Express (Archive) shared the viral video and wrote, “On the night of January 10, 2026, the situation was tense in Iran’s capital Tehran. To hide the voices of the protesters from the world, the government turned off the street lights, but the people turned on their cellphone flashlights to defy the darkness. This AI-generated video captures the struggle, courage and unity that took place that night when people refused.” Slogans “Women, life, freedom, surrender to oppression” echoed through the streets of Tehran. ”
The video was shared on various social media platforms with similar and identical claims.
investigation
In a viral video, several people are seen protesting using cell phone flashlights.
No such videos are available from Iranian anti-government protests. In addition, the campaign tag “Focus on Iran” has raised suspicions that it was created by AI. To find the source of the video, I performed a reverse image search using the relevant keyframes. This resulted in a video posted to the profile of a verified Instagram user named elnaz555.
He shared it as a gesture of solidarity with Iran’s current anti-government protests, explaining that it was created using AI. “Recently, a video was released showing large crowds turning on their cellphone lights on the dark streets of Tehran after the government turned off street lights to hide phone numbers. That moment inspired me to recreate that scene with art using AI,” he wrote.
Our investigation shows that this video is definitely not authentic.
To confirm further, we tested it using an AI detection tool. The video contains two clips, so I reviewed each one separately.
When we checked this video using the University of Buffalo’s DeepFake-O-Meter, nearly every metric confirmed a high likelihood of AI manipulation. The AVSRDD (2025) detector confirmed that the probability of AI being created is almost 100%.
TALL (2023) Detector confirmed that there is a nearly 100% chance that the video was created by an AI. Meanwhile, the confidence scores of DSP-FWA (2019) and XCLIP (2022) were 61% and 47%, respectively.
TruthScan analysis reveals that there is a 100% chance this video was created by AI.
For further verification, we reached out to the Deepfake Analysis Unit (DAU), an initiative of our partner TIA (formerly MCA). They shared with us the analysis of several other detection tools that confirm that the video was created by AI.
IsitAI confirmed that this video was likely generated by AI, and ImageWhisperer’s analysis also confirmed that this video was likely generated by AI.
Our investigation revealed that this viral video was not real and was created by an AI.
According to a report by Reuters, more than 500 people have been killed in anti-government protests in Iran so far. According to a BBC report, protests were reported in 24 Iranian provinces until January 7, 2026. However, protests are currently taking place in more than 80 districts in 24 of Iran’s 31 provinces.
Conclusion:
As anti-government protests continue in Iran, this viral video that purports to show people protesting with cell phone flashlights is not real and was generated by AI.
- Claim review: Protesters in Iran are expressing their dissent by turning on their cellphone flashlights.
- Claimant: FB User Samrat Express
- Fact check: error
error
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