126 points | by tantalor 17 hours ago
21 comments
- dvh 16 hours agoI'm much more impressed by Chinese state-made eagles vs. cats video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dGY0_pgkv8
- wiseowise 9 minutes agoWho is Europe here?
- Havoc 7 hours agoThat's crazy. Who is the camel at the end supposed to represent? The springbok is presumably south africa i.e. BRICS so someone else in that alliance
- riffraff 2 hours agoI thought that's supposed to be an Oryx (Qatar) while the camels are Saudi/UAE, but who knows.
- livinglist 5 hours agoI think it just represents people/entities who conduct business internationally, since camels used to be a major transportation method on the Silk Road.
- spaghetdefects 16 hours agoThat one is so good.
- rawgabbit 14 hours agoUnrelated. I found this China propaganda video depicting its interpretation of the Iran war entertaining. It talks about the “flowing valley of gold” the Hormuz Strait, the “white eagle alliance” the USA, and “white eagle gold tickets” the petrodollar.
- titanomachy 15 hours agoI watched some of the videos. I think that the New Yorker does its readers a disservice by not pointing out that they also contain blatant lies, just like the propaganda they're supposedly countering. For example the "Victory Chronicles" video really misrepresents how much damage Iranian drones were able to do in Dubai and Saudi Arabia.
- etc-hosts 4 hours agoIranian drones just hit the 30 billion dollar Aramco facility in Jubail. They are definitely a threat.
- ece 15 minutes agoThe 2nd paragraph of the story states numerous techniques of propaganda the videos contain and several examples.
- aaa_aaa 2 hours agoContains more truth than US media and current admin.
- wat10000 4 hours agoIs it really necessary to mention something so obvious?
- gib444 2 hours agoPropaganda contains lies? Is water wet?
Does the average reader of this publication need to be told this?
- thomassmith65 2 hours agoBad propaganda contains falsehoods. Good propaganda lies by omission. Great propaganda tells the truth, compellingly.
Edit: on the other hand, great propaganda is probably wasted on time periods like ours. Great propaganda isn't always effective propaganda.
- elzbardico 9 hours agoAre you sure of it?
- altmanaltman 9 hours agoIts a regime that killed 10s of thousands of its own people for protesting. Ofc its all blatant lies, cute legos or not. There's literally no good sides to this war (anymore)
- elzbardico 9 hours agoAgain, are you sure of it?
- aogaili 5 hours agoI keep getting downvoted and flagged, but there is noway anyone in good faith would support this war crime. A president who threaten to send a country to stone age, saying in front of everyones face that he wants to take the oil..
I don't understand how any human in good faith could look at Iran's government and say they are the evil regime, when we have on other hand, someone who is vocally saying that he is willing to destroy the country's infrastructure and steal their oil.
Well, sure I don't mind getting flagged or downvoted. But at least I speak my mind and what I believe is true.
- IanCal 18 minutes ago> I don't understand how any human in good faith could look at Iran's government and say they are the evil regime
You seem to be trying to force reality into a “good vs evil” storyline. There does not have to be a good side.
- eightysixfour 5 hours agoThis isn’t a contest for most just or most evil. Iran has committed horrible atrocities. The US’s approach to this war has been completely wrong and they are threatening war crimes.
Everyone sucks here.
- aogaili 4 hours agoUS armed rebels, that is their history, Israel wants to the current government down at all cost.
They did that with Iraq, ISIS, they trying with Kurdistan..
I'm not defending a theocracy, but this is not how countries are freed. And he is clearly claiming to take the oil, destroy their infrastructure and take the country to the dark ages. If Iranian government was saying that, hell would go lose.
- AuthAuth 3 hours agoActually arming rebels is how countries are freed. Its not the only way but it is one of the most common. Also Iran arms rebels so whats your point in highlighting the US support for rebel groups?
- aogaili 3 hours agoYour perspective on who is being liberated and who is doing the liberating relies on a simplistic narrative. Ironically, the central figure of that narrative, Donald Trump, has openly stated that he does not mind seizing oil or returning the nation to the Dark Ages. Furthermore, they have backed armed protests and expressed a willingness to arm Kurdish factions.
