Fact check: AI fakes and old videos mislead on Iran protests

Iran has been witnessing anti-regime protests for more than two weeks, with demonstrations reported in several cities and towns. Verifying protest-related content has become increasingly challenging. Internet restrictions and tight control over information flows have created an information vacuum, meaning much of the footage circulating online cannot be independently confirmed.

Access to reliable information from inside Iran remains extremely limited. Foreign media outlets can barely report from within the country, and citizens documenting protests face serious risks. The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported on Wednesday that at least 2,400 people have been killed in a bloody security crackdown during the latest wave of protests, while some rights groups claim the number is even higher.

Experts say this lack of access is not new but part of a long-standing strategy by the Iranian regime. Sara Bazoobandi, a senior researcher and non-resident fellow at the Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University in Germany, explains that internet shutdowns are a deliberate tactic to create doubt when people cannot share information.

"And for us to be confused with who is telling the truth," Bazoobandi told DW.

Authorities have imposed an almost total shutdown of internet and phone services. International calls were possible only intermittently after days of disruption. These constraints shape which images and videos reach audiences inside and outside the country, opening the door for disinformation and misinformation because of an information vacuum .

DW Fact check examined some examples.

Claim: A video circulating online shows large crowds of people marching at night, flashing mobile phone lights, allegedly during current protests in Iran.  The caption reads: "The government shut down street lights to hide the massive scale of protesters but everyone used their phone lights to show they are out there." The video has more than 750,000 views. Othershave shared it with similar claims widely.

Visual indicators like bird's-eye view, lack of visible faces, and patterned flashlights are consistent with AI-generated imagery. In the second part of the video, hands and mobile phones appear unnaturally distorted.

A user who posted the videoon Instagram claimed she created it using AI tools, confirming this is not real and she created it because she was "inspired" by the protests taking place in Iran. This post was seen more than 60 million times. However, many who downloaded and reshared the video failed to label it as AI-generated.

There are indeed some other videos making the rounds on the internet claiming to have been taken during the Iranian protests, but they are hard to verify due to the communication blackout. "It's a complete shutdown," says Farhad Souzanchi, editor-in-chief of Factnameh, a fact-checking platform run from Canada that verifies Iran-related claims. "It's very hard to verify certain videos that make their way outside. Because you need to cross-match and cross-reference them," Souzanchi added.

This scarcity of authentic material often leads to old footage being presented as new—a common pattern during crises.

Claim: A video shows a man tearing down a flag from a building, shared as a current protest in Iran. "Protesters, brave patriots in Iran, have taken control of an IRGC headquarters and lowered the republic's flag," the user wrote in Spanish on X.

A reverse image search shows the footage is older. It was sharedin the context of protests in Nepal in September 2025. People in the video are wearing summer clothes, and older captions identify the location as the headquarters of the Communist Party of Nepal. The video resurfaced amid renewed unrest in Iran, illustrating how old footage is misrepresented when new material is scarce.

While anti-regime protest visuals are often difficult to verify, images and videos of pro-regime rallies are easier to authenticate. Many such rallies were held openly, sometimes with visible security presence, and their coverage was shared by Iranian State media and international photo agencies.

However, these images and videos of a pro-regime demonstration don't reveal how these gatherings are organized.

"These are government-arranged gatherings and government-sanctioned gatherings with full protection, with people being provided with placards and everything. There are even means of transportation for them," claims fact-checker Souzanchi, calling them highly propagandized.

Apart from that, social media also features pro-regime videos that distort reality.

Claim: A video circulating online shows a massive crowd holding a large Iranian flag, presented as a pro-government demonstration in multiple languages, including Hindi and Arabic.

DW analysis confirms the video is digitally generated. Many faces are indistinct, and at one point, a person appears to emerge from the flag itself. The footage uses wide-angle views to exaggerate scale—a common feature of AI-generated videos.

This example shows that synthetic content can appear on both sides of the protest narrative.

Iran has faced similar protests before, and experts say the regime knows its playbook for disinformation and manipulation.

However, the Iranian regime was surprisingly quiet at the beginning of the recent protests, according to Souzanchi. He said it was a situation "as if you could sense a certain confusion" and "a lack of strategy" among the authorities.

Bazoobandi echoes this, saying that some of the methods the regime used in this particular episode were very flawed, "and in my opinion, were selected hurriedly."

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Kathrin Wesolowski contributed to this report. Edited by: Uta Steinwehr, Rachel Baig