YouTube banned pro-Iranian AI animation channel Explosive Media for violating platform policies, a YouTube spokesperson told AFP on Wednesday.
“We have terminated the channel for violating our spam, deception and fraud policies,” a spokesperson told AFP.
Explosive Media was initially suspended on March 27 before being removed from the site, a spokesperson said.
The self-proclaimed independent channel, which is widely suspected of having ties to the Iranian government, rose to fame during Operation Roaring Lion by producing pro-Iran Lego AI animation videos that received millions of views, according to AFP.
Additionally, US media claimed on Wednesday that the group has been removed from Instagram, although it remains active on other social media platforms such as X/Twitter and Telegram, AFP reported.
Iran has used such AI images before, and on March 10, the Tasnim news agency, affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, shared an AI propaganda video using Lego characters and models to criticize Israel and the United States for the February 28 attack on a girls’ school in Minab, Iran, that killed 168 people.
According to an obvious watermark, the video was produced by the state-run Revayat-e Fath Institute.
A representative for Explosive Media said in an April 11 interview with the BBC that the Iranian government was a “client” of the group, but denied that the group was employed by the Islamic regime.
The representative, who identified himself only as “Mr. Explosive,” said his team is made up of fewer than 10 people and decided to use Lego-style graphics “because it’s a global language.”
Their choice to use this methodology appears to have led various countries, including Iranian and Russian state media, to regularly share it on X/Twitter.
Propaganda videos produced by the group frequently make use of factual inaccuracies, including claims that Iran captured a downed American fighter pilot and of successful Iranian attacks on Israel, the Gulf states, and major U.S. military locations.
James Genn contributed to this report.
