MS NOW95%
Banned AI-generated Iran propaganda videos using Legos have gone viral 0%
By Ken Dilanian0% Julia Jester0%
4/16/2026, 7:21:29 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 31 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Authority, Pessimism Bias, and Post Hoc (False Cause), with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 31.2% saturation with 239 hits. Analysis detected 2,162 faulty-reasoning hits from 767 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 0% and a BS Rank of 0% (0 of 21,886 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 100.00% of the article peer group.
Americans love the internet, rap music and Legos.
And yet somehow, Iran is exploiting those things in what experts say is a massively successful wartime propaganda operation aimed at denigrating the United States and its president.
A series of artificial intelligence-fueled animated videos produced by an overseas firm has spread across social media, racking up millions of views while seeking to exploit legitimate questions about President Donald Trump’s chaotic statements, the Epstein files and Israel’s influence on U.S. foreign policy.
“These new technologies have given Iran an ability to leverage culture in a way that they never have been able to before,” said Emma Briant, a British expert on information warfare and propaganda.
“Even five years ago, trying to make something that was culturally entertaining and sticky to a Western audience would be very, very difficult.”
Unlike a lot of heavy-handed Iranian propaganda, the videos are catchy and visually appealing, deftly using the colorful cartoon imagery and rap lyrics to soften extreme claims.
One video opens with Lego versions of Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a devil figure sitting together examining a folder labeled “Epstein file.”
Trump then pushes a button, launching a missile with a U.S. flag.
The missile hits an Iranian school.
And it’s set to rap music.
In another, a British voice raps: “America is a 250-year civilization of war, greed and profit.
A nation birthed in war will die by war.
Iran is a 7,000-year civilization.”
One video emerged this week mocking Trump for attacking the pope and posting an image on X portraying himself as Jesus.
The videos are infused with antisemitism and conspiracy theories.
“Your government is run by pedophiles,” goes one chorus.
“They ordered you to die for Israel.”
The campaign has reached an international audience and is landing just as the U.S. has abandoned several programs designed to boost its image abroad and respond to propaganda.
Last year, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the dissolution of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, which was designed to flag foreign propaganda and advance U.S. messaging across the world.
Last week, the State Department pushed a new initiative to use the X platform to counter foreign propaganda.
Experts pointed out X is an American-dominated platform that is looked upon as increasingly skewing to the political right.
Neither the State Department nor the White House immediately responded to MS NOW’s request for comment.
The firm behind the Lego videos, Explosive Media, acknowledged to the BBC that the Iranian government was a customer.
One of the creators said he used Lego animations because that is a “world language.”
YouTube banned the videos this week but they have already gone viral across X, TikTok, Instagram and other social media platforms.
Briant said the Trump administration has made Iran’s job easier by talking about the war in an extreme and unprecedented way, such as Trump’s threat to destroy Iranian civilization and White House videos making light of bombings and killings.
“The most disturbing part of this is what the president has done to take the world’s eyes entirely off how the Iranian regime was for months and months beforehand, slaughtering its own people,” Briant said.
“The story has entirely changed and fueled this propaganda, which is now all about Trump.”
Sen.
Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the intelligence committee, said he is equally, if not more, concerned with Iran's hidden propaganda efforts.
"The public is largely focused on Iran's overt propaganda, but I'm concerned that its covert influence efforts are having a far greater impact and that too little capacity remains within the Intelligence Community to effectively track or disrupt them," Warner told MS NOW in a statement.
"Since 2020, Iranian actors have repeatedly infiltrated U.S. social and political movements, impersonating domestic groups and manipulating unwitting Americans," Warner said.
"With the closure of the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force and ODNI's Foreign Malign Influence Center — and a broader deprioritization of countering covert foreign influence — we should assume much of this activity is continuing without adequate visibility or response from the U.S. government."
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on Thursday was asked to respond to another Iran-backed AI-generated video lampooning Trump’s Jesus post.
“That’s disgusting and detached from reality,” he said.
“Iran says a lot of things in the propaganda space based on complete lies, and their actions have been lies.
“They are going to misrepresent, lie, spin, in a multitude of ways which we are quite used to.
Ultimately, they need to come to the table and make a deal.”
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100%flagged-word coverageEmma Briant
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Analysis
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