Sunday saw the state of Saxony-Anhalt hand a decisive victory to the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party, parts of which are classified by German authorities as “right-wing extremist”. The election is being reported as among the most consequential for the country in years, and could lead to the first far-right state government in Germany since the 1940s.

Fake news was observed in the lead-up to state and local elections in Germany, which was understood to be part of the wider Russian ‘Matryoshka’ influence operation, also known as Operation Overload or Storm-1516.

The AfD is widely characterised as pro-Russian, advocating for closer ties and economic cooperation with Moscow while opposing sanctions and military aid to Ukraine.

Claims of election fraud

The closely watched vote came with plenty of online disinformation. Deutsche Welle fact-checker Josh Axelrod reported on a number of cases, including one video that supposedly showed election workers destroying AfD ballots, which was actually staged.

• Read more: Election fraud claims spread in Saxony-Anhalt — Deutsche Welle

Another incident involved circulating videos claiming that the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) was engaging in fraud by using the social media pages of deceased voters for their campaign or using a database of Nazi soldier names to register fake ballots. None of it was true.

The videos featured the logos of reputable news outlets like DW, ARD, and BBC, but had never been published by those organisations. One of the clips even claimed that a disinformation reporter had “obtained evidence” about election rigging, but the journalist confirmed to Deutsche Welle that he had reported no such thing.

Julia Smirnova, disinformation expert and senior researcher at the Center for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy (CeMAS), told DW the posts were part of the ‘Matryoshka’ Russian disinformation campaign. “As with other Matryoshka videos, the reach is mostly inauthentic,” she said.

Mail-in voting suspicion

Other aspects of the elections were also targeted by misinformation. Before a single vote was cast, rumours began circulating on social media with claims that postal voting was not secure. If it sounds familiar, it’s because similar themes have come up in other jurisdictions in recent years, most notably in the Trump camp during the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

Mail-in voting has become more common in German elections, leading to a new wave of suspicion. For DW, Monir Ghaedi examined a series of claims, including one that referred to two real incidents but made the misleading, sweeping allegation that individual errors or violations are indicative of systematic fraud.

Another claim said that postal votes are easily manipulated during counting, when in fact, Germany has detailed procedures and rules around the handling and counting of postal ballots.

• Read more: Germany’s postal voting system isn’t rigged — Deutsche Welle

Russian fake news sphere

In August, Joscha Weber of Deutsche Welle reported in depth on how the September German elections, both the Saxony-Anhalt vote and more coming later this month, were being targeted by the Russian fake news system.

• Read more: German elections in the spotlight of Russian fake news — Deutsche Welle

Fake news videos were circulating about candidates in the elections, like Eric Stehr, who was running for state parliament in Saxony-Anhalt for the Left Party. He was falsely accused in these videos of various crimes and activities, including murders. The police confirmed there were no investigations against the candidate, and Stehr said: “I don't want things like that on the internet. But on the other hand, I know there's nothing I can do about it.”

There were other serious false allegations. Kai Wegner, the CDU mayor of Berlin, was falsely said to have attempted to murder a tennis player, and Olaf Lies, the SPD minister-president of Lower Saxony, was falsely linked to a sexual abuse scandal. There was no evidence for any of the claims.

As of early August, DW FactCheck counted more than 180 fake posts linked to the Russian ‘Matryoshka’ influence operation.

While many of the videos seemed generally geared toward destabilising the democratic process, other videos from the same disinformation campaign were aimed at deepening divisions between East and West Germany. One example is a video bearing the Eurostat logo, claiming that the majority of West Germans consider reunification with East Germany a mistake. Eurostat confirmed that it was a fake.

One piece of a larger puzzle

“Even in the run-up to the federal elections, we observed that Russian campaigns generally attempted to discredit candidates from all democratic parties and to support the AfD and BSW parties,” CeMAS’s Julia Smirnova told DW.

“Therefore, what we are now seeing in the run-up to the state elections is a continuation of the long-term Russia strategy of supporting parties that hold more pro-Russian positions and discrediting other parties and candidates.”

For BR24 #Faktenfuchs, Michael Schlegel and Max Gilbert wrote about how these disinformation attempts were likely a piece of the larger puzzle that is Russia’s hybrid warfare strategy in Europe.

• Read more: Elections targeted by Russian disinformation — Bayerischer Rundfunk

Germany’s domestic intelligence agency warned that the aggressive approach of the Matryoshka information manipulation campaign shows that “disinformation and information manipulation are central instruments of hybrid threats.”

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution warned that “further activities are to be expected that aim to exacerbate divisions, discredit democratic officials, question the electoral process or the election results, and strengthen the positions of the Russian leadership.”

As elections approach in other parts of Europe, authorities are already looking out for ‘Matryoshka’ disinformation circulating in domestic social media environments. Public service media members of the Eurovision News Spotlight network are also keeping a close eye on this ongoing issue.

Many of the world’s biggest tech companies — like Meta and TikTok, which are now also AI companies — have introduced AI content detectors in recent months. Others were earlier on the scene, like Google with its SynthID watermarking system.

Governments and international blocs like the EU are beginning to regulate artificial intelligence, so more detectors and other new ways to safeguard against false content may begin to emerge. Since August 2, all AI-generated or modified content is required to be labelled in the European Union under the bloc’s AI Act.

The upcoming U.S. Midterm elections in November may also be front of mind for these American giants of technology (Meta said AI transparency is one of its priorities for the elections). As election cycles become increasingly characterised by online AI slop, and amid concerns that deepfakes could influence voting, content provenance and AI detection are becoming more important than ever.

Google DeepMind SynthID

Google SynthID is an imperceptible watermark that is embedded into content generated or altered with Google’s own AI programs. A detector to pick up on that watermark was introduced internally several years ago, with a public-facing version made available to journalists and early testers in 2025, before being made widely available within the company’s Gemini LLM, Google Chrome and Google Search in late 2025 into 2026. SynthID is able to detect images, audio and video created using Google tools.

Limitations: The system is not entirely bulletproof. If a piece of content is very compressed or has been transformed substantially — for example, with heavy filters or edits — it could struggle to detect accurately. We have also seen it fail to detect a photo of a screen showing a Google AI-generated image, which gives an idea of the ways an image could be transformed to escape detection. There are file size limits, too, although they’re not as restrictive as some of the detectors on this list (100 MB for video, images and audio.)

Google’s SynthID only works on items made with Google AI. And as with any new detection system, there are also people working hard to find ways to circumvent it. Internet users have created tools that claim to remove SynthID watermarks. As more time goes on, it’s worth being aware that innovation is also happening on the other side of the ecosystem.

How to access: There is a dashboard version of the detector that Google DeepMind has made available to early testers and journalists working in fact-checking and verification. However, everyone can use the tool by putting an image or video into Gemini and simply asking if it was made with AI. Google has also added verification for C2PA Content Credentials to Gemini.

OpenAI verify tool

OpenAI released its own similar detection tool in 2026. Despite the obvious rivalry, the AI giant teamed up with Google to adopt SynthID watermarking, which is now being embedded in materials generated by OpenAI tools — including ChatGPT, the OpenAI API, or Codex. The OpenAI detector also looks for provenance signals like C2PA metadata.

Limitations: The detector is currently limited to still images and audio files, so it’s not yet possible to check videos created using OpenAI tools. Researchers and journalists are trying workarounds, like checking screenshots from videos which could give an indication as to the provenance of the overall clip.

Otherwise, the same limitations apply as with Google SynthID; heavy compression or tampering, or the metadata being stripped, could hamper detection. Since OpenAI’s use of watermarks is newer, it would also fail to detect content generated from a legacy model before watermarking was implemented. As with Google’s detector, this one only works on content generated or modified by OpenAI.

How to access: A publicly available dashboard where items can be dragged and dropped in for check is available here.

Meta AI identification

Meta already had its own AI detection systems being used internally, but during the summer, it released a publicly available scanner for people to check content themselves.

Meta is not using Google’s SynthID — but it is using its own Content Seal watermark to detect materials made with Meta tools, including the new image-generation model, Muse Image.

Limitations: With the detector and the image model itself being so new, there has not been as much extensive testing done by journalists or researchers as the previous options. A Reuters analysis in July found that Meta’s detection tool failed to identify some of its own AI-generated images once they were cropped.

Since cropping is one of the most common transformations an image could undergo before being reshared, it highlighted the challenges of verifying AI-generated images. Meta told Reuters that the tool was a preview, and added that the watermark was designed to remain intact after common edits, but the signal may be lost if an image is heavily cropped. As with all detectors, it may be a good way to do an initial check, but traditional verification methods are still needed.

There’s also a 50 MB size limit on videos right now, which might make scanning higher-quality videos tricky.

How to access: A dashboard where users can drop in an image, video or audio file — or even paste a public URL — is available to try out here.

ByteDance’s TikTok AI detector

Over the summer, TikTok discreetly launched a preview website where content could be uploaded for detection. The tool is designed to identify whether an image or video was generated or edited with AI tools from within the ByteDance shed, including TikTok, CapCut, Dreamina, Hypic, and Pippit.

TikTok said that this type of AI content is usually already labelled when you see it on the platforms, but a detector would be useful for content that makes its way across the wider internet.

Similar to the other detectors, it uses a combination of C2PA metadata and “invisible watermarks”. With the tool still in preview mode, more time is needed to check out just how effective TikTok’s answer to AI detection is.

Limitations: In TikTok’s own words, “no AI detection tool is 100% foolproof”. It says there may be cases where AI-generated content was made with its platforms but has weak signals, due to the metadata being stripped, the watermark being degraded, or content predating the introduction of these signals.

There are also limits on the file sizes that can be uploaded to the detector — up to 20 MB for images, up to 100 MB for videos.

How to access: A preview dashboard where content can be uploaded for a check can be found here.

Nvidia’s Synthetic Video Detector

Another detector emerged this summer from one of the world’s leading AI companies, Nvidia. This one promises something different. Pitched as the solution to a concern in newsrooms and other media environments, the Nvidia Synthetic Video Detector (SVD) will not be available to the general public — although a demo is available to try.

This is a micro-service by Nvidia aimed at broadcasters, news agencies, content moderators and more, that promises to eventually allow for detection even in livestream situations.

Unlike the others, this detector does not rely on watermarks and will not be limited to content from certain models — so it should work as a general detector for a wide range of AI-generated videos. It analyses statistical and frequency-domain traces that are often seen in AI-generated videos, giving per-frame detection scores as well as an overall synthetic probability for the entire video, the company says.

Limitations: The demo version of this detector can be slow to process and has a maximum file size of 100 MB — and it only works on videos. Nvidia says the signals it checks are resilient to common video transformations like compression and re-encoding. We had mixed results with the demo, but it’s still early days for this detector.

How to access: The demo version is available to try here.

More reading:

• Deepfakes, chatbots, AI-generated images or videos: what are the new transparency obligations imposed by the European Union since August 2nd? — RTBF

• TikTok and Meta create portals to detect videos and images generated with their AI tools — 3Cat

Much of Europe is waiting with bated breath for a glimpse at a once-in-a-generation phenomenon: a solar eclipse that is set to reach totality in parts of Spain and Iceland.

For other Europeans, it will still be the most significant solar eclipse since 1999. More than 90% of the sun will be covered by the moon for viewers across much of the continent. Maps and other resources on how the eclipse will look in your area are readily available online.

Celestial phenomena frequently spark scientific questions and ignite false claims and conspiracy theories, and this time is no different. Our members debunked some of the most widespread topics being discussed on social media.

• VerificaRTVE: Earth will not lose gravity for 7 seconds and other myths about the solar eclipse of August 12

• 3Cat: The eclipse will not alter Earth’s gravity or cause telecommunications problems

• VRT: Can your smartphone camera get damaged if you photograph the eclipse?

• TV5 Monde: Solar eclipse of August 12, 2026: no, Earth’s gravity will not disappear

• BBC: Three ways to watch the solar eclipse safely without glasses

Myth #1: The eclipse will cause 7 seconds of zero gravity

According to a viral claim, Earth will lose gravity for seven seconds during the eclipse. Some of the claims linked to a fake NASA project. However, NASA confirmed the claims are untrue. Gravity depends on a planet’s mass, and has nothing to do with shadows that pass over it.

A related claim said that the sun-moon alignment will pull people “upward” and make them weigh less. This one is also false, since the Earth’s mass does not change during an eclipse. A solar eclipse is just the moon’s shadow as it passes between the Earth and the sun; it has no effect on Earth’s gravitational pull, although it can have an effect on tides, like any full or new moon.

Myth #2: You can't trust any eclipse glasses and other eyewear topics

An audio clip circulating online in Spain claimed that ophthalmologists don't trust any eclipse glasses. This is not true. Glasses that meet the ISO 12312-2:2015 standard with CE marking are safe, as long as they're undamaged and not scratched. Meanwhile, advice is circulating online about using sunglasses or other eyewear that is not approved for direct solar viewing — experts are warning people to avoid this and only look directly at the eclipse with approved eye protection. Those lucky enough to be in the path of totality will be able to take their eyewear off when the sun is 100% covered, but these need to go back on during any other phase of the eclipse.

Six models of eclipse viewing glasses were recalled in Spain, but it was not because they let in too much light. Rather, they were so dark that there was a risk people would try to remove them to find the sun, heightening the chances of eye damage. The experts say that if you can’t see the eclipse through your glasses, you should keep them on and avoid looking at the sun. There are a number of safe ways to experience the solar eclipse without glasses, like making a pinhole projector or using a colander to see the shadow of the moon over the sun.

Myth #3: You can film the eclipse on your phone without taking any precautions

Many people will try to film the eclipse on their smartphone, but there is a risk that the direct sunlight could fry the camera’s sensor at any partial stage of the eclipse. Astrophotographers and those using zoom lenses will need to use a solar filter that has the same level of protection as eclipse glasses.