I am uncertain about the logic or framework you are utilizing. If you believe such actions constitute "freeing" a country, then we clearly do not share the same moral and ethical standards.
- linkregister 3 hours agoThe origin of the United States hinged on its rebellion being armed by the French monarchy.
- defrost 2 hours agowhich directly led in no small way to the overthrow of the French monarchy.
Perhaps US involvemet in arming rebels elsewhere might led to the downfall of the current US ruling class also?
- nashashmi 4 hours agoKeep in mind that we now know that US supplied the protestors weapons to wage violence during the crackdown that resulted in many police officers being killed. We also know that the US has run a campaign to turn protests into riots in past events. And we know that the US sponsors campaigns to create unrest in the country.
If Iran sucks, it is only because the US wants it to suck
- aogaili 4 hours agoThat's exactly it. They admitted supplying anti-government rebels with weapons.
Imagine a country comes and arm a group in the US to rebel against the government..
- gcanyon 3 hours agoWait, cites on the "US supplied Iranian protestors with weapons" bit? Other than Trump? It sounds ridiculous to question whether he's telling the truth, but here we are...
- aogaili 3 hours agoAre you suggesting I provide a citation for the President's claims? Beyond his reputation as a loose cannon, it is difficult to fathom why he would boast about such a thing.
From the beginning, the primary objective of this conflict has been for Israel to eliminate regional resistance, leaving Iran as the final holdout. By arming internal rebels to oppose the administration, external forces are essentially inciting a civil war to topple the government.
While the nation and its current leadership require reform, it is important to remember that these radical regimes do not emerge in a vacuum. Their perceived need to resist stems from external efforts to dismantle them. Such radicalization is often the direct consequence of aggressive policies, including economic sanctions, historical support for Saddam Hussein, and the installation of corrupt monarchies.
Every radical movement triggers a counter-movement, making it difficult to distinguish cause from effect. Much like the chills and fever associated with the flu, these movements represent an extreme but instinctive immune response to an outside threat.
- rixed 1 hour agoSo one side is evil while the other side is just wrong ?
Like after 300k deaths in Irak when the administration said "sorry we have been misled by wrong information about the WMD"? They made a mistake, yet Iraqis were evil.
- vintermann 1 hour agoAre they committing war crimes?
- Fricken 3 hours agoYeah but western powers have been threatening, bullying, murdering and undermining Iran and it's people since they nationalized their own damn oil three quarters of a century ago.
How do you expect an abused dog to turn out? It's probably not going to turn out very nice isn't it? The Iranian regime would chill out just fine on their own if only the west would stop being so cruel to them.
- aogaili 3 hours agoThat's exactly it, and what's more they are kicking the abused dog even harder expecting submission. At this stage, it seems it would rather die or push the abuser away.
- eli_gottlieb 2 hours ago> I don't understand how any human in good faith could look at Iran's government and say they are the evil regime,
Well mainly by having Iranian friends who tell us their government is an evil regime, and when we try to insist our government is evil too, lecture us about our privilege to show they really mean it.
- 2Gkashmiri 5 hours agoHegseth saying no quarter is a war crime but no one seems to care. Why is that?
- YZF 5 hours agoSaying things is not a war crime. So if Iranian soldiers surrendered to US soldiers and they were shot that would be a war crime. I don't think that happened? Hegseth statements could be used to support the claim of war crime under such circumstances if they were to arise. [EDIT: As a commenter suggests it is possible that simply saying this is a war crime, or at least there are some legal opinions suggesting it]
Attacking civilian targets with cluster bombs has happened and Iran is doing that as we speak. That is a war crime.
Attacking infrastructure is not a war crime if that infrastructure serves a military purpose. Attacking purely civilian use infrastructure is a war crime.
Threatening to attack civilian use infrastructure is not a war crime. Threatening to attack infrastructure used for military purposes is also not a war crime.
Mowing down protestors with machines guns is not a war crime but maybe we should consider it a crime against humanity.
EDIT: FWIW I do care about what Hegseth said. It's wrong and he shouldn't have said that. But people say stuff- what matters are the actions.
