When a major war erupts—such as the recent flare-up between Iran and Israel—the fight isn’t just being fought with missiles and warplanes. It’s also being fought online, through news headlines and social media. For the last month, while Israeli warplanes struck Iranian targets and Iran struck back with missile attacks against Israel, another war has been quietly simmering: a war of information—and increasingly of disinformation.
This time around, the dissemination of misinformation or misleading material has reached an all-time high, courtesy of artificial intelligence. Per BBC Verify, this is “the first time we’ve seen generative AI used at scale in the context of a conflict.” And what is the outcome? An avalanche of fake images and videos, quite a number of which depict military wins never really achieved. Clips purporting to depict Iranian missiles hitting Tel Aviv or Israeli F-35s crashing from the sky have gone viral despite many exhibiting blatant digital editing—unusual proportions, things moving abnormally, or simply terrible animation.
But when passions run high and stakes seem intense, most won’t take a moment to critically examine each pixel. And that’s just what the propagators of the fakes are hoping for. As the analyst group Geoconfirmed put it, we’re seeing everything from video game footage and old clips from other countries to AI-generated scenes being passed off as breaking news. Some of these videos have been viewed tens of millions of times. It’s getting harder and harder to tell what’s real.
This fog of misinformation has serious emotional consequences. For individuals who are living this conflict, or have loved ones entangled in it, each terrible video or dramatic photograph can induce panic, sorrow, or even a flash of false hope. One such viral picture was an image that claimed to depict Israeli F-35s shot down. It spread fast online as well as in official media, but specialists noted that the image didn’t coincide with the real dimensions or pattern of the planes. It was probably AI-generated or digitally faked, reports Snopes. Nonetheless, seeing a thing like that, even if it is fake, can leave an indelible emotional mark.
And even beyond confusion, this steady stream of dubious content erodes trust. When opposing sides in a conflict both accuse the other of fibbing—and when even official sources sometimes release deceiving posts—people begin to distrust all information. It builds a sort of emotional exhaustion, numbness, where nothing appears trustworthy anymore. And in that context, it’s simple to just not care or to abandon trying to determine the truth altogether.
Why does misinformation go viral so quickly? For some, it’s to advance a political agenda, to boost or demoralize the enemy. For others, it’s to pursue clout, followers, likes, and income. BBC Verify has established that some accounts have become “super-spreaders” of misinformation, amassing huge followings in doing so. And behind the scenes, sometimes there are more profound geopolitical motivations at work. Influence networks associated with Russia, say, have been known to exploit disputes like these to attempt to sabotage trust in Western military technology or alliances.
For ordinary people, all of this adds up to an actual challenge: How do you remain grounded when your feed is filled with dramatic, unverified assertions every time you open it? There’s no perfect solution, but the first step is slowing down. Take a deep breath before posting something. See if there are any indications that the video is not what it appears to be. Attempt to fact-check it on different sources. And keep in mind that the truth is sometimes quieter and less sensational than the most viral message.
In an era when AI can make something appear to be true in a matter of seconds, it’s more crucial than ever to count on something that never goes out of style: critical thinking, community, and mutual effort to chase down what’s true. The information war isn’t going away—but neither is our capacity to transcend it, together.