View of Tehran city, Iran.
Nurphoto via Getty Images
Seven days ago, when US President Donald Trump left the G7 Summit early and called on Israel to “unconditional surrender” in Iran, an anonymous Tiktok account posted two pro-Iranian propaganda videos. One shows the female bay on a computer, and at first glance appears to be preparing to launch a rocket. Another showed a line of tanks carrying missiles and Iranian flags emerging from tunnels.
The next day, the US bombed Iran's nuclear development sites and entered yet another conflict in the Middle East. Also, two videos that appear to be generated by AI will begin to be widely distributed on social media. According to data analytics platform Zelf, the two videos became one of the 15 most viewed tiktoks on Iran last week, accumulating over 30 million views. They then disappeared from the platform.
Screenshots from Zelf
Emily Baker White
Screenshots from Zelf
Emily Baker White
The videos that the AI appears to be generating were not unique to Tiktok. It also accumulated millions of additional views, posting over 100 times across its Instagram reel and YouTube shorts accounts. They were not labeled as being generated by AI on any of the social media sites. Tiktok, YouTube, and Instagram all require creators to label realistic AI-generated content. (In my previous life, I held my content policy position on Facebook and Spotify.)
On YouTube, one post featuring a woman with a rocket included a disclaimer saying, “This channel got money and free stuff to make this video.” In another YouTube post of the same video, the author added the text in Arabic and asked viewers to subscribe as they liked. On Facebook, one user responded to rocket video by posting a smiling emoji creature, laughing at the emoji with wings and hearts for their eyes. Others responded with hearts and thumbs.
None of the social platforms prohibit posts that appear to be propaganda from Iran, Israel, the US or elsewhere. Unless it's part of a massive inauthentic action campaign that uses tactics like fake accounts to spread obsolete messages. Governments, including the US, are using AI-generated propaganda to advance their social media agenda. Israel has also run a wide range of advertising campaigns on its social media platforms regarding the war in Gaza.
Still, the prevalence of false war images across social media can inflame tensions between countries and their groups, promote division between groups, and lead to real-world violence. It can also undermine trust amongst the earthly people in conflict zones, making it even more difficult for them to know what reality is. Recently, the created images and videos of AI depicting missiles falling into Tel Aviv and B-2 bombers via Tehran have also become viruses, with some fake media being shared by government officials and state media.
A Meta spokesman declined to comment on the video. YouTube spokesman Jack Malon said the video does not violate the platform's rules, but the company added the label because it is “realistic” and requires a notable disclaimer on videos generated by AI when it is likely to be misleading. Tiktok also declined to comment, but after that Forbes The anonymous account that posted the video has been deleted in search of comment.