A smartphone’s camera does not have comparable zoom features and has a relatively tiny sensor, and opinions are split about whether a quick photo could do permanent damage. Longer exposures to sunlight, like a timelapse or a long-exposure photograph, could result in black spots on the sensor — and in every photo and video that camera captures in future. To be safe, a solar filter, or even taping the eclipse glasses over the lens, is advised.

Professionals with all of the necessary equipment will also be working to live stream the event, which will be well covered on news channels and on digital platforms.

Click here to register for upcoming sessions.

A week on, confusion still reigned in the information sphere about what caused the mass rush on the border. Accusations have come from across the spectrum: from political leaders to known conspiracy theorists, and all manner of social media users in between.

Some of the narratives have included questions like: Did Morocco or any other states have a hand in encouraging the border crossings? Did human trafficking gangs warp recent legal changes in Spain to boost their businesses? And should European countries begin closing their borders to stop any spillover from Spain?

The answers to all of these questions are not yet clear. Meanwhile, the facts and additional context that we do have risk being lost in the milieu.

Local officials in Ceuta put the number of deaths during the crossings at more than 100. Ceuta’s leader Juan Jesús Vivas said that there were still between 3,000 and 5,000 migrants in the autonomous city a week later.

The crisis also triggered a political storm. An emergency EU ministerial meeting was held on August 4, which seemed to calm the tensions that had earlier been heightened between EU countries on how to handle the situation.

Misinformed readings of court rulings

Some coverage on a recent Spanish court ruling blends several separate legal developments together, muddying the waters of this already complicated topic.

Swimming to Ceuta

The first was a line of case law confirmed by Spain’s Supreme Court on June 29. It concerned a case from several years ago, in which an Algerian man challenged his return to Morocco, arguing that he had entered Ceuta by swimming. The Supreme Court ruled in his favour, establishing a precedent that migrants who arrive by swimming do not “cross a border containment element” (like a fence). The crossing of a fence or wire is technically a legal requirement for carrying out returns without due process; if not summarily returned, a case file can be opened and it would give a migrant more time to fight for their right to remain.

However, swimming to Ceuta is not a legal loophole that allows the swimmer to remain. Rather, it’s a technicality in how border authorities can handle such arrivals. When a migrant comes over a fence, the authorities are able to push them straight back over the border in a practice known as ‘hot returns’ — not possible in the same way for someone arriving by swimming, although they may still be removed after a short process. The recent ruling merely exposed this procedural gap.

Spanish officials and political leaders, including Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, blamed trafficking gangs for warping the ruling and spreading misinformation about people’s chances if they were to swim into Ceuta. On a visit to Ceuta, Sánchez said: “What has emerged from our talks with Moroccan authorities is that trafficking mafias took a self-serving interpretation of a Supreme Court ruling”, adding that this interpretation “spread like wildfire”.

Unaccompanied minors

The second recent development, from July 8, saw the Supreme Court striking down parts of Spain’s 2024 immigration regulations. This one specifically relates to unaccompanied minors, strengthening authorities’ duty to provide care to those children found in Spain. Children and teenagers were among the crowds that crossed into Ceuta in late July, and more than 1,300 unaccompanied minors were still there a week later, according to the Minister for Youth and Children, Sira Rego.

Amnesty for people without residency permits

There is also another legal change underway; Spain is carrying out an amnesty programme to regularise immigrants without residency permits, but it only applies to those who arrived before January 1, 2026, and can prove they have been living there for at least five months.

U.S. President Donald Trump was among those to say that the various law changes sent a message that Spain is lenient, thereby sparking the rush to the border. He used the issue for his own political campaigning ahead of the U.S. Midterm elections. “If we’re not in office, our country will be invaded at levels that made Spain look small-time,” he said.

Did misinformation about the court rulings cause the crisis?

The question is whether the legal confusion contributed to Spain’s border crisis.

People have long tried to swim to Ceuta, and the Spanish city has seen people arriving on its beaches for years, although not in such huge numbers. UN data analysed by BBC Verify showed that 2,826 people crossed into Ceuta up to July 15 of this year — already high compared to recent years as Moroccans struggled with unemployment and staged anti-government protests.

Specifically timed surges of arrivals happened during a previous border incident in 2021, which was prompted by a diplomatic crisis relating to Spain’s hospitalisation of the leader of Polisario Front, a liberation group that opposes the Moroccan occupation of the Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony.

Separately, swimming crossings have also taken place at Melilla, Spain’s other North African enclave that is also surrounded by Morocco.

The timeline of these rulings, weeks before any major activity at the border, did not immediately suggest that they were the direct cause of the thousands of late-July crossings, and there was no clear evidence of any inauthentic information campaign. But there were signs that later viral misinformation about the changes — specifically the ruling about swimming — was one of the more significant contributing factors.

Spanish investigative outlet Maldita found one disinformation chain message that was shared with the same wording hundreds of times, including by large accounts, on July 30, which said: “The Spanish Supreme Court: there will be no immediate expulsion of migrants who reach Ceuta and Melilla by swimming.” Other posts discussing the ruling in simplified language, becoming misinformation in the process, appeared in online conversation in Morocco throughout July, but surged at the end of the month just as thousands of people began their journey to Ceuta.

Theories that the crossings had state-backed coordination

Many of the conspiracy theories surrounding the mass border crossing have involved some elements of state-backed coordination or interference.

Fingers pointed at Israel and the U.S.

Some of these — like one that has Israel and/or the U.S. as organisers, which has been promoted by an official Iranian embassy account and is reportedly the preferred explanation of Chinese intelligence — are lacking publicly available evidence.

Among those who have promoted these Israel-related hypotheses are prominent conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and Gabriel Rufián, spokesperson of the Republican Left of Catalonia.

Both Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu had recently criticised Spain’s positions on both the Palestine issue and also the countries’ war with Iran.

Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, posted on X as the crisis was underway, accusing Spain of hypocrisy for criticising Israel while it kept what he described as “colonial enclaves” in Africa.

Spanish Transport Minister Óscar Puente responded to the post, writing: “Well, it’s all becoming quite clear.” Although not a direct accusation, this reply was read by many as one of the most clear endorsements of the theory early on in this story.

There is little out there for us to fact-check these foreign interference theories against; intelligence assessments suggesting international geopolitical interference have been slow to emerge, and there is no smoking gun in the available open-source information or eyewitness footage.

Morocco encouraging the surge?

There is more to suggest that the Moroccan authorities at least allowed the surge at the border to happen, even if they didn’t plan or directly encourage it. Verified social media footage showed Moroccan authorities standing by as people headed towards the border crossing. There is no public evidence that they outright encouraged or coordinated it, but there is content to suggest they did not physically stop it.

Spanish intelligence assessments, reported by local media which were later cited by Reuters, stated that border controls were gradually loosened throughout July and were ultimately at a low level on July 30, when Morocco celebrates its Throne Day holiday.

Among the reasons social media users gave as to why Morocco may have wanted to punish Spain was the recent visit to Algeria by Pedro Sánchez, a new law allowing tens of thousands of Sahrawis to become Spanish citizens, and even rivalry over the 2030 World Cup, which the countries are co-hosting along with Portugal.

An assessment by Spain’s National Intelligence Centre, reported on by Spanish newspaper El País on August 3, concluded that Moroccan authorities did not organise the crossing but did allow it to happen and later used it as diplomatic leverage.

Ceuta’s regional president, Juan Jesús Vivas, went further in publicly accusing Morocco of “encouraging and allowing” the mass border crossing. Morocco has emphatically denied any involvement, and there is no verified footage showing Moroccan authorities actively directing people towards the border.

Italy’s border checks despite non-Schengen Ceuta

In Italy, Giorgia Meloni’s government was one of the first to respond to the Spanish crisis, announcing “targeted and selective” checks on non-EU passengers arriving from its EU neighbour.

The change was reported as a temporary suspension of the Schengen free movement regime, since both Spain and Italy are in the Schengen area. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Antonio Tajani, said in a statement on X: “The migrant crisis in Ceuta reminds us that the management of the Union’s borders is a shared responsibility among our countries, one toward the other. We must work together to prevent uncontrolled migrant flows from entering EU territory, with all the consequent risks and the threat of terrorism, which must be countered without hesitation.”

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said the move was aimed at defending Italy’s borders.

However, the measure has been described as symbolic or politically motivated. While Spain is in the Schengen zone, the autonomous Ceuta is not, meaning that anyone travelling from Ceuta to mainland Spain would already be subject to passport and visa checks.

Spain’s Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said that the surge of migrants into Ceuta did not “compromise” Europe’s visa-free travel zone, a point which he later told reporters was agreed among his EU counterparts after the August emergency meeting.

Italy was not the only country to call for a review of Spain in the free-travel area; Denmark had also earlier advocated for a suspension, but its Immigration and Integration Minister Morten Bodskov said this week that he was “very satisfied” by the response from Madrid.

Despite the fact that the location of the migrant crossings was not in the Schengen zone and therefore the people would be subject to checks upon further movement into the zone, Italy was still treating travellers from Spain as non-Schengen area arrivals as of the time of writing.

Evidence of planning for more border crossings

Open-source research by Spotlight member VerificaRTVE showed that fresh plans for a rush on the Ceuta border on August 15 were afoot. Messages circulating in advice channels for would-be migrants showed clear evidence of misinformation fanning the trend; one message read: “Guys, I wanted to ask you: is it true that the border will be open on August 15th?”

• Various dates, possible routes and tips: investigation on how to organise a new entry into Ceuta — VerificaRTVE

RTVE accessed three WhatsApp groups, five Facebook communities, and monitored messaging circulating on dozens of Instagram and TikTok accounts relating to this new call to enter Spain in mid-August.

The Facebook groups had more than 200,000 members, while hundreds of people were in closed messaging groups on WhatsApp where they shared thousands of messages, discussing when and how to cross, advice on swimming equipment and meeting points, and often sharing unverified information.

On public platforms, the tone was one of outreach, with the apparent aim to find more participants with hashtags like #ceuta, #fnideq and #europe.

RTVE found one slogan that came up again and again: “That day everything will make sense.” Spain’s Civil Guard is already investigating this fresh call to action, and journalists are monitoring the situation as the date approaches.

Sources

Associated Press (2026). FACT FOCUS: Migrant crossing in Spain’s Ceuta breeds unsubstantiated claims. [online] [Accessed 6 Aug. 2026].

BBC News (2026). Spain’s PM blames traffickers after 60,000 migrants reach Ceuta from Morocco. [online] [Accessed 6 Aug. 2026].

CNN (2026). The Supreme Court ruling at the center of Spain’s Ceuta migrant crisis. [online] [Accessed 6 Aug. 2026].

Danon, D. (2026). X post questioning Spain’s criticism of Israel in light of its own African enclaves. [online] [Accessed 6 Aug. 2026].

El País (2026). Los servicios de inteligencia concluyen que Rabat permitió y utilizó la oleada humana sobre Ceuta, pero no la planeó. [online] [Accessed 6 Aug. 2026].

El Mundo (2026). Por qué la inteligencia china cree que el Mosad puede estar detrás de la crisis migratoria en Ceuta. [online] [Accessed 6 Aug. 2026].

Embassy of Iran in Kenya (2026). X post alleging the Ceuta crisis was orchestrated by external actors to destabilise Spain. [online] [Accessed 6 Aug. 2026].

Euronews (2026). Spain’s legal dilemma behind Ceuta’s record migrant arrivals. [online] [Accessed 6 Aug. 2026].

Jones, A. (2026). X post suggesting the United States and Israel supported the movement of migrants into Spain. [online] [Accessed 6 Aug. 2026].

NBC News (2026). Spain’s Ceuta overwhelmed as thousands remain after migrant border rush. [online] [Accessed 6 Aug. 2026].

PBS News (2026). Most of the 60,000 migrants who crossed into territory of Ceuta have left voluntarily, Spain says. [online] [Accessed 6 Aug. 2026].

Puente, O. (2026). X post replying to Danny Danon, suggesting the situation was becoming clear. [online] [Accessed 6 Aug. 2026].

RTÉ (2026). EU ‘united with Spain’ over Ceuta crisis - O’Callaghan. [online] [Accessed 6 Aug. 2026].

RTVE (2026). Cientos de menores vagan por las calles de Ceuta una semana después de la entrada masiva en medio del debate político. [online] [Accessed 6 Aug. 2026].

RTVE (2026). Varias fechas, posibles rutas y consejos: la investigación de cómo se organiza en redes una nueva entrada en Ceuta. [online] [Accessed 6 Aug. 2026].

Rufián, G. (2026). X post accusing Morocco of acting on behalf of the US and Israel in the Ceuta crisis. [online] [Accessed 6 Aug. 2026].

Tajani, A. (2026). X post confirming Italy’s temporary suspension of the Schengen agreement with Spain over the Ceuta migrant crisis. [online] [Accessed 6 Aug. 2026].

UNHCR (2026). Situation Europe Sea Arrivals: Spain. [online] [Accessed 6 Aug. 2026].

RTVE (2026). Rego cifra en 1.342 los menores registrados en Ceuta y prevé que en “pocas semanas” empiecen a derivarse a la península. [online] [Accessed 6 Aug. 2026].

Fake content and incorrect information can make it harder to visualise the real impact of this fire season. To counter this, we created an interactive map showing all the fires burning in Europe.

Meanwhile, members of Eurovision News Spotlight have been fact-checking the false claims, AI-generated content and old images circulating as the wildfires were taking hold.

Mapping the fires

Explore our interactive map showing ongoing fires and areas that have been burnt since the beginning of 2026. Map updates every 24 hours.

