Purported AI-Generated War Footage Reportedly Circulated Widely Online During the Opening Phase of the War in Iran

February 28, 2026

During the initial phase of the conflict in Iran, reports suggest that misleading AI-generated videos purportedly showcasing non-existent wartime scenes were disseminated widely online. These videos allegedly reached millions on social media and messaging platforms, potentially skewing public understanding of the conflict and contributing to information chaos.

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MAP 2.2 — similarity 0.641, rank 1. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MEASURE 2.6 — similarity 0.635, rank 2. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MAP 4.1 — similarity 0.630, rank 3. TAIM detail and related incidents →

Alleged deployer: unknown-social-media-accounts, unknown-disinformation-actors
Alleged developer: unknown-image-generator-developers, unknown-generative-ai-developers, unknown-deepfake-technology-developers
Alleged harmed parties: social-media-users, people-seeking-information-about-the-war-in-iran, general-public, epistemic-integrity, national-security-and-intelligence-stakeholders

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/1406

Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide

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