DIGITAL LIFE

AI videos and video game senes: X flooded with misinformation after US and Israeli attack on Iran

Minutes after US President Donald Trump announced that Americans and Israelis had launched a “major combat operation” against Iran, the social network X was flooded with misleading content about the attacks and Tehran's supposed response.

Old videos repurposed, images attributed to the wrong locations, content generated by artificial intelligence, and even video game scenes circulated as if they showed events in real time. Many of these posts garnered millions of views within hours of the official announcement.

According to a report by WIRED, which analyzed hundreds of posts on the platform, much of the viral content promoted false or distorted claims about the scale and targets of the attacks.

The publication points out that virtually all of the most popular posts were from accounts with a blue checkmark, paying users of the premium service, who can receive remuneration based on the engagement generated.

Among the examples cited is a video that claimed to show ballistic missiles over Dubai, but which actually depicted Iranian strikes against Tel Aviv in October 2024.

Another widely shared clip claimed to show the downing of an Israeli fighter jet by Iran's air defense system, without any official confirmation that Israeli aircraft were shot down on Saturday.

Out-of-context images also circulated to support supposedly successful attacks against Israel. A pro-Iran profile published a photo of Dubai as if it were a missile impact on Tel Aviv. The Tehran Times, a media outlet aligned with the Iranian government, shared what analysts pointed out as an AI-generated image, claiming the complete destruction of an American radar in Qatar, something that has not been confirmed by independent reports.

In another case, a pro-Trump account published images that it said showed the "before and after" of the palace of the Iranian supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. The later image appeared authentic, but the earlier one actually showed the mausoleum of Ruhollah Khomeini, located in another area of ​​Tehran.

The platform did not respond to requests for comment from Wired's report. Under Elon Musk's management, X had already been criticized by experts for moderation failures during major news events. According to the report, although some posts received notes from the community correcting false information, the content remained online, without clarity on how many people were impacted before the corrections.

Record day...The escalation of the conflict in the Middle East caused X to hit a historic engagement record. On February 28, the date on which Israel and the United States launched joint attacks against Iran, the platform recorded the highest level of usage ever recorded since its creation.

The information was released by Elon Musk, owner of X, who posted on the network: "Highest usage of 𝕏 ever".

Nikita Bier, the company's head of product, explained that the date marked "the biggest day in Xbox history in terms of user active seconds," a metric that measures the total number of seconds users were active on the platform.

mundophone