\n\tThe video spread at a velocity only social media can generate. Missiles rained down on the USS Abraham Lincoln, blasting fighter jets into the sea, the vessel breaking apart in a dramatic fireball \u2014 shared millions of times before anyone thought to ask whether the carrier was still sailing. <\/p>\n
\n\tIt was. Analysis using the AI detection tool Hive showed roughly 99.9% of the content contained AI-generated elements. U.S. Central Command was blunt: \u201cThe Lincoln was not hit. The missiles launched didn\u2019t even come close.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe dead ships keep sailing. <\/p>\n
\n\tOne of the big questions in this conflict is who is steering the story? What\u2019s real and what\u2019s artificial? Welcome to the first real war fought simultaneously on the ground and in competing digital realities.<\/p>\n
\n\tSince U.S. and Israeli forces launched strikes on Iran<\/a> on February 28, the information battlefield has been as contested as the physical one. The New York Times identified more than 110 distinct AI-generated images and videos in the first two weeks alone. NewsGuard has now tracked 50 false claims in the conflict\u2019s first 25 days, an average of two a day, with the volume and sophistication still climbing.<\/p>\n \n\tStill, the AI bombardment continues. Among the most debunked recent fakes: AFP fact-checkers caught images of burning vehicles in Tel Aviv that actually showed the January 2026 protests in Tehran; Snopes debunked a \u201cnew\u201d Iranian strike video on Tel Aviv as footage recycled from June 2025; and Chinese state media circulated a fake image claiming Iraqi resistance had downed a U.S. KC-135 refueling aircraft. Iran<\/a> has also pivoted its AI content toward American audiences directly, with a Clemson University study published this week finding IRGC-linked accounts flooding X, Instagram and Bluesky with AI-generated videos \u2014 including deepfakes mocking President Donald Trump<\/a> styled after the Lego movies \u2014 reaching millions of viewers.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \n\tThe playbook, however, was set from the conflict\u2019s first hours. IRGC spokesman Ali Mohammad Naini claimed 650 American troops were killed or wounded in the conflict\u2019s first two days, while CENTCOM confirmed six had actually been killed. <\/p>\n \n\tIranian state broadcaster IRIB TV1 has a documented pattern of airing fabricated footage, in one instance using muted video of an Israeli attack on Iran while narrating a story about Iran striking Israel. The research firm Cyabra documented a pro-Iran campaign generating over 145 million views in days, deploying tens of thousands of fake accounts spreading AI deepfakes portraying Iran as victorious.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cContent can be created instantly, and the types of fake videos that would have taken highly trained people working with expensive software just a few years ago can now be created by anyone with a cell phone and a free app,\u201d Alex Hamerstone, Advisory Solutions Director at TrustedSec, tells Deadline. A fake video of an Iranian missile destroying a U.S. fighter jet, traced by BBC Verify to a military simulator, racked up 70 million views in a single weekend.<\/p>\n \n\tThe fabrications are growing harder to detect because they have grown more subtle. Steven Feldstein, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, describes the evolution toward the \u201cshallow fake\u201d \u2014 manipulating what is real rather than fabricating outright, making detection far harder.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThe advent of gen AI propaganda and the further erosion of trust in gatekeeping institutions make it even more difficult to combat the spread of industrial-level fabricated information,\u201d he tells Deadline. X\u2019s own AI chatbot, Grok, has compounded the problem, telling users seeking fact-checks that AI visuals were real. When Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu posted videos to rebut viral claims of his death, Grok declared the footage fake \u2014 swiftly debunked, yet already spread. AI generates the fakes; then AI \u201cverifies\u201d the fakes. Truth has no entry point.<\/p>\n \n\tThe U.S. government is hardly an innocent bystander. The White House has posted roughly a dozen \u201chype videos\u201d to X and TikTok: montages weaving Call of Duty killstreaks, Iron Man, Top Gun, and Braveheart and SpongeBob SquarePants with real strike footage, imposed with nothing to distinguish fiction from combat. One now removed video overlaid Call of Duty\u2019s \u201c+100\u201d score notifications on every Iranian target struck.<\/p>\n