- 8note 5 hours agoThere are some actual acts that count as war crimes as well, that Hegsdeth has overseen - killing civilians off the coast of venesuela by attacking and sinking fishing boats, but also then killing the civilians after theyve jumped ship.
then in the iran conflict, leaving the sailors to drown after sinking iran's show boat with a sub
- YZF 4 hours agoThe US should do better. But we got here when the parent said: > I don't understand how any human in good faith could look at Iran's government and say they are the evil regime,
Iran's government mows down protestors by the 10's of thousands. They beat woman to death for violating the dress code. They conduct public hangings in stadiums. They routinely use torture and arbitrary arrests. They and their proxies bombard civilians routinely. They recruit child soldiers. The list is just endless. How is that even comparable to the US government?
https://iranhumanrights.org/2024/03/crimes-against-humanity-...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drowning_of_Afghan_refugees_in...
https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-af...
- vintermann 1 hour agoI read this as "talk about Iran!" All you're willing to say about the US seems to be that they "should do better".
How about the double tap strikes? Targeting first responders is a war crime, remember. And US use of double tap strikes is well documented.
If you just want to talk about how bad the victim of war crimes is, that sounds like making excuses for war crimes to me.
- rixed 1 hour agoThe confusion comes from the fact that the regime which is very clearly better for its own people is also the one which actions are clearly awful for the rest of the world (if only because it has vastly larger means).
- etc-hosts 5 hours agoI think the US destroyed a strategically important elementary school on the first day of the war.
- YZF 5 hours agoIt's not confirmed but I agree it was very likely a US strike. An accidental one.
Assuming the US did not intend to kill school girls that is also not a war crime. You can certainly argue that this happened due to the US decision to go to war and claim the actions to not be moral (or illegal as some have stated). Others might argue that more harm would occur if no action was taken and that the action minimizes the overall harm (e.g. to the Iranian people or others).
You could also argue that attack was intentional. I don't think there's any evidence of that and I'm not sure what purpose it served if it was one.
- etc-hosts 4 hours agoIt is difficult to extract the real purpose of most things about this war, if you're in the US, since almost every single part of it seems against the US' interests and public face.
You're probably technically correct and that the US didn't intentionally look in Google Maps for an elementary school and decided to destroy it. But did we really need to Double Tap it?
Timothy Snyder has an opinion about this: https://x.com/TimothyDSnyder/status/2040883546093436941?s=20
I'm not quite there yet.
- amarant 2 hours agoThat tweet by Timothy Snyder is quite ridiculous. There's just no way that's the motivation behind all this.
Unfortunately it's also the only motivation anyone has presented that there is any real hope of actually achieving. And it's the kind of excuse trump could use to become glorious dictator. Or at least I wouldn't be surprised to learn he thinks it is.
No, I really don't think that's why this war was started. I don't think trump actually wants terrorist attacks in America. But it just might be what he will get, whether he likes it or not.
- Shivatron 5 hours ago> Saying things is not a war crime.
On the contrary, there appear to be good legal arguments that Hegseth merely saying "no quarter" is, on its own, a war crime:
https://www.justsecurity.org/133970/legal-advice-hegseth-no-...
- YZF 4 hours agoYou might be right. You're definitely right there are legal arguments to support that.
- globalnode 2 hours agopeople care, theyre just being censored and overwritten with rubbish.
- throwaway894345 5 hours agoWhy do you think no one cares? My feeds are outraged. Maybe some normies can’t keep up with all the specific heinous stuff coming out of this administration, but I don’t think they’re happy about it.
- globalnode 2 hours agoyoure only getting downvoted because they pay people good money to make sure their ridiculous narrative gets front page every single day. us murders a countries leader and a bunch of school kids and suddenly iran is accused of murdering 100k protesters and committing war crimes... like wtf lol
- throwaway894345 5 hours ago> I don't understand how any human in good faith could look at Iran's government and say they are the evil regime
Iran mass murdered tens of thousands of protesters in one day. I was outraged when Trump’s goons murdered two Minnesotan protesters—if we can agree this is evil, it should follow that a regime that murders tens of thousands of protesters is also evil. This isn’t complicated, which is why you’re being downvoted (I did not downvote you).