Fact-checking the fires: Unlikely animal rescues

As news about the fires began filtering out, false claims and fake images began to appear. One similar phenomenon appearing across countries was AI-generated videos and photos of firefighters rescuing wild animals from the flames.

👉 Foxes, fawns, squirrels... Beware of these fake images of wild animals rescued from fires — franceinfo

👉 It's not the rescue of a fox and her cub, it's a video created with artificial intelligence — VerificaRTVE

Radio France’s Valentine Joubin, writing for franceinfo’s Vrai ou Faux, wrote about the proliferation of AI-generated images showing rescues of foxes, boar piglets, and fawns, some of them being cradled by firefighters.

Animal behaviour specialists pointed out that wild animals typically flee and don’t allow themselves to be handled — in fact, this type of intervention is extremely rare, and while firefighters do try to protect animal habitats, they say they already have enough difficulty saving human lives.

VerificaRTVE also debunked the fox video, which was circulating on Spanish-language social media. Just one post featuring it had more than 1.6 million views. The video shows the mother fox receiving CPR. However, in reality, resuscitation of an animal would involve an oxygen mask.

Firefighting capacity claims

Not every wildfire fact-check was about fake or AI-generated content.

👉 Does France have firefighting resources ‘superior to its neighbours’? — franceinfo

Franceinfo also tackled a claim made by a sitting MEP, Renew Europe’s Grégory Allione, who argued that France has firefighting resources superior to its neighbours and therefore contributes “three to four times more” to the EU's civil protection mechanism than the countries now sending it help.

The claim didn’t entirely hold up: while France’s contribution to the shared European civil protection mechanism is on the higher side, Italy and Spain both have more Canadair water bombers than France. Furthermore, Greece contributes more to the European mechanism. But some countries punch below their weight; for example Portugal, which is heavily affected by fires each summer, and which only has two Canadairs.

France does stand out from its neighbours in terms of human resources; the French fire service is made up of 43,448 firefighters and almost 14,000 military personnel, as well as more than 200,000 volunteer firefighters. These numbers are far higher than neighbouring European counterparts of similar populations like Spain and Italy.

Old content resurfaces

Several large fires are burning throughout Spain, one of Europe’s worst affected areas this summer. Some of the most-shared claims about the fires there turned out to be old material masquerading as breaking news footage.

👉 It's not a group of people trying to put out a fire in a field in Spain, it's Algeria — VerificaRTVE

👉 Morocco has not sent seaplanes to Spain to fight the fires in Madrid — VerificaRTVE

👉 Fake audio from a pilot, forest clearing, and other hoaxes about the fires in Madrid and Ávila — VerificaRTVE

There was a viral audio clip of a “Spanish pilot” complaining that residents were blocking access to pool water for firefighting. RTVE traced it back to a 2023 broadcast from Chile, and it had no connection to the current fires.

A separate video showing a crowd beating a blaze with branches, shared as evidence of citizens fighting the fires themselves, was actually filmed in Algeria in recent days.

Meanwhile, footage said to show Moroccan aircraft helping extinguish the fires turned out to be a clip that has been circulating since 2022.

Months before the tournament even began, football’s governing body came under intense scrutiny for its ticket prices and its awarding of a new peace prize to U.S. President Donald Trump.

As the tournament got underway, much of the focus returned to the football. But all the way to the end, the match-ups were being linked to geopolitical narratives while fake, AI-generated content continued to proliferate.

Spotlight members were tracking these narratives and fakes throughout the World Cup — both before and after the final.

Conspiracy theories about FIFA officials and referees

Disagreements with referees are nothing new in the world of football. But this tournament saw a heightened amount of AI-generated and manipulated digital content that appeared to give more weight to theories than ever before.

👉 Lamine Yamal was not photographed with the World Cup final referee — VerificaRTVE

Following Spain’s World Cup victory, an apparent photograph of Lamine Yamal alongside Slavko Vinčić, the referee of the final, made the rounds on social media.

Several posts claimed the match was fixed and that the Slovenian referee was a supporter of the Spanish team, but RTVE found that the image was fake and created with AI.

A number of AI detection tools suggested a high likelihood of the image being AI-generated, while OpenAI’s own detector picked up a watermark confirming it was at the very least edited with OpenAI software.

There were also some visual AI errors, as can be seen in the below image.

👉 François Letexier’s Wikipedia page tampered with — SRF

In one case, Argentina staged a late comeback against Egypt in the round of 16. The Egyptians criticised several refereeing decisions, with coach Hossam Hassan even calling it a "fixed match”.

Following the match, a note appeared on Letexier's Wikipedia page stating that he had grown up in an Orthodox Jewish family. This misinformation fuelled speculation and conspiracy theories suggesting that either Israel had influenced the result or that FIFA had ensured Argentina's advancement.

The Wikipedia page had actually been manipulated. The cited article did not mention any such religious details, and no other evidence existed. In fact, the edit history of the Wikipedia page showed that an unusually high number of changes were made and deleted in the hours after the match, SRF reported.

👉 This isn't Infantino's reaction to Ferran's goal in the 2026 World Cup final — VerificaRTVE

A video circulating on social media showed FIFA President Gianni Infantino reacting coldly to a goal, and social media users claimed it was the reaction to Ferran Torres' goal in the 2026 World Cup final between Spain and Argentina.

RTVE did the digging, and found this to be false. The video itself was real, but it was not from the World Cup final.

It was actually a clip from the Round of 16 match between Canada and Morocco, which was played on July 4.

Fabricated player quotes and images

Other manipulated content and false claims surrounded players and coaches during this World Cup, and none moreso than the parties involved in the final: Spain and Argentina.

Much of the discussions claiming the competition was rigged centred around Argentina, with many believing — without evidence — that FIFA wanted footballing legend Lionel Messi to lift the trophy in what may have been his last appearance for his country. These claims ramped up when Argentina successfully reached the final — necessary context for further analysing the discourse.

👉 Luis de la Fuente did not speak of refereeing ‘robbery’ — VerificaRTVE

A post on X that was written like a news update attributed a quote to Spain’s national team coach, Luis de la Fuente, in which he purportedly criticised the refereeing of the final.

“I'm so happy we won the World Cup. This is the happiest day of my life, thanks to Ferran Torres' goal. But we also have to talk about VAR and the referee. I've never seen a bigger robbery in my coaching career than this. It seemed like they wanted Argentina and Lionel Messi to win it again at all costs,” the post cited de la Fuente as saying.

Spain’s RTVE dug into the claim, finding it to be false. There was no record of Luis de la Fuente publicly complaining about these topics, nor saying any of what was quoted.

👉 No, Spanish players did not wave the Palestinian flag on the pitch — VRT

👉 Fake images circulate of Spanish World Cup players draped in Palestinian flags — France 24

👉 It's not Lamine Yamal celebrating the 2026 World Cup victory with a Palestinian flag or a keffiyeh; these are AI-generated images

After Spain’s victory, messages appeared on X and Instagram claiming that Pedro Porro and Lamine Yamal stood on the field with Palestinian flags during the celebrations. Both of these were false, France 24 and VRT reported.

Photos do indeed show Porro carrying a flag with green, white, and black horizontal stripes at various points throughout the on-pitch celebrations and medal presentation. But it was not the Palestinian flag — it was the flag of Extremadura, the autonomous region in western Spain where he was born and raised, VRT reported.

Lamine Yamal is a vocal supporter of the Palestinian cause and has previously been photographed waving the Palestinian flag, making the rumour about him seem more believable. However, the image of him on the pitch was AI-generated, as confirmed by OpenAI’s own detector.

A separate image showed him celebrating with a Palestinian keffiyah — also false.

Real images, wrong story

Some images were real but had incorrect captions applied in their reshares across social media.

👉 Fact check: Trump wasn’t edited out of Spain World Cup photo — DW

Several posts circulated online claiming that US President Donald Trump was edited out of a photo posted by the Spanish Football Federation on its social media accounts.

However, the claim was false. The image was neither AI-generated nor altered, DW reported. While Trump initially stood alongside the team as they began to lift the trophy, he was ushered further away to the side by FIFA President Gianni Infantino, at which point more photographs and videos were captured.

The same image without Trump was distributed by photo agencies.

👉 Marc Cucurella didn’t carry the World Cup in a plastic bag — VerificaRTVE

Meanwhile, videos of Spain’s Marc Cucurella circulated showing him carrying what appeared to be the World Cup trophy in a plastic bag.

A closer look revealed that it’s actually a Lego replica. Lego released a replica of the official trophy as part of its collection for the 2026 World Cup.

👉 Barcelona’s Torre Glòries was lit up before World Cup win for technical tests — VerificaRTVE

A video circulating on social media showed Barcelona's Torre Glòries illuminated with the colors of the Spanish flag, with claims that Spain was celebrating the 2026 World Cup win three days before the final.

The video was real and recent, but it was not a celebration. It was part of technical tests for the special display being planned if Luis de la Fuente's team were to win the World Cup days later — as confirmed to VerificaRTVE by the building's communications department.

The extreme temperatures are causing widespread wildfires and appear to be connected to a rising death toll across Europe. According to the World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus more than 1,300 excess deaths had been recorded between 21 and 28 June “linked to high temperatures in Europe”.

Videos shared out of context, resurfacing old narratives, and misinterpreted laws are only a few of the tools used to spread false claims around heat waves, reinforcing the trend that sees a new surge of climate disinformation following extreme weather events and natural disasters.

High temperatures are not melting traffic lights (yet)

A video went viral on social media claiming to show a deformed traffic light in Verona, Italy, melting during a heat wave. The caption read, “In Verona it’s so hot that traffic lights melt.”

Starting on June 24, the video was shared on multiple platforms, garnering hundreds of thousands of views. The video was initially shared (archived here) by Italian social media users, but it quickly spread in other languages, including in Albanian (archived here), Turkish (archived here), and German (archived here). Some of the social media users claimed (archived here) the video was shot during the heat wave in Germany.

The video was shared out of context and conveys a false claim, as reported by several fact-checkers. The clip was shot in Lugagnano, Veneto, as said by Jhonny Puttini, the original poster (archived here), and as confirmed by the Google Street View frame below.

However, while it is true that the traffic light featured in the video recently melted, local news outlets revealed that the cause was not the heat wave, but a car fire that broke out in the evening of June 23, in Via 26 Aprile, in Lugagnano. Pictures of the accident confirm that the fire occurred by the impacted traffic light seen in the viral clip.

A week after the accident Puttini himself published a Facebook update (archived here) explaining that his video was meant to be ironic.

Heat waves are not artificially generated by HAARP

As it often happens after severe climate events, several social media posts have been pointing at the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) and at other technologies, as responsible for the heat waves that have been hitting Europe over the last two months.

For example, on July 12 an X user wrote (archived here), “Shutting down all the data centres will end the heat islands that push out rain clouds and widen heatwave area. Ending HAARP and cloud seeding that drains water from air and widens heat islands will end heatwave weather.”

As extensive debunking by multiple news outlets has demonstrated, HAARP cannot manipulate the weather and there is no evidence or known technology through which it could artificially induce extreme weather events such as heat waves.

The U.S. Air Force founded the HAARP research station in the 1990s, but since 2015 it has been operated by the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The research facility is used to study atmospheric activity with high-frequency transmitters and for years it has been at the centre of several conspiracy theories claiming that HAARP can manipulate the weather and cause natural disasters through its radio transmissions.

On its website HAARP explains that “the radio waves in the frequency ranges that HAARP transmits are not absorbed in either the troposphere or the stratosphere—the two levels of the atmosphere that produce Earth’s weather. Since there is no interaction, there is no way to control the weather.”

According to climate scientists, the recent heat waves across Europe were caused by a persistent high-pressure system that trapped a vast quantity of hot air over the continent. Scientists also say that human-induced climate change and burning fossil fuels are making heat waves more frequent and intense.

Spain has not banned air conditioning

An X post from June 25 (archived here) claimed that in Spain “Public spaces and commercial buildings cannot set their AC systems lower than 27°C (80°F).” The same claim was shared (archived here) by other social media users.

A debunk by DW revealed that the claim originated from a Time Out headline written on August 3, 2022, when the Spanish government temporarily banned people from setting their AC below 27°C in response to the energy crisis caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, at a time when other countries also took similar measures.

The Spanish ruling stated that the cooling “may not be set below 27 degrees Celsius and the heating may not be set above 19 degrees Celsius.” The ban lasted one year and it was only applied to public buildings and shops, DW reported, making it unrelated to the current heat wave.

IPCC scientists are not resigning over climate science manipulation

Posts went viral on social media claiming that 46 scientists resigned from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in protest against the manipulation advanced by climate science. The same claim circulated in English (archived here), French (archived here), and Dutch (archived here).

“46 IPCC scientists have resigned. The reason? Because they are not being listened to, because their opinions differ from the prevailing narrative!” wrote (archived here) a Facebook user on June 28. The post went on listing statements from alleged IPCC scientists suggesting that the IPCC’s climate models deviated from reality.

A fact-checking article by AFP reported that similar claims and quotes purporting to support this narrative have been circulating at least since 2013. Additionally, some of the researchers mentioned in the posts have already passed away.

AFP also found that some of the researchers mentioned by social media users are not IPCC scientists, but expert reviewers in charge of commenting IPCC drafts.

Iran protest movement plays out in comment sections

As protests against the Islamic Republic of Iran intensified from January 2026, the comment sections of European public broadcasters reflected the country’s heightened political tension — with at least three distinct coordinated networks operating simultaneously on the same platforms, and sometimes beneath the same posts.

