The digital fog of war

Since U.S. and Israeli airstrikes ignited a sweeping regional conflict last weekend, a second war has also broken out one waged not with missiles, but with manipulated images, fabricated videos, and artificially generated propaganda. Across social media platforms, supporters on both sides have flooded digital feeds with content that experts say is spreading faster, and reaching further, than verified reporting from the ground.

The current escalation has provided one of the starkest demonstrations yet of how quickly synthetic content, from AI-generated explosions to deepfake audio of world leaders, can blur the boundary between fact and fabrication during wartime. For audiences navigating an already volatile information environment, the consequences are destabilizing.

When war footage is not war

Fact-checkers have already documented dozens of fabrications in the first days of the conflict. India’s Press Trust fact-check unit alone debunked at least 14 viral visuals falsely linked to the strikes. Pro-Iranian accounts circulated outdated footage to exaggerate the scale of Tehran’s missile attacks on Israel and Gulf states, including the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Iranian opposition outlets, meanwhile, promoted false claims attributing a missile strike on an Iranian girls’ school in Minab to the Iranian government itself a claim that amassed more than 750,000 views before being conclusively debunked by the verification group Geo Confirmed.

One of the most widely shared clips appeared to show a dramatic naval confrontation: a warship firing repeatedly at a swooping aircraft before the plane burst into flames and plunged into the sea. The video accumulated millions of views on X and was shared under captions claiming it depicted an Iranian aircraft striking a U.S. naval vessel. In reality, the footage came from War Thunder, a popular military simulation video game. Despite swift debunking, the clip was briefly reshared by public figures before being deleted.

The surge in synthetic content has overwhelmed traditional fact-checking pipelines, creating what experts describe as an AI-driven fog of war, in which distinguishing authentic media from fabrication has become increasingly unreliable. A video purporting to show Iranian fighter jets striking Dubai was identified as AI-generated through telltale artifacts such as a distorted hand with too many fingers.

The risks extend to AI-powered platforms themselves. X’s built-in assistant, Grok, incorrectly flagged an authentic photograph from credible outlets as fake and persisted in that error for hours while accepting false claims from disinformation accounts. A separate deepfake circulated showing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressing Iranians in Farsi and urging them to overthrow their government. The image was real, but the audio had been artificially generated.

In response, X’s head of product, Nikita Bier, announced on March 3 that users posting undisclosed AI-generated war content would face a 90-day suspension from the platform’s revenue-sharing program, with permanent removal for repeat violations. The platform also dismantled a coordinated network of 31 Pakistani-operated accounts, all renamed to variants of “Iran War Monitor,” that had been systematically distributing AI-fabricated war footage since February 27.

A digital battlefield layered on the physical one

For most people watching from afar, this war is experienced first on a screen before it is understood on the ground. Missile strikes, intercepted drones, and images of destroyed buildings circulate in real time alongside memes, commentary, and unverified claims. The psychological effect is disorienting exposure is constant, but clarity is rare.