Disinformation and AI-Generated Media

The Associated Press reports that state-linked propaganda campaigns tied to Iran and Russia are behind much of the AI-generated and misrepresented video flooding social media during the first week of the Iran war, especially around who is winning and casualty levels. Investigators identified an AI-fabricated clip of a Bahraini high-rise supposedly hit by an Iranian strike—shared by accounts associated with the Iranian government—as one of many fake airstrike videos being used to exaggerate Iran’s success. A long‑running Russia‑aligned operation known as Operation Overload (also called Matryoshka or Storm‑1679) is impersonating intelligence agencies and news outlets, including issuing a bogus warning attributed to Israeli intelligence that urged Israelis in Germany and the United States to stay indoors. Experts from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and RAND say these campaigns are more targeted and structured than opportunistic misinformation, and note that heavy censorship and internet shutdowns inside Iran make it harder for authentic civilian footage to counter state narratives. The piece underscores how foreign information operations are shaping what Americans see about a war their own government is fighting, at the same moment domestic debate over the conflict is already heated online.