The largest single coordinated community identified across the entire dataset supported the Iranian opposition and its figurehead Reza Pahlavi, an exiled opposition figure and eldest son of the former Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. It generated tens of thousands of comments across the channels analysed, making it by far the highest-volume coordinated presence in the investigation. Accounts in this network posted using shared hashtags — #KingRezaPahlavi, #FreeIran, #IranRevolution2026, #DigitalBlackoutIran — and in many cases used near-identical template text, likely distributed through messaging app channels.

“Once again, the Islamic Republic has shut down the internet and phone lines, cutting people in Iran off from the world. Iranians abroad are deeply worried about the safety of our fellow citizens. Silencing a nation is not security it is hostage-taking. Be the voice of Iran.”

This text, with minimal variation, appeared hundreds of times across multiple comment sections — those of ORF, Tagesschau, France 24, RFI, RTVE and ZDFheute.

There was a telling forensic detail in comments across multiple participants of this investigation: a misspelled hashtag, #DigitalBlackoutlran, where a lowercase ‘l’ replaced the capital ‘I’ in ‘Iran’. This misspelled hashtag appeared identically in comment sections of ORF, ZDFheute, France 24, LRT and Tagesschau, and also in comments left on Belgian broadcaster RTBF’s page. ORF managed to also find traces of this hashtag on Telegram, but its true origin is unknown.

Similar pro-Pahlavi hashtags like ‘kingrezapahlavi’ and ‘iranrevolution2026’ were identified by Swissinfo, which found a series of accounts commenting on both its and BR24’s pages. These accounts changed their usernames relatively quickly, within the two-week interval during data collection in April. In May, as the journalists analysed the results of the data collection, Swissinfo observed that some posts from these accounts had been deleted by the accounts’ owners.

ORF, Tagesschau, France 24, LRT, RTVE, Swissinfo and BR24 all found versions of a pro-Reza Pahlavi network on their accounts. Most assessed the majority of accounts as likely belonging to real members of the Iranian diaspora engaged in genuine — if coordinated — political advocacy. Tagesschau also identified what appeared to be a separate, more clearly automated layer within the pro-Pahlavi activity: posts published within minutes of each other, almost all containing the exact words ‘King Reza Pahlavi’, pointing to bot amplification running alongside authentic human engagement.

In an interview with ORF, Alberto Fittarelli, an expert in cybersecurity, disinformation and OSINT at the University of Toronto, confirmed that the pro-Pahlavi movement online is largely led by real people. However, it appears to also be supported by two other types of online activities: “Accounts that are clearly bots or automated, pushing high volumes of content in short spans of time reacting to events,” Fittarelli said, and a “gray area that often consists of probably real accounts that are highly coordinated across different platforms.”

Pro-Iranian regime bot network

Running in parallel, and targeting the same posts, was a network promoting the other side: supporting the Iranian government and opposing the protesters. This narrative was clearly identifiable in Tagesschau’s comments, and its behaviour was among the most unambiguously inauthentic found in this investigation.

Network analysis shows a cluster operating with near-perfect internal connectivity — a network in which virtually every account was connected to every other. The comment data shows more than 200 accounts posted the following phrase, all on January 24. Most of the comments — more than 190 — dropped within a one-minute period, while the remaining ones trickled in within just over two minutes.

”Hopefully every demonstrator in Iran will be harshly punished. Iran will remain Islamic and there is nothing you can do about it.”

A second stream of accounts, operating under the same post, posted ‘Befreit den Iran vom Zionismus’ (Free Iran from Zionism). Those comments began appearing on the same day, just minutes before the earlier example, in a number of short bursts.

Account profiles showed patterns consistent with the work of commercial engagement-farming services: recently created, minimal posting history, and indicators suggesting a location in India — matching the profile identified in a similar spam operation previously uncovered by BR24 in a separate context.

It must be noted that for much of the January protest movement, the internet was almost entirely shut down across Iran, which would have affected any coordinated activity coming from within the country at that time. This investigation did not determine who was behind the varied coordinated messages, inauthentic or otherwise.

Hidden within the Iran debate: Comments inciting violence

The network data surfaced another cluster of comments linked to the Iran topic that is even more serious in terms of its content, and which came days after the beginning of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

On the Instagram pages for Tagesschau and ZDFheute, a coordinated bot network posted identical text calling on Muslims worldwide to take violent revenge against the West and against Zionists, framing the conflict in Iran as part of a global war against Islam.

Dozens of accounts posted the identical message on the same day, March 2, in the comment sections of both broadcasters. The ZDFheute post had a total of 414 comments beneath it, 153 of which contained this identical call to violence. More than 50 such comments appeared under one Tagesschau post.

While the comments targeting Tagesschau and ZDFheute appeared at different times, each batch saw the large majority of identical comments posted within a minute. The account names also showed patterns consistent with auto-generated profiles.

“The West is not waging war against Iran, but against Muslims worldwide. Their hatred of Muslims is what drives them to rape our women and kill our children. Muslims, defend yourselves with all means at your disposal, wherever you are in the world. Avenge our brothers and sisters in Muslim countries! Show no pity, just as the Zionists show no pity for us Muslims.”

Among all the networks identified in this investigation, it ranked second in terms of how closely its accounts were linked to one another. It bore the hallmarks of a known type of manipulation campaign — and its simultaneous appearance on two major German-language broadcasters suggests one actor may have been behind it.

This finding — coordinated incitement to violence, pushed through bot infrastructure simultaneously across multiple public broadcaster platforms — represents the gravest category of activity identified in this investigation.

Other findings: Antisemitism, the Cambodia-Thailand border conflict, and financial scams

Beyond Iran, the investigation found further evidence of coordinated manipulation. On ORF’s Zeitimbild Instagram account, a bot network of more than 180 accounts began with criticism of Israel’s military actions in Gaza before escalating, over several weeks, to antisemitic hate speech that is categorised as illegal under Austrian law. By tracking the bots to other Instagram accounts where they were commenting, ORF managed to make contact with an influencer who had purchased comments for their own profile from a Turkish agency — giving more insight into the origins of the bot network. It remains unclear who commissioned the antisemitic content, and why this paid campaign ended up targeting a major news profile for Austria’s national broadcaster.

While most of this investigation looked at Instagram comments, some participants also dug into data from their broadcasters’ Facebook comments. France 24's Facebook account was targeted by a geopolitical campaign linked to the Cambodia-Thailand border conflict in July 2025.

Around 100 of the accounts used for this were created on the same day, approximately 1,000 of the 7,000 comments were posted at intervals of under five seconds, and the content attributed blame for the conflict to Thailand. Many of the accounts followed a page affiliated with Cambodia’s ruling party — though a direct link has not been established.

Several outlets also found financially-motivated networks. In Germany, BR24 and Tagesschau identified coordinated spam promoting online money-making schemes, with accounts bearing hallmarks of commercial engagement-farming services. ZDFheute found a network promoting social media growth services, and several participants found activity linked to the social media persona ‘richboyjames’, which spreads aspirational wealth content and ‘get rich quick’ schemes. The same activity was detected, in lower volumes, also by ORF. France 24’s Facebook comments included spam promoting pornographic channels, African faith healers and a purported AIDS treatment.

Lifting the curtain on a much larger system

Although this investigation looks only at the comments sections of public broadcasters, it offers a window into a much larger system operating in the online public sphere. The same tactics — bot networks, coordinated templates, fake accounts seeded from messaging platforms — are being deployed across the open internet to shape how ordinary people understand the world around them.

In some cases, like that of the incitement to violence comment, they could be classed as instruments of hybrid warfare: tools used to sow division, inflame tensions and radicalise audiences. An extreme comment from one source can suddenly appear as though it has the backing of thousands of ‘people’ in a manufactured debate, further manipulating the already deeply divisive landscape that is the open internet in the 2020s.

The comment sections of participating public broadcasters, analysed by internal teams aware of their own moderation systems, are an unusually transparent place to observe this activity.

But these news comment sections are simply one visible corner of a much larger landscape. What happens elsewhere, out of sight, may well be on a far greater scale.

Footnotes

• Dates of the collected data: April 1, 2025 to March 31, 2026

• Blocked comments: Comment moderation systems already block some offensive or expletive content. In some cases, comments containing this type of content were not reflected in the dataset, because they were initially blocked from publication by the organisations’ safety features. For this reason, some of the identified trends may even be conservative.

Reporting by: Eva Wackenreuther (ORF), Marcel Katzlinger (ORF), Jonas Send (ORF), Max Gilbert (BR24), Michael Schlegel (BR24), Sophie Menner (BR24), Quang Pham (France 24), Ershad Alijani (France 24), Nathan Gallo (France 24), Jurga Bakaitė (LRT), Estefanía de Antonio (RTVE), María Escobar (RTVE), Borja Díaz-Merry (RTVE), Akiko Uehara (Swissinfo), Pascal Siggelkow (Tagesschau), Carla Reveland (Tagesschau), Jan Schneider (ZDFheute), Marco Bereth (ZDFheute), Nils Metzger (ZDFheute), Maria Flannery (EBU), Sara Badilini (EBU)

On June 11, a record 48 teams began their campaign at the 2026 FIFA World Cup, an expansion of the format that previously involved 32 countries. From well-established favourites like Spain and Argentina to the unlikely stars of Cape Verde and DR Congo, the increased size of the competition was slated to pull a larger viewership than ever before.

That’s before the setting is even taken into account. With matches taking place in the United States, Mexico and Canada, the tournament drew significant interest long before any kick-off — particularly when it came to the travel situation for fans and even teams and match officials hoping to enter Donald Trump’s America, amid heightened geopolitical tensions in several regions.

And it didn’t even start there. Before all the teams had been confirmed for the tournament, FIFA’s dynamic pricing model for tickets, and the governing body’s official resale platform that appeared to have no upper price limits, also came under intense scrutiny.

With the tournament now underway in earnest, much of the conversation has moved back to football. There’s no passion like that of the teams representing their countries, and the fans filled with national pride at seeing their heroes perform on the world stage.

However, as with any major social media event, fact-checkers are coming up against recurring types of content. AI-generated fakes and other edited materials abound, spanning the whole spectrum of topics from purely football rivalry to political commentary, and even materials of a sexually suggestive nature.

No, a Hitler lookalike was not in the crowd at Germany match

Images purporting to be screenshots from the live feed of Germany’s match against Curaçao showed a spectator in a Germany jersey who bore a striking resemblance to Adolf Hitler.

The picture was shared on multiple platforms, and racked up millions of views. It appeared in several languages; as well as English, posts with the picture were found by DW in Spanish and Russian.

Since the still was apparently from a televised event, it was pretty easy to check. An initial red flag was the match clock visible in the top left of the frame, which showed the time as 50 minutes plus an additional four minutes (a timing convention that usually appears at 45 minutes or at 90 minutes, when additional time is added at the end of a half.) However, further checks were needed to allow for the possibility that some broadcasters could be letting the clock run on alongside the additional time at the end of the first half.

The best way to check this is, of course, to play back the match. Luckily, in this case, the crowd shot this image draws on was easy to find, as it did come near the end of the first half. This still shows what was really shown on television during this fan shot.

But how can we tell if the image was made with AI? In many cases, there is no definitive way to verify AI usage besides thorough, traditional verification methods. But some AI companies, like Google and more recently OpenAI, have introduced tools to detect watermarks in material generated by their own systems.

ZDFheute ran the image through these detectors, and found that it does indeed bear a watermark for OpenAI, meaning that it was altered with the company’s tools, although based on a real image.

Read our members’ reporting:

• DW: Fact check: Hitler look-alike at Germany’s World Cup match?

• ZDFheute: No, there was no fan dressed as Hitler at the Curaçao game

• RTVE: This Hitler-looking spectator didn't watch Germany-Curaçao, he's AI

AI-generated ‘honey shots’ go viral

Clips of female fans in the stands at World Cup matches were going viral, apparently capturing everyone’s attention because of the women’s almost inhuman beauty.

And inhuman they are. The women are AI-generated, and form part of a wider trend of AI clips of fans inside stadiums as the matches got underway.

It’s not enough to confirm that these women are AI-generated; the purpose of these videos is far more interesting as they give us an insight into a wider industry built on AI influencers and even pay-per-view adult content generated by AI, writes Grégoire Ryckmans from RTBF.

Among the most viral of these clips is a purported Brazilian fan, with a man sitting beside her staring at her cleavage. The video was widely reshared in multiple languages, including English, Spanish, and French.

Eurovision News Spotlight found the original video on Instagram, posted by a user called ‘Chiara Cleo’, which had garnered close to 40 million views. Her other videos show that it is the same consistent persona being posted on this profile, but she is an AI influencer. Most of Chiara Cleo’s content shows her walking through malls in tight clothing, or making comments with overt sexual innuendo.

RTBF followed this influencer’s digital footprint further, and found that her profile linked to a Fanvue page — a platform for erotic content comparable to OnlyFans. More than 340,000 people follow Chiara Cleo on Instagram, and judging by the comments on her videos, many imagine her to be a real person.

VRT debunked a number of other images showing female AI-generated Belgian, German and Paraguayan fans.

The phenomenon of a camera picking up an attractive supporter is not a new one. At the 2018 World Cup, broadcasters were warned by FIFA to stop zooming in on “hot women” for what are known as “honey shots”, with the governing body saying it needed help to tackle sexism in football.

Read our members’ reporting:

• RTBF: World Cup: These images of young women in stadiums are AI-generated

• VRT: ‘World Cup babes’ created with AI: this fake news about the World Cup is making the rounds

• RTVE: Young women with low-cut tops and tight shirts: AI manipulates and sexualizes photos of female fans at the 2026 World Cup

• ORF: Manipulated photos: AI-generated images of scantily clad fans cause a stir

Exaggerations of Cape Verde’s real heartwarming story

After Spain’s surprising 0-0 draw against tournament underdogs Cape Verde, legends began to be spun online about just how humble the squad’s origins were.

