AI fakes about Iran-U.S. war swirl on X despite policy crackdown

AI-created videos circulating on Elon Musk's X depict American soldiers captured by Iran, an Israeli city in ruins, and US embassies ablaze; a surge of lifelike deepfakes despite a policy crackdown to curb wartime disinformation.

AI-created videos circulating on Elon Musk's X depict American soldiers captured by Iran, an Israeli city in ruins, and U.S. embassies ablaze; a surge of lifelike deepfakes despite a policy crackdown to curb wartime disinformation.

The West Asia war has unleashed an avalanche of AI-generated visuals, eclipsing anything seen in previous conflicts and often leaving social media users unable to distinguish fabrication from reality, researchers say.

In a bid to protect "authentic information" during conflicts, X announced last week that it would suspend creators from its revenue sharing program for 90 days if they post AI-generated war videos without disclosing they were artificially made.

Subsequent violations will result in permanent suspension, X's head of product Nikita Bier warned in a post.

The new policy is a notable pivot for a platform heavily criticised for becoming a haven of disinformation since Musk completed his $44 billion acquisition of the site in October 2022.

It also won praise from senior U.S. State Department official Sarah Rogers, who called it a "great complement" to X's Community Notes, a crowd-sourced verification system, that results in "less reach (thus monetisation)" for inaccurate content.