- vintermann 1 hour agoNeither the precise scale of the killings or the degree of militancy of the protesters has been well documented. It's reported that a lot of policemen and revolutionary guard soldiers were killed too.
Remember, Mossad publicly boasted that they were on the ground with the protesters, which was a pretty insane thing to do and basically gave Iran carte blanche to say these aren't protests, it's a foreign sponsored coup attempt. There's very little we can say to that when Mossad basically publicly said it was.
Maybe they were so sure the protests would succeed they figured it would earn them/justify goodwill with the new government?
- znort_ 3 hours agoif the number of tens of thousands dead is true (and i'm highly skeptical, but let's go with that) then it correlates with the number of starlink terminals smuggled into sanctioned iran way before the protests. both us and israeli officials publicly boasted of mossad agents being on the ground (presumably coordinating these people exerting brutal violence; incidentally, these terminals were the reason for shutting down internet) and even bessant boasted about manipulating the currency into collapse to spark the unrests in the first place. that's all quite evil.
now, i'm against death penalty, but if a government under siege by foreign powers faces such an existential threat then that's one outcome to be expected ... those agitators had it coming. many innocent people died that day, but surely the majority weren't that innocent.
one can disagree with or dislike the irg, but i don't think they're evil, and if they are by the same criteria the us and israel are fucking monsters.
- adjejmxbdjdn 4 hours agoBut as Trump has assured us, that’s the old regime which is completely different from the current regime, which as Trump again has assured us, is not anywhere near as crazy as the old regime.
/s
The Iranian regime is incredibly evil. That makes the American actions even more evil given that they’re providing that evil regime so much cover and allowed it to transition from their 86 year old leader with almost no opportunity for opposition.
- aogaili 4 hours agoSo the country waging wars from the sky, threatening to take their oil, annexing Greenland, suffocating Cuba, the only country who used nuclear bombs twice...is what?
- aogaili 4 hours agoThose are not neutral protests, those are armed fraction to take down the government, any existing government would fight back.
He said it clearly:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/6/has-trump-confirmed-...
And anyone who knows a bit of history in the region they will understand that this is the case. They armed Saddam to fight Iran for 8 years. The main issue with Iran is that it is against Israel.
- faizmokh 3 hours agoTrump literally admitting that he was the one arming the protestors. It'S US regime change playbook.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
- linkregister 2 hours agoIt's not exculpatory for the independently-verified claims[1] of tens of thousands of those murdered by the Iranian regime.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Human_Rights_Co...
- vkou 1 hour agoOkay, let's make a deal. Iranian regime faces trials and consequences, and so does the American executive.
Once they are locked up in the same cage, we all get to move on. Sounds good?
- linkregister 1 hour agoI'd be satisfied with that!
- alsetmusic 6 hours ago> 10s of thousands
I sorta doubt those numbers.
> (anymore)
Oh, so you're ideologically captured by an admin that's proven to be full of liars. There was never a good side. There's no good side to war in nearly any case (limited exceptions and this is not (was never) one of those).
The most powerful country in history attacked a smaller country that wasn't a threat to the stronger country. Had the USA (and Israel) not attacked, it's unlikely that Iran would have struck first.
And Iran firing missiles on Israel in response to genocide in Gaza isn't really a credible threat. Israel could stop massacring civilians at any time to make Iran stop firing upon them.
- linkregister 2 hours agoThe numbers are independently verified by UNHRC [1].
The United States is the aggressor in this conflict. Its action is a violation of the UN Charter and international law.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Human_Rights_Co...
- vintermann 1 hour agoThat's not what you say it is. It is an estimate from UNHRC, which has a wide range. The estimate also seems to be for all dead, including counter protesters and government officers. Verification of any kind is in short supply.
It also does nothing to address the Iranian government's claim - strongly supported by US and Israel's public statements(!) that it's a foreign coup attempt rather than peaceful protests.
- linkregister 1 hour ago"Foreign coup attempt" is an extraordinary claim that is not backed by publicly available evidence. Indeed, it's not even backed by the statements by Iranian government officials, who are on record upholding the killings [1]. Furthermore, Iranian Ministry of Health officials have upheld these estimates of the death count. Eyewitness accounts uphold the fact that the Iranian government has perpetrated mass killings of protestors [2].