The spirit of the stories illustrated just how significant it was for the Cape Verdean players to hold off tournament favourites Spain — but many of the details were incorrect.

One of the heroes of the match was Cape Verdean goalkeeper Vozinha, who was making his World Cup debut at 40 years old. Multiple viral posts on social media called him an electrician and a bus driver, suggesting he played football as a part-time endeavour.

In fact, Vozinha plays professionally in Portugal’s second division, and has had a long senior club career going back almost 20 years in countries including Angola, Moldova, Slovakia, and Cyprus.

While he may have held other professional jobs in his adult life, there was no evidence that Vozinha was working as an electrician, VerificaRTVE reported. Another claim that there aren’t even football pitches in Cape Verde held no water: there are a number of small stadiums in Cape Verde, without even counting smaller scale playing grounds.

Another of the tales around Vozinha was that he was recruited for the national team via LinkedIn. The Cape Verdean football association did indeed recruit one of its players on LinkedIn, but this story is about Roberto ‘Pico’ Lopes, an Irishman with Cape Verdean heritage who was identified as an eligible player by the country’s federation. In a tribute to the LinkedIn story, Pico Lopes posted on the platform after his appearance for Cape Verde, writing: “LinkedIn to World Cup”.

As for Pico Lopes, claims that he was working in a bank before he left his job to play in Ireland’s League of Ireland — and later for Cape Verde’s national team — are true.

Irish broadcaster RTÉ published a heartwarming video showing Lopes reading a letter from his manager at Shamrock Rovers, in which the club boss says: “It seems a long time ago now, and it is, when we first sat down to talk about you leaving a good solid job in the bank and joining us at Rovers to try deliver a success on the pitch. I know it was a risk, but we both knew that it was one worth going for, and time has proven us right on that.”

Read our members’ reporting:

• RTVE: He’s neither an electrician nor was he recruited through LinkedIn: false stories about Vozinha, the Cape Verde goalkeeper

In other news…

• Franceinfo: Are robot dogs really patrolling some streets in the United States?

• DW: These FIFA World Cup ticket sites are fake

• 3CatInfo: The meaning of a VAR referee’s gesture at the World Cup has been resolved: neither a joke nor a supremacist signal

• RTVE: Iranian footballer Mohammad Mohebi has not been deported for his goal celebration

• RTVE: Iran did not bring backpacks to the World Cup for tribute to girls in Minab

• Franceinfo: ‘Even more expensive, even more premium’: the highly opaque “dynamic pricing” of World Cup tickets

• RTVE: It's not Keir Starmer in a Croatia shirt during the match against England, it's AI

The cluster of infections, caused by the Andes strain, led to a flurry of contact tracing around the world and particularly in Europe, where several people who had earlier disembarked the cruise were forced to self-isolate.

The World Health Organization, in its most recent update, said the working hypothesis is “that the first case acquired the infection prior to boarding the cruise, through exposure on land … Current evidence suggests subsequent human-to-human transmission onboard the ship”.

The story gripped social media as well as traditional news channels. Interest was fanned by the initial mystery surrounding the transmission of the virus, as well as its echoes to the very recent Covid-19 crisis, which itself prompted a huge number of conspiracy theories to which some people remain loyal to this day.

The following fact-checks were analysed by members of Eurovision News Spotlight.

Hantavirus is not a side-effect of the Covid-19 vaccine

An old document from pharmaceutical giant Pfizer was being cited on social media to prove that the outbreak on board the MV Hondius was a side-effect of Covid-19 vaccines.

The 2021 document from Pfizer appeared to show that hantavirus was mentioned as a potential side-effect. Posts with screenshots of the Pfizer document were circulated widely in English and other European languages, racking up millions of views.

Virologist Steven Van Gucht, speaking to Belgium’s VRT, said the claim was incorrect and urged people not to worry. “Hantavirus pulmonary infection is indeed mentioned in an appendix to the Pfizer document, but that is a list of ‘adverse events of special interest’: all medical conditions or events that a person experiences during the vaccine’s trial period.”

In a vaccine trial period, all such “adverse events” must then be reported. It does not mean that they are caused by the vaccine, nor that they are recognised side effects. Such reports could just as easily be related to underlying disease, coincidence, exposure to a pathogen, or other factors.

Meanwhile, the president and spokesperson of Spain’s Asociación Nacional de Enfermería y Vacunas (ANENVAC), José Antonio Forcada, told VerificaRTVE that it is "impossible" for a vaccine like Pfizer's to cause a virus to appear, since it doesn't contain a virus because it's made with messenger RNA.

The European Medicines Agency also commented on the claims, saying: “EMA cautions against misinformation circulating online that falsely links hantavirus infection to COVID 19 vaccination, as there is no scientific evidence to support such claims.”

VRT NWS Check: No, an infection with the hantavirus is not a side effect of the COVID-19 vaccine

VerificaRTVE: Hantavirus is not a side effect of the coronavirus vaccine; it's a hoax

RTBF Faky: Hantavirus infections are not linked to a side effect of the Pfizer Covid vaccine

3CatInfo: Misinformation about hantavirus: there is no effective vaccine and it is not related to Covid

Hantavirus stirs up conspiracy theory sphere haunted by Covid

The Pfizer document wasn’t the only reference to Covid-19; the latest hantavirus outbreak stirred up a whole genre of conspiracy theories that had lain mostly dormant since the global pandemic of earlier this decade.

These included vaccine misinformation, theories about ‘weapons’ of mass depopulation, and miracle cures not backed up by available research.

Prominent conspiracy theorist Alex Jones posted on X: “LOCKDOWN ALERT: Globalists Launch Covid 2.0 As Hantavirus Spreads Worldwide, EU Tells Citizens ‘MASK UP,’ Stoking Hysteria!”

You don’t have to have a very long memory to recall the talking points of the Covid pandemic. Several of them re-emerged on social media in recent weeks, including a theory that hantavirus is the latest “plandemic”, a “biological weapon” released by pharmaceutical companies to necessitate their vaccine products.

Some of the medications we’ve heard about before were also promoted once again as cures, like anti-parasitic drug ivermectin. Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene was one of those who touted the drug, citing an anti-establishment doctor whose claims have been debunked by the wider medical community.

Bill Gates, who often prominently features in this genre of conspiracy theory, also made a return.

France24: Hantavirus scare revives Covid-era conspiracy theories

Panic over potential for infected rats to swim ashore

As the crisis on board the Hondius was deepening, officials were discussing where the virus-stricken cruise might dock.

The president of the Canary Islands government, Fernando Clavijo, consistently opposed the MV Hondius' arrival in Tenerife for the evacuation of passengers. One of his arguments, made just hours before disembarkation, was that he feared rodents might come ashore and endanger the safety of the Canary Islanders.

However, the Ministry of Health maintained that there were no rats on board, and six experts consulted by VerificaRTVE said that it was highly unlikely any could reach the coast and spread the hantavirus anyway. A Ministry of Health report document said that “based on inspections carried out by experts on board, no rodents have been detected, and the probability of an Andean rodent from a mountainous habitat boarding the ship and swimming to the Canary Islands coast is nil”.

RTVE spoke to a number of experts to establish the facts about the distance rats can feasibly travel in water, after communications among local officials about rats’ excellent swimming ability as the vessel was anchored out at sea. (The plan was that passengers would be ferried to shore at a location far from residential areas.)

The verdict? These types of rats can swim, but they would generally lack the capacity to swim almost a kilometre to shore.

The World Health Organization also insisted that there was minimal risk to the public from passengers of the MV Hondius.

VerificaRTVE: There are no rats in Hondius and it is "highly unlikely" that they could reach the coast and infect the Canary Islanders

The AI-generated images were suggestive in nature. One of them, shared by the PM as she rebuked the trend, showed Meloni wearing lingerie and sitting on a bed.

On her official social media profiles, Meloni posted: “In these days, several fake photos of me are circulating, generated with artificial intelligence and passed off as real by some zealous opponent.

“I must admit that whoever created them, at least in the attached case, has also improved me quite a bit,” she joked. “But the fact remains that, just to attack and invent falsehoods, nowadays anything at all is used.”

Meloni went on to warn of the dangers of deepfakes in her message. “The point, however, goes beyond me. Deepfakes are a dangerous tool, because they can deceive, manipulate, and strike anyone. I can defend myself. Many others cannot.

“For this reason, one rule should always apply: verify before believing, and believe before sharing. Because today it happens to me, tomorrow it can happen to anyone.”

Meloni blurred out the name and profile picture of the ‘opponent’ accused of misinforming his audience about the veracity of the images. Based on tips from other social media users and an analysis of the blurred profile picture, Eurovision News Spotlight was able to identify the profile as that of a Naples-based Facebook user with 2,300 followers who frequently posts political and lifestyle content including AI-generated material.

The deepfakes of Meloni appeared to have since been deleted from that page.

Women at higher risk from sexual deepfakes

Giorgia Meloni is not the first European leader to be impersonated by AI-generated deepfakes, but the sexual nature of the images highlights an issue that predominantly affects female leaders, reflecting the situation for women in the public eye more broadly. While AI-generated political content is ubiquitous across the world, sexually suggestive images are rarely made depicting male leaders.

Eurovision News Spotlight has previously reported on an image of Pam Bondi that circulated soon after Donald Trump’s election in 2024, purportedly showing her running in underwear. At the time, she was Trump’s pick for Attorney General — a post she held until April 2026.

The issue more widely affects prominent women in other public fields. A report published last week by UN Women found that women in public life are facing growing forms of online violence, due to the rise of artificial intelligence.

The report focused on female journalists, human rights defenders, activists, writers and other public communicators, and showed that AI-enabled violence — including deepfakes, manipulated sexual imagery/videos and other forms of image-based abuse — was intensifying existing patterns of harassment. Respondents to a survey carried out in 2025 across 119 countries reported that they faced victim-blaming and limited redress options, all of which ultimately affect women’s participation in public life.

Governments grapple with regulating AI use

Kalliopi Mingerou, UN Women’s Chief of the Ending Violence against Women Section, said: “AI is making abuse easier and more damaging, and this is fuelling the erosion of hard-won rights in a context marked by democratic backsliding and networked misogyny. Our responsibility is to ensure that systems, laws, and platforms respond with the urgency this crisis demands.”

Governments have been grappling with how to legislate AI as it grows exponentially in their countries’ social media ecosystems. In 2025, Italy became the first EU country to approve a law regulating the use of artificial intelligence. The legislation includes prison terms of between one and five years for the illegal distribution of AI-generated or manipulated content if it causes harm. Harsher penalties were introduced for those who use AI to commit crimes, like fraud and identity theft.

It came after the EU’s landmark 2024 AI Act, the world’s first legal framework for artificial intelligence. However, discussions on amendments to the laws, which will also govern industrial use of the technology, were subject to delays, even as the new rules were due to kick in from August 2026.

SOURCES

• Instagram. (2026). Giorgia Meloni on Instagram: “Girano in questi giorni diverse mie foto false, generate con l’intelligenza artificiale e spacciate per vere da qualche solerte oppositore…” [Accessed 6 May 2026].

• X (formerly Twitter). (2026). [online] Available at: “Girano in questi giorni diverse mie foto false, generate con l’intelligenza artificiale e spacciate per vere da qualche solerte oppositore…” [Accessed 6 May 2026].

• Hougaard, T.N. (2024). Photo purporting to show scantily-clad potential U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi running is altered. [online] Spotlight.ebu.ch. [Accessed 6 May 2026].

• UN Women (2026). Tipping point: Online violence impacts, manifestations, and redress in the AI age. [online] [Accessed 6 May 2026].

• Giuffrida, A. (2025). Italy first in EU to pass comprehensive law regulating use of AI. [online] the Guardian. [Accessed 6 May 2026].

• Shaping Europe’s digital future. (2026). AI Act. [online] [Accessed 6 May 2026].

• Haeck, P. (2026). EU legislators fail to clinch deal to delay AI law. [online] POLITICO. [Accessed 6 May 2026].

The suspect was identified as 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen. He was charged on Monday with attempting to assassinate the president. The suspect was tackled by agents near a staircase which leads down into a ballroom of the Washington Hilton hotel.

Inside the ballroom, the annual White House correspondents' dinner was just getting underway. Hundreds of journalists and public figures were in attendance.

Just as previous assassination attempts have captured the imaginations of social media users, this latest threat to Donald Trump’s life spawned a deluge of fake images, unsubstantiated claims and outright conspiracy theories.

The following fact-checks were analysed by members of Eurovision News Spotlight.

Journalist accused of stealing bottle of wine

One video that received over 10 million views on various platforms showed a female journalist allegedly ‘stealing’ two bottles of wine as she was leaving the ballroom after the shooting.

The video prompted lots of discourse on social media, including false allegations about the woman’s identity (like one that said she was the Ukrainian ambassador). However, the woman is indeed a journalist and there is no evidence that this was a theft.

SVT identified the journalist and spoke to her colleague. They reported: “The dinner is normally paid for by the guests or their organisations, and the woman’s colleague told SVT that the wine had been paid for by the company they work for, and that their bosses urged them to bring what they had paid for.”

The videos also showed many others picking up bottles of wine along with their belongings as they prepared to leave the venue.

SVT Verifierar: Five viral claims after the shooting at the gala dinner

Leavitt’s comments taken out of context

One of the claims that circulated on social media was that White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt predicted the attempted attack before it happened, when she said “there will be some shots fired tonight in the room”.

But context is everything. Leavitt was actually referring to Trump’s speech, and the barbs he was expected to throw out in the room full of journalists.

