LOS ANGELES — The war between the United States and Iran is unfolding not only through military strikes and political escalation, but across social media — where a wave of AI-generated videos is shaping how the conflict is understood.
But for those who have lived under the Iranian government, these images and messages are familiar.
I’ve seen this before. I grew up under the regime and the was witness to the tactics used to control public perception. The tools may be new, but the messaging is not.
In recent weeks, fabricated and AI-generated videos tied to the conflict — including viral “Lego-style” animations — have spread widely online. Some clips mix humor with political messaging, while others lean into more emotional or ideological themes.
News organizations including the Associated Press have documented how AI-generated war content, including fake battle scenes and manipulated footage, has reached millions of viewers, often blurring the line between reality and fiction.
Messaging designed for Americans
Many of the viral videos contain distinctly American cultural references — cues that suggest the content is not intended for audiences inside Iran, but rather for viewers in the United States.
To those familiar with both cultures, that detail stands out.
These are not references that land with people inside Iran. They require a deep understanding of American culture, media and politics. That tells us who this is for.
Researchers have found that influence campaigns linked to Iran often tailor messaging to Western audiences, sometimes using accounts that mimic local voices to make the content more persuasive.
The effect is subtle but powerful — content that feels native to American audiences while advancing a specific geopolitical narrative.
A warning shaped by experience
For members of the Iranian diaspora, the spread of this content carries a deeper concern.
Sharing and amplifying these videos — even casually — can contribute to a broader propaganda ecosystem, one that often obscures the realities of life under the Iranian government.
This is a regime that has imprisoned writers, executed dissidents and violently suppressed women for decades. That context gets lost when people treat these videos as entertainment.
Human rights organizations have long documented widespread repression in Iran, including crackdowns on protests, restrictions on free speech and punishment for those who challenge state authority.
Those realities, many say, are often absent from the viral content circulating online.
Echoes of past propaganda
For those with lived or inherited experience of Iran’s modern history, the messaging also echoes earlier campaigns.
During the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, the government used imagery, music and storytelling to frame the conflict as both patriotic and spiritual — encouraging young people to see sacrifice as honorable and necessary. Mother would send their boys to war — some as young as 12 years old.
Some of today’s AI-generated videos appear to draw from those same themes.
A recent clip circulating online featured Farsi-language music and imagery of families sending loved ones to war — a shift from earlier satirical content toward something more emotionally charged.
That’s not random. That’s how you begin to prepare a population — by shaping how they see sacrifice, how they see war.
The role of social media
Experts say artificial intelligence has made it easier than ever to produce and distribute persuasive content at scale.
The speed and volume of these posts can overwhelm efforts to verify them, allowing misinformation to spread rapidly across platforms.
Even users who recognize the content as fake can still contribute to its reach by sharing or engaging with it.
Every share matters. Whether it’s coming from the U.S. or Iran, once we amplify it, we’re part of how it spreads.
A battle over perception
Analysts say the conflict has become as much about narrative as it is about military outcomes.
Who controls the story — and how it is told — can shape public opinion far beyond the region.
For those with lived experience of Iran’s political system, that battle is deeply personal.
This isn’t abstract for us. We know what this government is capable of. We’ve seen how it uses messaging, how it uses fear, how it uses belief.
As AI-generated content continues to flood social media, that perspective offers a reminder: behind every viral video is not just a message, but a broader effort to influence how the world understands a conflict — and the people at the center of it.