It is understandable that a person who distrusts the United States government would be led to believe the statements of a government in opposition to it. Indeed, the United States is engaged in an illegal war in which it is the aggressor. However, the statements of the Iranian government attributing protestor deaths to foreign-backed paramilitaries is not backed by any credible set of facts.
1. https://reliefweb.int/report/iran-islamic-republic/iran-deat...
2. https://www.hrw.org/news/2026/01/16/iran-growing-evidence-of...
- aogaili 5 hours agoIt is crazy that comments like this are getting downvoted when it is clearly the truth.
- linkregister 2 hours agoThis comment provides no insight nor facts. Why bother to make it?
- tru3_power 5 hours agoIs it really crazy though? Sad, but given the state of everything I don’t find this crazy.
- aogaili 4 hours agoI'm just really puzzled by people frankly, one would expect Hacker News to be of higher caliber. Read the history, watch real geo-political analysis. But even without that, a presidents in who screams profanity on social media, threaten to take oil and resources of other countries and bomb to the dark ages..even without any political background, this a real low for any position let alone the president of the US.
I think Social Media truly brought the worse in people. People are not trying to be decent anymore.
- scarecrowbob 3 hours agoTo be honest, this forum is where I come to take th temperature of the US "centrists" who brought us to this point. I've quit other social media, so this is one of the few places where I can hear what folks (who are often quite clever in quite a few dimensions) spout rather vicious thoughts.
The other spot I get exposure to this part of the US political spectrum is the comment section of a youtube guy who is pretty far to the right but who has a seemingly (at least to me) well-informed understanding of the facts- he's interesting because it's kind of wild to hear the more lumpen version of this site and what their concerns are: they are really mad that this war is happening instead of further domestic crackdowns on immigration.
In both cases, it's helpful to understand where folks who have some pretty misinformed understandings of history and politics are sitting with their opinions.
It doesn't seem surprising to me that a bunch of aspiring venture capitalists, who have probably have been or are on the cusp of having a small taste of the massive wealth that their work in building out the surveillance state has brought to their masters, have totally shitty politics.
- aogaili 3 hours agoI think you are right, I've also stopped social media myself recently and left with nothing but YouTube and the occasional visit on HN for tech.
With that said, and I'm aware that HN audience are mostly in tech but I always thought we in tech are better trained to think critically and look at things from various perspectives. But to see the exact same response patterns one would see in FB makes one surely question how many people are truly capable of independent critical thinking. I'm also starting to think that given the complexity of modern life and the amount of information we are flooded with people are simply choosing the most repeated narrative within their circle without much reflection or any critical thinking. At the end of the day most folks here are busy with other things and it is easier to believe they are evil and we are liberating then dive deep into one of the most complicated areas when it comes to history and geopolitics.
- aogaili 8 hours ago[flagged]
- enceladus06 4 hours agoKilled 10s of thousands of civilians, you mean Iran or Israel?
- aaa_aaa 2 hours ago"Its a regime that killed 10s of thousands of its own people for protesting. " This information is simply not true.
- throwaway290 49 minutes agoActually is true
- 2Gkashmiri 5 hours agoOh poor Dubai and Saudi Arabia. Im sure my pet animal is shedding a tear or two for them
- nashashmi 4 hours agoPropaganda videos are not meant to tell the truth. They are meant to exaggerate the facts. You know, like CNN exaggerates how terrible iran is.
- deepsun 3 hours agoWell, it's hard to tell with military advances. Before the attack you cannot say anyone is terrible, after -- it's too late. Like Russia recently denied they are amassing troops at the borders, and claimed that was just military exercises.
If we're talking about nuclear weapons -- there will be no point of discussing if the attack is made.
Similar to infamous question "is the farmer good with his beloved turkey that he raises until Thanksgiving?"
- xdennis 3 hours ago> You know, like CNN exaggerates how terrible iran is.
Do you not know it's a theocracy where women have to hide their faces, the punishment for BEING raped is death, and any dissent is illegal (gets you executed under the charge of "waging war against Allah").