In a pre-dinner interview with Fox News, she said: “[Donald Trump] is ready to rumble. I will tell you, this speech tonight will be classic Donald J. Trump. It’ll be funny, it’ll be entertaining. There will be some shots fired tonight in the room.”

‘Shots fired’ is an idiom that is often used to describe a sharp insult or a diss. It’s purely coincidental that it was the term she used ahead of an attempted shooting.

There was another Karoline Leavitt-involved theory. A short clip from Fox News was shared around, in which journalist Aishah Hasnie said that Leavitt’s husband had warned her at the event to be careful. The clip was cut short, with the Fox host confirming that it “sounds like we lost Aishah’s phone”.

Theorists claimed that this was evidence that the attack was known about beforehand. However, Hasnie later confirmed that her calls were dropping “because there is barely any service in that ballroom”.

She added: “To finish the story, he was telling me to be careful with my own safety because the world is crazy. Which is what my own father and other people have also said to me recently. He was expressing his concern for my safety. I was going to say - before I lost my signal - that it was unfortunate that only a short time later, this all happened.”

ZDF heute: Shots fired at Trump gala - conspiracy theories are now circulating

Video of the running suspect was created with AI

A video circulating on social media was presented as if it were real footage of a suspect running past a metal detector while several guards pointed their weapons at him.

However, the footage is fake and was generated using artificial intelligence, although based on real security camera footage from the Hilton hotel. A frame-by-frame analysis revealed errors typical of AI — like an agent’s hat and jacket changing mid-clip, and gibberish text on police officers’ jackets.

Additionally, the recording circulating on social media showed the CapCut AI watermark in the upper left corner. An X user claimed to have created the video using AI, saying: “I enhanced the security footage from last nights assassination attempt using AI. The footage was extremely low quality and it seems AI made up some things to fill in the gaps, but gives a better view of what took place,” they said.

VerificaRTVE: Hoaxes and conspiracy theories about the attempted attack against Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner

The mystery of the man with the piece of paper

A lot of online speculation centred on the man who, shortly before the attempted shooting, showed a piece of paper with something written on it to Donald Trump, Melania Trump, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, and president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, Weijia Jiang.

In multiple videos, the group was seen reacting to whatever was shown on the paper, seconds before they heard the shots outside the room. Guesswork by social media users surmised that this man was announcing the attack, or that he was giving a secret signal by holding up a card.

However, the man is Oz Pearlman, a mentalist who was there to entertain guests. He has since described the mind-reading trick he was performing at the time — the reveal of Karoline Leavitt’s baby name. She is due to give birth in the coming weeks.

Other, manipulated versions of the image of Pearlman holding the piece of paper showed various writings on the page.

3Cat Info: The third attempt to attack Trump fuels conspiracy theories

Conspiracy theories about ‘false flag operation’

Some internet users on both sides of the political spectrum believe that the shooting at the White House Correspondents' dinner could have been a staged event intended to advance the interests of the American president.

CBC’s French-language broadcaster Radio-Canada reported that the theories had even reached the political class. Democratic Representative Jasmine Crockett of Texas posted on Threads: “Has there ever been a president have this many close ‘attempts’ on their life? Maybe it’s lax gun laws, maybe it’s lack of mental health funding, or maybe it’s fake… who knows …”

There are multiple strands of the conspiracy theory claiming that the incident was staged, including that it was an attempt to boost Trump’s popularity amid his war with Iran — which has been unpopular with parts of his base — or that it was a bid to secure his planned ballroom at the White House.

There’s no evidence that the attempted shooting was fake, but since the weekend, the Trump administration has been citing the security risks highlighted by the incident to further the project, which has up to now faced considerable legal obstacles.

Early this week, in the wake of the shooting, Republicans made a fresh push to secure public funding for the ballroom, and Donald Trump himself commented that the ballroom is needed to hold large-scale events with heightened security.

All of these new ‘false flag’ claims can be added to the pantheon of conspiracy theories about the various assassination attempts on Donald Trump. The 2024 attempt on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania, still looms large almost two years later for those who believe, without evidence, that it was a setup.

Radio-Canada: Shooting at the correspondents’ dinner: conspiracy theories flood the web

As the war between the Iran and the U.S. and Israel dragged near the seven-week mark, there were some signs of the sides returning to the negotiating table. But on the internet, another battle was as active as ever.

Trump and others in his circle are no strangers to posting highly political and even AI-generated content on social media. Now, Iran is retaliating with AI ‘slopaganda’ — a portmanteau of ‘AI slop’, high-volume content created by generative tools, and propaganda — with Iranian embassies around the world taking their cue from Trump’s style of posting to mock the American leader and reach out a hand to other countries in the West.

The posts offer an insight into the narratives being pushed by Iran in a bid to discredit the U.S. Many of them feature references to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who died in 2019 but remains at the centre of a series of high-profile sexual abuse allegations. Other recent posts referring to Trump’s depiction of himself as Jesus show the speed at which Iran is able to respond to the domestic talking points in the U.S.

Since the beginning of the war, the AI ‘slop’ being pushed out across Iranian networks has had strong religious overtones, often depicting Trump and Netanyahu taking orders from the devil and the Iranian leaders bathed in celestial light.

Are the accounts real?

The patchy and sometimes non-existent verification system on X nowadays means that any account purporting to be official must be checked and confirmed as authentic.

Many of the accounts posting as Iranian embassies are not verified, or carry a blue verification badge, which can be bought by anyone on X.

However, the Iranian Ministry for Foreign Affairs has a webpage that lists all of the embassies and their corresponding X (formerly Twitter) accounts. The list confirms the authenticity of the accounts analysed here.

The theme of Epstein

Much of the Iranian pro-regime content since the beginning of the war has heavily featured talking points about Donald Trump’s alleged links to Jeffrey Epstein and the broader theme of the Epstein files. The Iranian embassies have been resharing a lot of this content.

On April 16, the Embassy of Iran in Bulgaria shared an AI-generated video depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holding the Epstein files and urging Trump to dance on command. It appeared to suggest without evidence that Netanyahu was leveraging Epstein-related blackmail to force Trump to fight its war in Iran — a popular motif tying together a range of conspiracy theories across these two major stories.

The footage goes on to show Trump saying “I cannot do this anymore” before he is seen walking through red liquid in a ‘Graveyard of Americans in Iran’. A logo on the footage showed that it was not a direct original, but rather a reshare of a video by self-described ‘AI visual Artist’ Mujtaba Arts. Their account features several other similarly-themed videos.

The Iranian embassy in Tajikistan shared another Epstein-related AI video two days earlier, following a similar horror-blackmail theme. It showed Jeffrey Epstein’s head hovering over Trump’s shoulder and telling him: “Don’t fight it, Donny. We’ve been bonded since the ‘90s.”

It goes on to imagine that Jeffrey Epstein is controlling Trump and ultimately possessing his body, at which point he calls ‘Bibi’ and promises him “everything”. In this story, it is again Benjamin Netanyahu who is depicted — without evidence — as the holder of “tapes” that could ruin Trump.

Google’s AI detector SynthID picked up watermarks throughout this footage, indicating that it was at least partially made using Google’s AI tools.

The video bears a logo for an account called TheForbiddenClothes, which posts AI-generated meme content about geopolitics and current events, and also sells merch featuring the same artwork. Much of their recent posts have focused on the relationship between Trump and Netanyahu, and the account recently also posted that the moon landing was “faked”.

Divisions over Trump’s Jesus image, papal feud

Donald Trump was widely criticised even among his own supporters for a recent post on Truth Social which featured an AI-generated image of himself depicted as Jesus healing someone in a hospital bed.

Defending himself, Trump insisted that he thought it showed him as a doctor. The post was later deleted, although the president shared a new AI image of Jesus embracing him later the same week.

Some Christian followers of Trump were already being pulled in opposite directions; the Jesus posts came as the U.S. president and his administration were engaging in a war of words with Pope Leo XIV, the American-born leader of the Catholic Church who Trump is accusing of being too liberal and “weak on crime”.

The religious flavour to Trump’s latest targets drew backlash at home and in Europe. One of Trump’s closest EU allies, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, had already refused to back the U.S.’ war efforts in Iran, and then called the president’s attacks on the pope “unacceptable”. In response, Trump called her “unacceptable”.

As other European leaders broke with Washington over the war on Iran, and amid internal criticism from some quarters of the MAGA movement, it was a moment of particular disunity in the West.

The Iranian regime ecosystem has been quick to respond to these talking points. One video posted by the Iranian embassy in Tajikistan animated the Truth Social Jesus image, showing Jesus flying down behind Trump and striking him violently, sending him bloodied and flying downward into hell. The voiceover said: “Your reckoning has come.” The post racked up an enormous 23.4 million views in just over two days.

The Iranian establishment has also backed the pope amid his tensions with Trump. The parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf wrote in a post on X: “Honoring Pope Leo’s fearless stand!”, adding: “@Pontifex leadership inspires millions – thank you for this light!”

The embassies were no different. On April 17, the embassy in Belarus posted a screenshot from Al Jazeera with the headline: “The pope has shown the world how to stand up to Trump.”

As the rift widened between the U.S. and Italy, and Trump threats that the U.S. would not be there for its European ally if Iran were ever to strike, Iranian regime accounts began posting about their love of the Mediterranean country.

The Iran Embassy in Thailand posted on X: “Why would we hurt Italy? We love Italian people, soccer, and food and we love Rome, Rimini, Pisa, Milan, Venice, Sardegna, Florence, Naples, Genova, Turin Sicily, and everything in between.”

The Thai account was particularly active, tweeting rebukes to the White House’s posts and resharing memes from across the pro-regime ecosystem.

Meme warfare

There are also more general memes about the U.S. president being shared by the embassy network, including other content by third parties that have no links to the Iranian regime.

A video posted by the Iranian embassy in South Africa featured Trump in a Desireless ‘Voyage Voyage’ parody, singing a song called ‘Blockade’. The video originally came from a German AI comedy creator called Snicklink.

Snicklink replied to the Iranian embassy post with a new AI-generated skit of Trump, in which Trump says: “You people are not supposed to publish my video.”

Separately, in a play on an old tweet containing a typo by Donald Trump in 2017, a post by the Iranian embassy in Thailand on April 13 simply said: “A wise man once said, ‘Open the strait or I will covfefe’. Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

Political messaging

Some of the messages appear to be targeted at the American public, playing into concerns about spiralling costs amid the war.

A post by the Embassy of Iran in Thailand included an image that looked like a ‘Trump 2028’ campaign logo. Instead, it said: “Trump $20.28 per gallon”. The caption read: “Are you ready folks?”

It was not an original creation: the same image was circulating in March on American social media.

And for the U.S. viewers, the messaging and meme tone in which it’s being delivered appears to be effective. A viral reshare of the post joked that “Trump should lift sanctions on Iran so Dems can hire them as their campaign messaging consultants”.

Iranian government working with content creators

Much of the content being shared by Iranian embassies appears to be reshares of third-party material made by pro-Iranian regime creators.

Among the most famous videos in this propaganda battle are the Lego skits, featuring characters depicted as Lego figurines, sometimes with a musical track in the background. The videos are produced and released by an account called Explosive Media. The Explosive Media videos have been shared by the embassies, as well as going organically viral on social media from Explosive Media’s own channels.

A BBC News interview released earlier this week with one of the creators of the Lego videos, known only as Mr Explosive, revealed for the first time that the Iranian regime is a “customer” that has commissioned the small team for a number of projects. In previous interviews, the outlet had said it was “fully independent”.

As with much of the other Iranian output, the videos focus on specific political and religious themes. The Epstein files feature heavily, as do specific incidents like Iranian military strikes on areas around the Gulf. The videos often fail to depict the situation accurately, but that has not stemmed their popularity in the English-speaking world.

An internet blackout is still affecting the majority of Iranians. However, Mr Explosive told the BBC that he is able to use “journalist internet” granted by the government. This description tallies with other reports, including from NetBlocks which monitors the blackout, that regime figures and ‘whitelisted’ influencers are allowed to access social media freely.

Claus Valling Pedersen, a researcher in Iranian culture at the University of Copenhagen, told Denmark’s national broadcaster that the decision to use Lego was probably strategic, as they have an innocence that fits the message of ‘good versus evil’. The iconic Danish bricks have as much brand recognition in Iran as they do anywhere else.

Danish news outlets including Spotlight member DR have contacted Lego for a comment, but they did not respond.

YouTube banned Explosive Media’s YouTube account, prompting the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei to post on X: “In a land that proudly hosts Pixar, DreamWorks Animation, and The Walt Disney Company, an independent animated YouTube channel — which had organically grown by depicting U.S. aggression & warmongering, and garnered millions of viewers — was abruptly shut down!!”

He did not mention that the channel is not entirely independent, and counts the Iranian government as a client.

A new Lego video showed the speed at which the creators are able to react to new events. It poked fun at U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s onstage prayer, which was actually a passage from Pulp Fiction, a day earlier.

• BBC News: We spoke to the man making viral Lego-style AI videos for Iran. Experts say it’s powerful propaganda

• DR: Danish toys at the centre of Iranian propaganda

Long-running themes repackaged

Iranian journalist and Eurovision News Spotlight contributor said the wider themes dealt with in pro-government content are nothing new, although they have been repackaged for the modern social media audience.

“Iran’s anti-imperialist image or language is not something that Iran has come up with in the past weeks or months. This is something that Iran has identified with since day one of the Islamic revolution,” she said.

“For someone like myself who grew up in Iran and studied there, the language and the message is exactly the same as we’ve heard and seen over decades. It’s just through more relatable images.”

So why are these messages gaining such a foothold in the West now? Aminolahi said that appetite has been building due to recent world events.

“There’s a momentum for leftist, anti-imperialist ideas. Mainly they became louder and more demanding from world leaders after Israel’s campaign in Gaza. Suddenly Iran found a lot of common language with those voices. The audience is already there, it’s just how to package that message.”

