Seven days ago, when US President Donald Trump abandoned the G7 summit in advance and demanded the unconditional surrender of Iran to Israel, an anonymous Tiktok account published two videos of Proiraraní Propaganda. One showed a group of women in front of computers, apparently preparing to launch a rocket. Another showed a row of tanks with Iranian missiles and flags emerging from a tunnel.
In the following days, the United States would bombard Iranian nuclear development facilities, thus entering into another conflict in the Middle East. And in social networks, the two videos, apparently generated by AI, would begin to circulate widely. According to the Zelf Data Analysis Platform, both videos became one of the 15 most seen tiktoks about Iran last week, accumulating more than 30 million views. Subsequently, they disappeared from the platform.
The videos, which seem to be generated by AI, were not exclusive to Tiktok. They were also published – more than 100 times each – in Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts accounts, where millions of additional visualizations accumulated. They were not labeled as generated by any of the social networks, where some people who shared and commented seemed to take them seriously. Tiktok, YouTube and Instagram demand creators to label the content generated by the realistic. (Previously, I held content policy positions on Facebook and Spotify).
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The proiraraní propaganda generated by the flood Tiktok, Instagram and YouTube
On YouTube, a publication that showed women with the rocket contained the warning: “This channel received money or free things to make this video.” In another publication of the same video, a creator added text in Arabic asking his viewers to give him “like” and subscribe. On Facebook, a user responded to the rocket video by publishing an animated emoji of a smiling creature with wings and hearts instead of eyes. Others responded with hearts and thumbs above.
No social platform prohibits publications that seem to be propaganda – from Iran, Israel, the United States or any other place – provided they are not misleading or are part of a greater campaign of inauthentic behavior, which uses tactics such as false accounts to disseminate deceptive messages. Governments, including that of the United States, have used propaganda generated by AI to boost their schedules on social networks. Israel has also launched extensive advertising campaigns paid on social networks about its war in Gaza.
Even so, the prevalence of false war images in social networks could exacerbate tensions between nations and their populations, feeding the division between groups and causing violence in the real world. He could also undermine confidence among people in conflict areas, making it difficult to distinguish reality. In recent days, images and videos generated by AI that show missiles falling on Tel Aviv and B-2 bombers about Tehran have also become viral, and government officials and state media have shared some false content.
A goal spokesman declined to comment on the videos. Jack Malon, a YouTube spokesman, said that, although the videos did not violate the standards of the platform, the company had added a label, since it requires clear warnings in the videos generated by AI when they are “realistic” and could be misleading. Tiktok also declined to comment, but after Forbes He contacted them, the anonymous account that published the videos was eliminated.
This article was originally published by Forbes Us.
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