I don't watch leftist news, but I'm pretty sure not even CNN gives Iran a free pass. You usually have to turn to new media like Hassan Abi for that.
- orthoxerox 2 hours agoIsn't that Saudi Arabia you're talking about?
- ngruhn 1 hour agobruh they gunned down thousands of protesters with live ammunition a couple months ago. Then shut down the internet so no one would see it. Ask any Iranian expat. They have no love for this regime. You can think of the war whatever you want. But there is no need to defend this regime.
- Fricken 3 hours agoSophisticated propaganda is designed to radicalize people into having an emotional reaction to something before they have a chance to think rationally.
Many US citizens experienced an outpouring of emotion over Tank Man 37 years ago, and now all you have to do is wave around a picture of Tank Man and reflexively blue flames start shooting out of American asses and they go into conniptions and start howling like rabid Meerkats. They've been radicalized.
So long as Tank Man still works, US state media will keep using it. It doesn't have to be a lie. The important thing is that it's hard to reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.
Chinese and Iranian propaganda is not nearly as effective as in the US can, where the advertising industry alone spends a half-trillion dollars annually in an effort to fool people into doing things they wouldn't normally do. It is an art and a science.
- linkregister 3 hours agoThis post: "If you have an emotional reaction to the symbol of a mass murder in the Beijing city square, you've been radicalized"
Same account 2 days ago: "Mark Zuckerberg and Meta are complicit in the Rohingya genocide"[1]
I knew I would find a contradictory post within the first page, because this account has the hallmarks of a troll.
- Fricken 2 hours agoBringing up Meta's complicity in the Rohingya Genocide on HN is like bringing up the Nanking Massacre in Japan, it's not a responsibility anyone is going to face, I get it. I brought it up in a thread about the careless things Meta has done so it was on point.
One thing to keep in mind is that neither Japan, China or Iran have been engaged in any imperial misadventures lately. If you haven't noticed, one theme that has been dominating world affairs as of late is the absolute shitshow that is the American political situation.
Iran is a literate nation and the US is blowing up universities and schools. Call me a troll but that's all some super depraved stuff going on right now so forgive me if I'm not particularly sensitive to the feelings of the people who are cheering for it.
- linkregister 1 hour agoIran is well-known for extensive interference in its neighbors' political systems. It has funded and armed opposition groups with billions of dollars of assistance (Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis). Educational institutions in literate countries have been bombed by Iranian proxies.
The Chinese government invaded Indian territory within the last year. It directs its naval auxiliaries to harass civilian vessels from Vietnam and Philippines. According to your world view it doesn't qualify —authoritarian nations may harm their own denizens as long as it's not expeditionary— but residents of Xinjiang are routinely rounded up and imprisoned.
- input_sh 16 hours agoGiven the headline, they found out nothing about "the team".
- elwray 55 minutes agoI hope we never get there but what do you think could push Israel into using Nukes?
- sharperguy 47 minutes agoA serious existential threat to the country from a targetable state actor.
- mrtksn 37 minutes agoRisk to Netanyahu's career or wellbeing can do the trick because as we have seen lately Israel is willing to risk Israel's future and the Jewish communities safety across the world. It's not even as a part of grand strategy or anything, they are pushing to make criticizing Netanyahu a taboo.
I used to admire Israel as the only sane country in the middle east with great culture for entrepreneurship even if they had elements of atrocities(these could be fixed through civil progress in sane countries). I'm genuinely sad to see it has turned into a genocidal theocratic lunacy like the rest of the middle east and theocratic lunatics can do anything.
If the calculus skewed by arrogance and religious delusions is on the positive for the ruling class, they will use a nuke.
- confiq 2 minutes agoIsraeli here. I would not be surprised if Bibi uses an N-bomb just to keep his chair.
- ErroneousBosh 53 minutes agoAny serious attempt to stop the extermination in Gaza.
- sschueller 16 hours agoI would be interested to know how these are made on a technical level. Is it a combination of several tools and are they local or some service (I would think LEGO minifigs would trigger some copyright issue)? I also assume you need to do certain things to keep the consistency and somehow sync the music with the video?
