Since the outbreak of Operation Epic Fury, social media has become a cesspool of disinformation and AI generated videos. It feels like at least every fifth post you come across is some outlandish claim pushed by foreign accounts, backed by some ridiculous footage created by AI or from a military simulator video game, claiming that the American military has been brutalized by the Iranians. Countless people are falling for it, even politicians.
It’s not just the fact that Jill Stein thought these laughably fake pictures might be real even though they’re marked as AI.
— Gain of Fauci (@DschlopesIsBack) March 8, 2026
It’s that she believes it’s possible that 173 Delta Force operators were captured at one time. That’s far more than we have in the Middle East TOTAL. pic.twitter.com/gfves0q4dR
If you were to only get your information about the conflict from X, you would assume that the U.S. and the Israelis have been completely routed. You would think that Operation Epic Fury has been the biggest military blunder in American, if not world, history. According to AI-generated videos, Tel Aviv has been destroyed about 20 times, and the Iranians have managed to sink the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Gerald Ford 15 times apiece.
It’s no wonder so many people have begun erroneously claiming that the United States is moments away from implementing a draft, despite boots-on-the-ground being the remotest of all possibilities.
And for their part, X has announced that anyone pushing AI footage of the conflict would be demonetized temporarily. That’s a good start, but it only begins to get at what is most pervasive: social media has become part of the battlefront, and AI being used as a key weapon in the fight. Demoralization operations are in full swing, by subversives both at home and abroad.
#BREAKING: 𝕏 to suspend monetization for 90 days from accounts posting AI-war footage.
— Insider Wire (@InsiderWire) March 3, 2026
Syria and Ukraine were some of the first conflicts where vast amounts of daily footage were available online. Operation Epic Fury has the distinction of being the first conflict where AI has played a significant role in shaping optics. Luckily, it is still rudimentary to the point of being fairly easy to distinguish to a person with even minimal exposure to the style that AI creations usually take.
We might not be so lucky in the future.