Some videos circulating online that purport to show protests in Iran have been generated by artificial intelligence, a U.S.-based disinformation watchdog group said, as the country’s internet blackout makes it increasingly difficult to verify footage.
NewsGuard said in a report that it has identified seven AI-generated videos shared by both pro- and anti-government accounts claiming to show the unrest, with some clips drawing as many as 3.5 million views.
In one video identified by NewsGuard, women protesters appear to be smashing a vehicle said to belong to the Basij, Iran’s large volunteer paramilitary group, established by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and often used to crack down on demonstrations.
The post received 719,600 views and 5,700 likes in a single day, NewsGuard said. But after analyzing the footage with the detection tool Hive, the watchdog found there was a 100 percent likelihood the video had been AI-generated.
“The video shows clear signs of AI-generation, including shards of glass that appear inexplicably and misspelled words,” the report said.
Another set of videos shared by U.S.-based conservative, anti-regime accounts purported to show Iranian protesters changing street signs to symbolically rename them after President Donald Trump. One of those clips received 91,000 views and 7,100 likes in a day, but NewsGuard said its analysis found with 100 percent certainty that it too had been generated by AI.
Since the protests broke out in December, at least 2,400 demonstrators have been killed, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). With Iran largely cut off from the internet, only a portion of deaths can be confirmed, raising fears the true toll is far higher.
Internet monitoring group NetBlocks says Iran has now been without internet access for seven days, after authorities imposed a nationwide shutdown last week, severely limiting the flow of images, videos and eyewitness accounts.
Despite the blackout, CNN has been able to reach some people on the ground when brief landline and mobile calls become available.
CNN’s Renée Rigdon, Adrienne Vogt and Helen Regan contributed to this report