- virgildotcodes 17 hours agoIt was quite obvious, but this is a noteworthy example of just how much more effective propaganda will become with AI.
These videos are blowing up on Twitter.
I personally found the one about Pete Hegseth quite well made and the song actually catchy.
Edit: Video link courtesy mirashii in this thread - https://mastodon.social/@blogdiva/116348872322024778
- blackcatsec 16 hours agopeople were worried about deepfakes with AI but instead the propaganda is doing pretty well, and arguably better, when it's not a deepfake but instead silly, catchy, youthful, and is playing up existing beliefs. The invasion is deeply unpopular in the US, and these videos only serve to amp that up.
- some_random 15 hours agoDeepfakes were never necessary, people have been making incredible propaganda forever though the same few tactics. For instance, presenting footage out of context.
- ted_bunny 12 hours agoThe deepfakes haven't gotten really good yet. Give it a year.
- 8note 5 hours agodeepfakes have been pre-subverted by having leaders that can't put coherent sentences together, or be trusted when they say literally anything.
A trump deepfake will be just as reliable about trump policy as actually listening to him speak. maybe even more reliable than from the horse's mouth
- ted_bunny 4 hours agoYou're right and it's not even hyperbole. Big sigh.
- OJFord 56 minutes agoI saw a video of some French politician's speech on Reddit; most commenters were praising the guy's English. It was AI dubbed...
- baggy_trough 16 hours agoInvasion?
- chaostheory 16 hours agoGround troops are going to be deployed
- baggy_trough 16 hours agoThat would be a precondition, yes.
- themafia 2 hours agoThis is not a popular war. I would not use it as a milestone.
- abdusco 17 hours agoCare to share the link?
- mirashii 17 hours ago
- simonw 16 hours agoThat Hegseth one is an extraordinary piece of media. It's dense with Hegseth and Epstein lore, the song is catchy, the visuals are a significant cut above the normal AI slop aesthetic.
If this is Iranian state backed propaganda (which seems very likely) it's light years ahead of those White House videos with footage of bombs mixed in with clips from action movies.
- adjejmxbdjdn 4 hours agoThe Iranian propaganda videos are catchy but also emphasize all the cracks in U.S. society and the weak points of the U.S. leadership. Simultaneously it paints the Iranian regime as the defender not just of Iran, but victims of American aggression broadly. It doesn’t hurt that the White House keeps playing into this with their comments.
The White House comments trivialize mass murder and killing. And it appeals to absolutely nobody but the man boys currently inhabiting the White House.
- guzfip 16 hours agoThe White House seems to have made the mistake of hiring HOI4 modders for their propaganda team.
- alsetmusic 6 hours agoA better article, I think: "Iran Is Winning the AI Slop Propaganda War" [0]
404 Media is journalist-owned if you want to contribute to consistently good journalism. I am not affiliated.
0. https://www.404media.co/iran-is-winning-the-ai-slop-propagan...
- bombcar 3 hours agoIf Iran was the axis of evil they'd use Megabloks
- elzbardico 9 hours agoThere's also an Anime style one, more martial and militant in style.
- dbvn 16 hours agoHate to admit it... but the video goes hard
- KellyCriterion 16 hours agoIs this one group?
Today I saw an analyst from Pakistan and he also had some of these "trump-lego-snippets" in the video, was wondering why someone would put so much effort in a video against trump, but it seems he copied it somewhere (from this group e.g.)
- delis-thumbs-7e 15 hours agoIs it even propaganda if you just read aloud your enemy’s wikipedia? I think Bubba refers to someone else than Clinton and Iran’s regime is despotic assholes, but apart from that pretty accurate depiction.
- YZF 6 hours agopropaganda (noun)
information or ideas that are spread by an organized group or government to influence people’s opinions, esp. by not giving all the facts or by secretly emphasizing only one way of looking at the facts
or another definition:
information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a particular cause, doctrine, or point of view.