“I don’t think Iran has spent a lot of time on tailoring the message. Frankly, the message is very similar to what we’ve seen inside Iran for decades. It’s just the packaging that has changed a little bit.”

Aminolahi said that the success of these videos goes way beyond their creativity and comedic value for people who don’t like Donald Trump; they also appeal due to confirmation bias.

“It resonates because of a lot of factors. A lot of people want to believe that the message they have in mind — let’s say, these anti-imperialist voices that are gaining this momentum — they have no means to understand or they don’t want to understand, for example, human rights abuses in Iran.”

“The idea that ‘this resonates with me, this validates what I think, so this must be the truth’ — that plays a role because of many different world events.”

The world watched in awe on Monday, March 6, as four Artemis II astronauts on board NASA’s Orion capsule — named Integrity — flew further than any humans have ever gone before, travelling around the dark side of the moon before beginning their return back to earth.

It was NASA’s first lunar flyby in more than 50 years, and despite no moon landing, it marked yet another ‘giant leap’ for space travel and humanity’s understanding of the lunar surface.

The extraordinary story sparked a huge public appetite for videos showing every aspect of the mission, from breathtaking imagery of outer space to details about quotidian life aboard a space capsule — like how to use the toilet.

While NASA and the onboard crew have shared lots of content about the expedition, the nature of the travel and breaks in connectivity has meant that there were times during the mission where little new visual material was available, creating the perfect breeding ground for false material to pop up.

On top of that, the moon has remained a staple in the world of modern conspiracy theories. Ever since the first moon landing, false claims have abounded that it was all a sham filmed inside a soundstage.

AI slop adds to widespread misinformation

The term ‘AI slop’ was coined in recent years to describe the high volumes of low-effort synthetic content, created to capitalise on the attention economy. As with all news stories in 2026, there was plenty of slop in circulation during the Artemis II mission.

One video made claims of proving that the mission was entirely staged. It showed the astronauts floating on wires and sitting inside a capsule in front of a green screen. One of the posts (archived) that included this video, which racked up more than a million views, was captioned: “Stop believing these tricksters.”

The footage was created using Google’s AI tools, the company’s SynthID watermark check tool confirmed.

Away from the conspiracy theory world, artificially-generated materials have also been affecting the photography world. Astrophotographer Damian Peach, posting on X, wrote that he had encountered “countless fake” images claiming to be from the Artemis II mission.

He wrote: “Social media is fast becoming a platform where deceptional grift is allowed to run unchecked. Many of these posts have bigger engagement figures than the actual real images from the mission which is incredibly sad.”

Former British MP shares conspiracy theory content

Former British MP Andrew Bridgen shared with his 361,000 followers a pair of side-by-side images (archived) claiming to be from the Apollo 8 mission in 1968 and the Artemis II mission in 2026. The images are almost indistinguishable.

In the caption, he wrote: “It’s a remarkable coincidence that the Earth was exactly the same orientation to the moon with exactly the same cloud coverage when these two pictures were taken 68 years apart. Am I now a coincidence theorist ?”

There are a number of issues with the claims. Firstly, the image on the left is not from the Apollo 8 mission, but an edited version based on an original photo from the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 — the first human landing on the moon. Visual analysis of the cloud pattern and visible landmasses on the Earth show that it is a match. The real version is available on NASA’s website.

The image on the right of the collage is clearly the same image as that on the left, but zoomed in and edited to include an apparent window frame around the edges. While the collage seems to be based on the real NASA photograph from 1969, Google’s SynthID can detect an AI watermark across most of the image, further explaining any differences between the two versions and the original.

None of these images match any of those captured during the recent Artemis II mission.

AI spliced video draws on real pictures

A viral video showed the four crew members of the Artemis II mission cheering and waving at the camera, before it pans to the window, where the Earth was visible in the distance.

A post on X featuring the video that racked up over a million views posed the question: “If there were 4 astronauts on the Artemis II mission, who was filming? Did the camera make that movement, ending in a close-up on Earth, because of zero gravity?”

The X user raises a valid question, despite the fact that the footage is very sophisticated and nothing immediately appears amiss.

The truth reveals a far more sophisticated approach to AI-manipulated content than the types of entirely AI-generated videos we have often analysed in the past.

OSINT analyst Tal Hagin, who frequently posts analysis of online content to his social media account, shared his assessment that the video is an AI-spliced item drawing on two real pieces of content: NASA’s footage of the astronauts waving and a still image of the Earth seen outside the window of the space shuttle.

AI splicing is where artificial intelligence is used to arrange and join different videos together into one sequence. In this case, the first section draws from a real video, while the second scene showing the Earth outside originally came from a still image. The evidence suggests that the middle section — the pan between the astronauts and the window — was entirely AI-generated and created to join the two shots together.

• Read Tal Hagin’s full X thread analysis here.

Moon hoaxes circulating since 1969

Despite all the advances the world has made in space travel over the last century, there are still many who don’t believe that humans really landed on the moon in 1969.

On July 20 of that year, NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the lunar surface during the Apollo 11 mission. The misinformation surrounding that mission, as well as discourse around the assassination of JFK earlier the same decade, formed the roots of the modern American conspiracy culture that still endures today.

There are several details of the original moon landing that have continued to come under scrutiny by conspiracy-minded sceptics. Why was the U.S. flag planted on the moon waving despite no wind nor air? How were the astronauts able to leave footprints on the lunar surface when it is so dry? Why are there no stars in the images the 1969 crew brought back to Earth? And are the shadows of the astronauts inconsistent in the images of them on the moon?

These suspicions and more have been debunked hundreds of times since the conspiracy theories were formed. Still, they recirculate every time there is a new space mission, especially one involving the moon. For instance, the questions about the lack of stars emerged once again this week.

Many of the theories stem from a lack of understanding about the atmosphere and minerals on the moon. The more limited capabilities of cameras — as well as how varied light sources affect their function — offer more explanations about some of the most commonly asked questions.

The swift improvement in AI technology is a gift for moon misinformation on two fronts: it’s ideal for those who wish to make and spread fakes, while conspiracy theorists can sow the seed of doubt with claims that any agency or official person could themselves be using AI.

Whatever the cause of the scepticism surrounding visits to the moon, it’s clear that nearly 60 years on from the first lunar landing, the desire to question or challenge this greatest of human feats is alive and well.

Read more member stories about the Artemis II mission:

• RTVE: Man's arrival on the Moon in 1969: hoaxes and falsehoods that have circulated ever since

• RTVE: Artificial intelligence and disinformation about the Artemis II mission: it's real, not a recreation

• 3CAT: We reached the Moon: from denialism to evidence of the most unusual journey

• 3CAT: A chroma key or images made with AI: false rumours spread about the Artemis mission

SOURCES

• Bbc.com. (2026). Watch: How will the Artemis astronauts go to the toilet in space? [online] [Accessed 7 Apr. 2026].

• Flannery, M. (2024). Series of images showing ‘faked’ moon landing were AI-generated. [online] Spotlight.ebu.ch. [Accessed 7 Apr. 2026].

• X (formerly Twitter). (2026). Available at: If there were 4 astronauts on the Artemis II mission, who was filming? [Accessed 8 Apr. 2026].

• X (formerly Twitter). NASA (2026). Available at: "We can see the Moon out of the docking hatch right now. It's a beautiful sight." [Accessed 8 Apr. 2026].

• NASA. (2026). Artemis II Looking Back at Earth - NASA. [online] [Accessed 8 Apr. 2026].

• Portero, M., Navarro Sorolla, M. (2026). Llegada del hombre a la Luna en 1969: bulos y falsedades que circulan desde entonces. RTVE.es. [online] [Accessed 8 Apr. 2026].

• X (formerly Twitter). (2026). Available at: A sample of the countless fake AI generated images claiming to be from the Artemis II mission. [Accessed 9 Apr. 2026].

• X (formerly Twitter). (2026). Available at: “All this Fake NASA 💩 with AI and CGI and green screens. Stop believing these tricksters” Accessed 9 Apr. 2026].

• X (formerly Twitter). (2026). Available at: “Not one star. 60 years of technological progress with cameras… And not one star. I’ve heard all the explanations for this. None make any sense.” [Accessed 9 Apr. 2026].

• X (formerly Twitter). (2026). Available at: It’s a remarkable coincidence that the Earth was exactly the same orientation to the moon with exactly the same cloud coverage when these two pictures were taken 68 years apart. Am I now a coincidence theorist ? [Accessed 9 Apr. 2026].

• NASA. (2023). Apollo 11 Mission image - View of moon limb,with Earth on the horizon,Mare Smythii Region - NASA. [online] Available at: [Accessed 9 Apr. 2026].

In this episode of the Eurovision News Podcast, host Giles Gibson brings you a snapshot of the first few days of the US-Israeli War with Iran, from the perspective of three foreign correspondents who were in Israel when the conflict started.

Veteran BBC foreign correspondent and presenter Clive Myrie explains how he presents the news from a hotel balcony as air raid sirens ring out; SBS News correspondent Ben Lewis talks about the challenges of working solo in a warzone; and ARD radio reporter Jan-Christoph Kitzler, who’s based in Tel Aviv, also breaks down how the initial hours of the war played out in Israel.

Alex Cadier and Eric Feijten describe how they stay safe, try to cover the story with empathy and how they have developed a personal connection with Ukraine.

We also hear about the crucial role of “fixers” and the increasingly heavy burden on local journalists, who have been living with the conflict, day in, day out, for four years now.

U.S. President Donald Trump shared a video on his Truth Social account at 8:50 p.m. on Monday (U.S. Eastern Time). The clip was posted without any caption, but came as the U.S. had reportedly struck a location in the central Iranian city of Isfahan.

The nighttime footage shows several explosions and a mushroom cloud in the sky. The official quoted by the WSJ confirmed that the video captured the overnight U.S. strikes in Isfahan.

Verifying the strike

The nature of the video does not allow for independent verification, and there is little available visual information to allow for geolocation.

However, no examples of older use of the clip were found by Eurovision News Spotlight, helping to establish that the incident shown in the video was in fact recent.

Accounts that frequently share footage from eyewitnesses inside Iran had also posted about the bombing in Isfahan overnight. A higher quality version of the same clip posted by Trump was shared by @mamlekate on X almost 50 minutes before the Truth Social post went out.

Vahid, a prominent online activist who has been documenting the protest movements and war in Iran with footage sent directly to him, also shared a few different clips showing explosions. One video showed a mushroom cloud with illuminated explosions to its right — which appeared to match the scene in the video shared by Trump and @mamlekate.

Finding the location

Attempts have been made to geolocate the ammunition depot hit by the strike, with social media users suggesting it occurred in the southwest part of Isfahan.

Other circulating videos described as showing the Isfahan strikes can add insight about the general location. Another video on social media, described as showing the overnight explosions in Isfahan and shot from another angle, showed a mosque in the foreground.

The mosque appears to be a visual match for Mosalla Mosque, which has a curved ceiling, a large dome, and a series of columns at either end of the structure, which can be seen on Google Maps.

That mosque, while more central, is also in south Isfahan. The angle from which we are seeing the explosions also suggest they were lighting up the sky further south, which is the general location of a mountain ridge that could match that seen in Trump’s video and other views identified by OSINT social media users.

Despite these clues pointing to southwest Isfahan as being the location of the strikes, Eurovision News Spotlight was still unable to pinpoint the exact location at the time of writing.

Trump’s use of social media

Although U.S. President Donald Trump shared the clip, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that neither he nor any U.S. employees are the owners of the video, which is likely to have been filmed by an eyewitness, circulated on social media, and was later shared with Trump.

Traditionally, media releases by a figure like the U.S. president would automatically be considered as confirmation or verification of an incident. However, much of that has changed under Donald Trump, who, since entering politics, has become known for his relaxed use of social media.

The U.S. president has long pushed the limits between the real and the unreal, often using AI-generated memes to mock his critics or present his vision for the U.S. — or at times the world.

There have been repeated instances of the president posting questionable or outright false claims and content, which is important context for how to approach the verification of a new, uncaptioned video of such apparent importance.

In this case, an official had to be asked whether the material was genuine, which gives a sense of how news outlets are approaching the president’s no-context musings and content reshares.

CLAIM: Videos purported to show damage and missile impacts in Israel amid its war with Iran. Unverified rumours accompanied them about the purported deaths of high-profile Israelis.
BACKGROUND: Little information about the impact of Iranian attacks in Israel was emerging, and the country is known to have a strong air defence system and a military censor.
METHOD: Reverse image searches revealed videos to be old and unrelated to the war. No official communication was released to confirm the deaths of any high-profile figures.
RATING: Videos being shared claiming to show damage and fires in Israel were false.

As the U.S. and Israel’s war against Iran entered its second week, unverified rumours began circulating on social media that Israel has been hit harder than had previously been thought.

The speculation came amid continued Iranian drone and missile attacks on Israel as well as countries in the Gulf region. While evidence of significant damage was emerging from Iran, where the U.S. and Israel were striking, there was little indication that the Iranian attacks against Israel were having as much of an impact.

Since the start of the war with Iran on February 28, the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies — an independent think thank affiliated with Tel Aviv university — puts the deaths in Israel at 14, 12 of whom were civilians and two soldiers. More than 2,600 people have been injured in Israel so far, the institute reported.

Israel’s Iron Dome air defence system is known to be among the world’s most effective. The Israeli military was posting frequent alerts that were being sent to phones across the country, warning residents to retire to bomb shelters amid incoming attacks.

There are international journalists in Israel and news reports are coming out of the country, but all journalists and members of the public are subject to a military censor. The rules for the censor relate to the prohibition of broadcasting material that could pose a national security threat or reveal sensitive information.

