AI Deepfakes Turn the Iran Conflict Into a Digital Battlefield for Hearts and Minds
The escalating conflict involving Iran has exposed a new and alarming dimension of modern warfare: the widespread use of artificial intelligence to manufacture reality itself. As millions around the world consume minute-by-minute updates, AI-generated videos and images have flooded social media platforms, blurring the line between genuine combat footage and fabricated propaganda. The impact has been especially profound in countries directly involved in the war, where such content carries intense emotional weight and has prompted governments to adopt strict measures to contain its spread. Cheap, accessible AI tools now allow anyone to produce hyper-realistic videos, photos, and audio in seconds, and this ease of creation has fuelled a relentless wave of deepfakes depicting missile strikes, burning warships, civilian devastation, and even world leaders making statements they never made. The result is a deeply polluted information ecosystem in which disinformation travels as quickly as the conflict itself, shaping public perception in ways that may have no connection to the actual reality on the ground. According to Marc Owen Jones, associate professor of media analytics at Northwestern University in Qatar, the effect is profound: “Dramatic images and videos claiming to show real-time battle scenes and missile strikes are flooding social media feeds, spreading rapidly and misleading millions.” The war, in other words, is being fought not only with weapons but with algorithms, synthetic media, and the collective confusion of an online audience desperate for truth.
Jones, whose expertise lies in the intersection of social media, disinformation, and online politics, describes the current moment as a digital battlefield where all sides and their supporters are competing to control the narrative and win “hearts and minds.” This is not a peripheral sideshow but a central front in the conflict. On the American side, Jones observes a striking aesthetic: “Videos intercut with Hollywood clips, a sort of memeification of communication designed to appeal to a far-right aesthetic that rejects empathy in favour of humiliation.” These videos borrow the visual language of action movies and internet memes to craft a triumphalist, aggressive narrative aimed at rallying domestic support and intimidating adversaries. On the Iranian side, the approach is equally sophisticated. “Iran has risen to the game, often mocking the United States with their memes,” Jones says, “but a lot of AI-generated images appear to be exaggerating Iran’s military successes, arguably to add to pressure on Gulf states to put pressure for de-escalation.” In this telling, AI content is not merely deceptive; it is a strategic instrument used to project strength, shape regional diplomacy, and influence the calculations of third-party nations. Every strike, every explosion, and every alleged military victory is now subject to instant replication and distortion, allowing each side to present its own version of events to a global audience that may never see the verified facts. The battlefield extends from the front lines to the smartphones of billions, and the weapons are pixels, prompts, and neural networks.
The technological advances driving this phenomenon have made misinformation more convincing than ever before. AI tools are no longer the domain of elite intelligence agencies or Hollywood studios; they are available to anyone with a smartphone and an internet connection. The consequences are visible in a series of viral examples that have already marked this conflict. One of the most striking involved videos claiming to show the US aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln burning at sea after an Iranian attack. The footage was so realistic that President Donald Trump said he personally called his generals to verify whether it was real. After confirming the ship was safe, Trump took to his Truth Social platform to declare: “Not only was it not burning, it was not even shot at, Iran knows better than to do that!” The episode illustrates the extraordinary power of AI-generated content to reach the highest levels of government and force direct official responses. Other debunked videos included scenes of US troops crying in the aftermath of battle and buildings collapsing in Gulf cities, all designed to provoke an emotional reaction and reinforce a particular narrative. These videos are often shared with captions that assert their authenticity, and they gain traction through the sheer speed of social media. As Jones notes, “The use of AI is legion and is increasingly hard to detect.” The visual glitches that once betrayed deepfakes—distorted hands, unnatural blinking, garbled text—are disappearing, replaced by synthetically generated imagery that can pass casual scrutiny and sometimes even expert analysis. The public is left to confront a media environment where seeing is no longer believing.
