WIRED reviewed hundreds of posts on X, some of which have been viewed millions of times, that promote misleading claims about the locations and scale of the attacks.
Elon Musk’s social media platform is a verifiable mess: In some cases, purported video footage of an attack shared in posts on X is actually months or years old. In many posts, video footage of apparent attacks has been attributed to wrong locations. Many of the images shared on X appear to be altered or generated with AI. Other posts attempt to pass off video game footage as conflict scenes.
X did not respond to a request for comment. Under Musk’s leadership, X has become a hotbed of disinformation, especially during major global breaking news events. At the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, and more recently during the anti-immigration enforcement protests in LA, the platform has been awash in inaccurate and flawed posts.
Nearly all of the most viral posts reviewed by WIRED on Saturday came from accounts with blue check marks, meaning they pay X for its premium service and may be eligible to earn money depending on how much engagement their posts generate, even if the content is false. While some posts containing disinformation have had a community note added beneath them to set the record straight, they remain on the site, and it is unclear how many people viewed them before the note appeared.
A video posted by a blue check mark account claimed to show ballistic missiles over Dubai; The clip actually shows Iranian ballistic missiles being fired at Tel Aviv in October 2024. The post has been viewed more than 4.4 million times.
One of the most viral clips shared on Twitter hours after the attack shows an Israeli fighter jet being shot down by Iranian air defense systems. The video has been shared by dozens of accounts, including one post that has been viewed more than 3.5 million times. The origin of the video is unclear, but there have been no credible reports of any Israeli jets being shot down over Iran on Saturday.
Another account claiming to be an expert in open source intelligence posted a video showing the explosions, along with the caption: “6 Iranian hypersonic missiles hit Israeli Haifa port with Indian investments. Massive damage reported.” The video has been viewed 64,000 times, but the footage was actually captured last July and shows an Israeli attack on the Defense Ministry in Damascus, Syria.
In many cases, pro-Iran accounts are using images and footage of Saturday’s attacks to falsely claim successful attacks against Israel. “Iranian missile hits Tel Aviv right now,” the Iran Observer account wrote in a post featuring a photo of Dubai. The post was viewed more than 200,000 times before it was deleted, but dozens of other posts sharing the same image and making similar claims remain on X.
The Tehran Times, a news outlet linked to the Iranian government, posted an AI-generated image on Twitter that claims to show that “a US radar in Qatar was completely destroyed in an Iranian drone strike today.” The use of AI-generated images on X was flagged by Tal Hagin, a senior analyst at open source intelligence company Golden Owl. Although there are reports that drone and missile attacks targeted the headquarters of the US Navy 5th Fleet in Bahrain, there are no reports yet of similar successful attacks in Qatar.
A pro-Trump account, which also has a blue check mark, posted photos claiming to show before-and-after photos of Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei’s palace, which was targeted during Saturday’s missile attacks. (In a post on Truth Social, Trump claimed that Khamenei was killed in an attack.) While the later photo appears to accurately show the palace after the attack, the earlier photo shows the Mausoleum of Ruhollah Khomeini, which is located on the other side of Tehran. The post has been viewed 365,000 times.
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