A report by CNN, which operates in Israel, outlined that the rules are “particularly sensitive during wartime”, adding: “The military censor has made clear that broadcasting any images that reveal the location of interceptor missiles or military sites hit by enemy projectiles is forbidden, especially in live broadcasts.”

While Israel is not the only country to impose restrictions on news media during a war, it is perhaps this system that has fanned widespread rumours that there has been far more damage in the country than has been openly revealed.

Rumours of political figures’ homes under attack

This week, one of the big themes on social media has related to this suspected undisclosed damage. Some of the posts have gone further, with claims that senior political figures and their families have been targeted in the attacks.

One video that circulated widely across multiple accounts on English social media and on Farsi and Arabic language channels showed a house on fire, with captions saying that Benjamin Netanyahu’s brother Iddo Netanyahu had been killed after Iranian missile strikes on his family home.

The video is old and unrelated to the current war. A reverse image search revealed it was posted on Facebook on February 10, with a caption that it showed Park Place in Galloway, New Jersey. From there, the house is easy to geolocate on Google Maps.

Videos from recent years are frequently shared with claims they shows new events, but occasionally very old footage is used for disinformation. On March 9, a video that is almost 25 years old was shared with claims it showed Benjamin Netanyahu’s house after a drone and hypersonic missile attack (post archived here).

The footage actually showed sparks and smoke pouring from New York’s World Trade Center after the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001.

Another wide-reaching hoax involved claims that Itamar Ben-Gvir, the Israeli Minister of National Security, had been killed or injured. Some posts across social media even spread rumours that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been killed. No official statement was released to address the rumours, nor had any trusted news sources reported on any harm to Ben-Gvir or the Netanyahus.

Benjamin Netanyahu has frequently appeared in the media since these claims emerged, and has been releasing video statements via his official channels.

Some of the claims included more detail, such as that Ben-Gvir had purportedly been involved in a ‘car crash’ but that it was a cover-up for an Iranian missile strike on his home. This post outlining that claim had 1.3 million views alone, while another — by the same uploader as the house fire example — had 3 million views.

The car crash theory did not come from nowhere; in 2024, Ben-Gvir was injured in an accident that saw his car flip over. When searching posts on X about Ben-Gvir’s purported ‘death’, old posts relating to that car crash appeared in search results.

Late on March 10, after hours of viral claims about his alleged death, Itamar Ben-Gvir posted on X “I'm alive,” and directed an expletive towards those who claimed otherwise.

Other alleged damage in Israel

There were also more general false claims that images and videos showed damage and fires in Israel.

A video circulating late on Sunday night and throughout Monday showed a gigantic fire engulfing a building on a city street, and was captioned: “Firefighting efforts continue in Tel Aviv, aglow from Iranian missiles.”

The footage was real, but it actually showed flames erupting from a historic train station building in Glasgow, Scotland on March 8. A huge fire engulfed the station after originating in a nearby vape shop, making headlines around the same time as the claims emerged.

Another dramatic video showing flames ripping through a building block was captioned as showing “Israel’s capital, Tel Aviv, has been destroyed by an Iranian attack”. A video post on X elaborated, saying early on March 10: “Tonight Tel Aviv has received the impact of hundreds of high-payload missiles (+1000kg) The consequence is that the city is in flames and without power Israel threatens 5 years in prison for anyone who records these images.”

@lipes232LOKAL UPDATE -- Malam yang mencekam di Tel Aviv. Sirine meraung tak henti-henti di seluruh penjuru kota saat ratusan rudal Iran mencoba menembus sistem pertahanan udara. Langit yang biasanya penuh lampu gedung, kini berubah jadi arena intersepsi rudal yang mengerikan. Lalu lintas lumpuh, warga berlarian mencari bunker perlindungan, dan suara ledakan menggelegar di atas gedung-gedung tinggi. Situasi benar-benar di luar kendali. Apakah sistem pertahanan udara mampu menahan gelombang serangan berikutnya? Al Jazeera #LokalFeeds

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Despite high viewership and supportive comments on TikTok, this was another falsely captioned video. Eurovision News Spotlight found snippets of the same video that predates the war, like this version uploaded to Instagram on January 31.

Many more examples of miscaptioned or false images, some AI-generated, showed destroyed urban landscapes and flames rising from alleged strikes, and were shared with captions suggesting they showed places in Israel.

With the conflict now moving past its initial stages and both sides claiming wins, any declarations of disproportionate damage that are not being reported by trusted sources deserve extra scrutiny.

SOURCES

• Askew, J. (2024). What are Israel’s air defences? And why are they so effective? [online] euronews. [Accessed 10 Mar. 2026].

• Liebermann, O. (2026). How international news outlets report under Israel’s military censor during wartime. [online] CNN. [Accessed 10 Mar. 2026].

• X (formerly Twitter). (2026). Available at: “The IDF identified that a short while ago, missiles were launched from Iran toward the territory of the State of Israel…” [Accessed 10 Mar. 2026].

• X (formerly Twitter). (2026). Available at: Benjamin Netanyahu’s brother Iddo Netanyahu has lost his life after Iranian missile strikes on Netanyahu’s family home. [Accessed 10 Mar. 2026].

• Facebook.com. (2016). Facebook. [online] Available at: Happening Now: Park Place, Galloway, NJ [Accessed 10 Mar. 2026].

• Spender, T. (2024). Ben-Gvir, Israeli far-right minister, in car accident. [online] Bbc.com. [Accessed 10 Mar. 2026].

• X (formerly Twitter). (2026). Available at: BREAKING NEWS ‘israeli’ media unconfirmed reports Itamar Ben Gvir involved in ‘car crash’ when he has actually been killed in an Iranian missile strike on his home. [Accessed 10 Mar. 2026].

• X (formerly Twitter). (2026). Available at: So the Israeli media reports Itamar Ben‑Gvir died in a “car crash,” while in fact he’s been obliterated by an Iranian missile strike on his home..... [Accessed 10 Mar. 2026].

• X (formerly Twitter). (2026). Available at: Firefighting efforts continue in Tel Aviv, aglow from Iranian missiles. [Accessed 10 Mar. 2026].

• Geddes, J. (2026). Huge fire at Glasgow Central Station prompts evacuations as building collapses. [online] Bbc.com. [Accessed 10 Mar. 2026].

• Tiktok.com. (2026). Available at: LOKAL UPDATE -- A tense night in Tel Aviv. Sirens wailed incessantly throughout the city as hundreds of Iranian missiles tried to penetrate air defense systems. TikTok - Make Your Day. [Accessed 10 Mar. 2026].

• X (formerly Twitter). (2026). Available at: Tonight Tel Aviv has received the impact of hundreds of high-payload missiles (+1000kg)… [Accessed 10 Mar. 2026].

• Instagram. (2017). Available at: @mohamedsadaka109: #حريق_الزرايب. [online] [Accessed 10 Mar. 2026].

• Youtube.com. (2026). Available at: Prime Minister Netanyahu and Finance Minister Smotrich in a statement to the media [Accessed 11 Mar. 2026].

• Youtube.com. (2026). Available at: Scott Myers’ WTC Footage (Enhanced Video/Audio & Doubled FPS) [Accessed 11 Mar. 2026].

• INSS. (2026). Dashboard: The Military Campaign Against Iran | INSS. [online] [Accessed 11 Mar. 2026].

On the war’s first day, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was assassinated along with other key figures from his regime. While the initial attacks were concentrated in Iran and early retaliations targeted U.S. and Israel-related sites in the Middle East, the conflict quickly widened — with Israel focusing on Lebanon and Iran targeting Gulf states. The impact was soon felt in locations across the region and even further afield.

Just five days in, the impact of AI-generated content and false claims circulating on social media was already being keenly felt. False material was being shared as real, and real images were being incorrectly flagged as false.

US and Israeli attack on Iran unleashes flood of fakes

The accelerating quality of AI models and the proliferation of AI-generated material in recent months created the perfect conditions for any new war to become a key target for fake material, muddying the waters of what we can trust coming out of a conflict zone.

BBC Verify’s Shayan Sardarizadeh, who has been following and live-posting throughout the war to debunk fakes and verify real footage, said early on March 4 that “this war might have already broken the record for the highest number of AI-generated videos and images that have gone viral during a conflict”.

His daily threads compiling the war misinformation have covered aspects across the whole region. One viral clip claimed to show the aftermath of a drone attack on the U.S. embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, but in reality it showed an earlier, unrelated car accident in Riyadh. That clip was reshared by high-profile accounts, helping to further spread the false claim.

Even official accounts require close inspection, particularly in times of war. The official account for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted a 72-second video on social media in which he appeared to speak Farsi, the official language of Iran.

In the clip, Netanyahu directly addressed the citizens of Iran, calling on them to soon “take to the streets” and “finish the job” of overthrowing the regime. The image was real, but the audio was AI-generated, VerificaRTVE found. Netanyahu doesn’t actually speak Farsi, and there are some errors with the lip-sync in the footage.

Many other Eurovision News Spotlight members have extensively covered the false content that has been spreading about this new war:

• franceinfo: Beware of fake images circulating about the war in the Middle East

• SRF: Fake news surrounding the Iran war

• VerificaRTVE: Fake news, photos and videos of the US and Israeli attack on Iran

• BBC Verify: Debunking AI fake images and disinformation about US-Israel war with Iran

• VRT nws: How badly was Dubai affected by Iranian attacks? The Burj Khalifa was not hit

Verifying deadly attack on school in Iran

Among the stories that sparked the biggest reaction of the first weekend of the war was the deadly attack on an elementary school in Iran, which killed at least 168 people, many of them children.

The school in Minab was the subject of three airstrikes, according to the town’s mayor cited in news reports. The outrage over the deaths at the school represented a flash point for anti-war activism in the U.S. The origin of the attack remains unknown and no party has yet claimed responsibility.

Collaboration between Eurovision News Spotlight members made geolocation of the school site possible. Satellite imagery of the area showed that the school is near two Revolutionary Guard buildings identifiable by signs in Farsi, Carlos Baraibar from 3Cat Info wrote. Eyewitness videos that were circulating after the attack allowed journalists to further confirm the area.

The incident also prompted misinformation, which in one case was even amplified by X’s built-in AI tool, Grok. For VerificaRTVE, Montserrat Rigall wrote about claims that RTVE and other news outlets had published a fake image to depict the destruction. The image was actually real, and contrary to claims, had no relation to a 2021 attack in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Social media users asking Grok to verify the image relied on its incorrect response that the image was old. “For hours, Grok insisted on its mistake and even called the media reports a hoax, while accepting messages from disinformation accounts that did not provide any evidence or rely on any source”.

Another fact-check published by Mario Pérez Galindo of VerificaRTVE highlighted a fake image of a blood-spattered schoolbag that was published by the Iranian embassy in Austria. Google’s SynthID detector tool confirmed that it was created with Google AI.

For VRT nws, Daan Nicolay, Tom Buytaert and Bram Vandendriessche compiled an article detailing a number of other instances of misinformation circulating about the attack, including a claim that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard took responsibility for the incident. No official source had made such a statement at that time. Many social media users also speculated that it would be unlikely for so many children to be at the school on a Saturday, but Saturday is indeed a school day in Iran.

Dubai fascination as UAE dragged into conflict

On Western social media feeds, there has been a particular focus on Dubai as it was sucked into the war via retaliatory Iranian strikes. The modern Emirati city is a major ‘expat’ hub and is home to hundreds of thousands of Europeans.

As the first strikes came down on Dubai, a wave of content spread online showing rockets hitting the Burj Khalifa and the airport burning. It was not immediately obvious which images were real.

For VRT nws, Bram Vandendriessche unpicked the web of videos. A terminal at Dubai airport was indeed struck, but some images were fake. A dramatic video of a rocket hitting the Burj Khalifa and causing a massive explosion was created using AI — “and clearly a slightly older AI model”, Vandendriessche writes. “The debris and smoke plume look like something out of a cartoon, and every element in the video is less detailed than in reality.” Adding to the confusion, there were also real videos circulating showing smoke near the skyscraper.

Eyewitness information coming out of the United Arab Emirates about the situation on the ground was unhelpful in quelling the confusion. We already knew that Dubai, which is a hotspot for influencers, had been affected by explosions, and tourists were sheltering in the parking garages of hotels due to nearby blasts. European governments were also arranging evacuation flights for citizens, illustrating the gravity of the situation.

Despite this, many Dubai influencers appeared to be posting the same message: that Dubai is safe and that people feel even safer there than they would at home in Europe. DW News covered the story, including the questions from outsiders about whether influencers were being paid for spreading a coordinated message.

Some well-known Germans were also posting to say that they had deleted material because they weren’t sure what they were ‘allowed’ to post. The UAE has strict rules on what people can publish on social media, and influencers in Dubai “must also follow strict content rules” and avoid posting content that could harm public order or the reputation of the state.

OSINT analysis shows war quickly expanding

After the initial strikes in Iran, the conflict quickly ballooned across the entire region. Amid fake videos and a difficulty in ascertaining the true impact, OSINT analysts were able to identify some of the early impacts, like a slowdown in oil tanker movements around the Strait of Hormuz and airspaces closing around the Middle East.

For RTÉ Clarity, Kate McDonald analysed satellite imagery released by Vantor which showed fresh damage linked to the escalating conflict. Images captured on March 2 showed damage at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility, at drone facilities in western Iran, at Zahedan airbase in Iran, and at the Ras Tanura oil refinery in Saudi Arabia, among others.

With the true scale of the impact yet to be revealed, OSINT analysis is one of the most reliable ways for the outside world to understand how this war is unfolding, and what areas may be coming into focus as the conflict develops.