The speed at which content circulates online compounds the difficulty of verification, especially in a fast-moving conflict where facts are already contested. Jones explains that “verified information is often delayed, which creates a vacuum that misinformation fills immediately. When people are worried, they crave information, but that information is often false.” Unverified clips can reach millions of viewers within minutes, far outpacing the ability of journalists, fact-checkers, and official sources to debunk them. This dynamic was on full display with the viral rumour that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had died. Speculation exploded across social media, fuelled in part by a low-quality video released by Netanyahu’s office on March 13. Users pointed to visual glitches, including what appeared to be six fingers on Netanyahu’s hand—a classic telltale sign of AI manipulation—and claimed that the video was not proof of life but rather a synthetic fabrication. “Rumours that Netanyahu died were accompanied by accusations that his speech was actually an AI video,” said Jones. Netanyahu subsequently released several additional videos intended as “proof of life,” but the speculation persisted, illustrating a troubling paradox: once a narrative takes hold, especially one that feeds on distrust and anxiety, it becomes nearly impossible to dislodge. The episode also highlights how AI can be used not only to create false images but also to cast doubt on genuine ones. In an environment where every piece of media is suspect, even authentic footage can be dismissed as another deepfake, further eroding the public’s ability to agree on basic facts. This is the ultimate victory of disinformation: not simply spreading lies, but making truth itself seem unattainable.
Beyond the spontaneous spread of misleading content, there is evidence of coordinated campaigns designed to manipulate public opinion. Jones points to “sketchy, anonymous accounts, with histories of multiple name changes, and no discernible identity sharing fake news and AI videos.” These accounts may appear credible to the casual observer, but they are often tied to state-backed actors, political operatives, or individuals seeking to profit from sensationalised content. In many cases, automated bots amplify these narratives by sharing, liking, and commenting on posts, artificially inflating their reach and making them appear more popular and legitimate than they actually are. This manufactured consensus can shape the priorities of algorithms, pushing deceptive content into the feeds of millions of users who might otherwise never encounter it. At the same time, not all AI videos are designed to deceive. Some are deliberately created as parody and satire, mocking world leaders and military posturing. Examples circulating online include a video depicting Trump as Iran’s new supreme leader, clips portraying Netanyahu as a malfunctioning robot with extra fingers, and other absurd scenarios such as NATO members refusing to help Trump unblock the Strait of Hormuz, or Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arriving in the Gulf region with anti-drone technology only to be struck by a missile. These satirical creations are often shared in jest, but in the chaos of a rapidly changing conflict, they can take on a life of their own and spread beyond their original context. A joke intended for a small audience can be screenshotted, re-shared, and stripped of its ironic framing, becoming yet another piece of misinformation in a sea of confusion. Jones warns that “AI-generated deepfakes have crossed a critical threshold, earlier tell-tale glitches have been eliminated, and this technology is now accessible to anyone with a smartphone.” The line between humour, propaganda, and malicious disinformation has never been thinner.
The cumulative effect of all this synthetic media is a profound erosion of trust in the information ecosystem. Jones emphasises that “false information can spread up to ten times faster than accurate reporting on social media, and corrections are rarely as widely seen or believed as the original false claim.” The human brain is wired to respond to threats, outrage, and novelty, and these emotional triggers are precisely what deepfakes are designed to exploit. “Outrage drives sharing before fact-checking can occur, which is exactly what bad actors exploit,” he says. As the conflict continues, so too does the battle on social media, leaving ordinary people to navigate an increasingly complex mix of misinformation, satire, and manipulated content. Jones advises that dramatic footage should be treated with the same scepticism as unverified claims, adding that “the fact that it looks real is no longer sufficient evidence that it is.” In this new reality, the burden of verification has shifted onto the individual, but the tools and time required to meet that burden are in short supply. Governments, platforms, and journalists all have roles to play in mitigating the damage, but their efforts are often outpaced by the sheer volume of content. The Iran war has thus become a case study in the dangers of generative AI, a preview of a future where synthetic media can destabilise public discourse, inflame conflicts, and manipulate international politics. The technology itself is neutral, but its application in the heat of war is anything but. As the world watches the next strike, the next speech, or the next viral video, the question is no longer simply “What happened?” but “What is real?” And for millions of people scrolling through their feeds, that question may be impossible to answer with confidence.