- delis-thumbs-7e 1 hour agoSure, that’s one definition, I was only asking rhetorically. But if you look deeper into the social scientific and historical literature on the term, it’s a bit contested. I personally would see propaganda as something far more insidious than simply “all mass media”, like your definitions from apparently some online dictionaries seem to suggest. I think there’s a difference between Triumph of the Will, a toothpaste commercial and ironic AI-generated music video about the leaders of the country attacking you. I’m not sure what that difference is - this would actually be a legit subject for proper academic research - but I would maybe rather try to analyse the desired goals of the makers and spreaders of the said media than just use some far too broad definition that turns the whole world virtually meaningless. I think there’s some nuance here.
- vkou 5 hours agoSo, in short, almost anything of substance that is disseminated over mass and social media?
- YZF 5 hours agoIf its aim is to influence opinion then yes. It doesn't matter if it's true or not true. It's the goal that matters. One can influence opinions with a subset of truths.
- stefantalpalaru 15 hours ago[dead]
- josefritzishere 16 hours agoThe production values were great. I can't deny it.
- bad_haircut72 8 hours agoLego must be so mad hahaha
- ece 15 hours agoPuppet regime has competition. Now do Putin.
- dfir-lab 15 hours ago[flagged]
- devcraft_ai 16 hours ago[dead]
- hk1337 16 hours ago[flagged]
- dang 10 hours agoNo doubt, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News and please especially don't start flamewars.
- regularization 15 hours ago> Siding with a dictatorial regime
Right, Iran used to have a parliament with Mossadegh as prime minister, what happened there? Oh yaa, Mossadegh wanted Iranian oil for Iranians, so the US and UK overthrew Mossadegh, with the help of conservative mullahs, and installed a dictatorship. Then SAVAK with CIA help spent decades slaughtering the secular opposition.
> that’s murdered 100s of their own people
There are armed Balochi and Kurdish separatists shooting at the Iranian army right now, no doubt with clandestine Israeli and US support. Incidentally the Kurds had their own state at the end of WWII, until the US and UK made them dissolve into Iran.
Also aside from the bombings, the Basij have been fired on from the ground and have fired back. Who is arming the people shooting at the Basij is unknown, but some signs point to Israel.
I write this less than three months after armed federal personnel decided to march into Minneapolis and among other things kill a nurse and also a woman.
> and aided terrorist organizations
The Arabs in southern Lebanon and the Gaza strip have lived there a long time. Over the past century Zionist Jews from around the world have been invading their land, shooting, bombing, starving them. If they fight back the epithet terrorist is applied to them, and if these brave men fighting for their people are assigned the word, it gives it a great esteem.
- michaelcampbell 14 hours agomultiple things can be bad at the same time.
- spwa4 12 hours agoOf course Mossadegh was "not ideal", but the current regime are genocidal islamists that over time have taken more and more to massacring their own population for ever more reasons.
A pinprick and metastasizing cancer are both bad in absolute terms, but not remotely comparable.
- ted_bunny 12 hours agoWhat genocide did they commit?
- TheChaplain 12 hours ago
- spwa4 10 hours agoThat doesn't even include the massacre they did on their own population 2 months back. When it comes to genocides, Iran's islamists have a LONG list of mass-killings to answer for.
- ted_bunny 10 hours agoThe foreign-armed coup attempt? Is that the hill you wanna die on?
- spwa4 9 hours agoNo. Iran's islamists have organized plenty "hills", including an attack on Brussels airport and metro. Me and my wife were within 2 km of the shooting.
In the airport, they found a woman pushing a carriage. They shot the baby first and waited, laughing, for the woman to collapse onto the floor, dead, still bleeding baby in her hands, to shoot her. She survived. THAT is who you're dealing with here.
We found out Iran's embassy was involved in organizing these attacks. There is nothing you can possibly to do convince anything done to these islamists, each and every one of them, is immoral in the slightest.
- ted_bunny 8 hours agoThat is pretty bad, but where's the genocide you mentioned?
- _DeadFred_ 11 hours agoAnd today the occupation IRGC regime (that recently by IRGC released numbers massacred 3000 Iranians on the streets in 2 days) is importing foreign militias to prop up their unpopular regime (along with recruiting child soldiers for the Basij you mentioned).
"The roaming of the Islamic Republic's proxies in Iran; entry of "Zainabiyoun" of Pakistan after "Hashd al-Shaabi" of Iraq and "Fatemiyoun" of Afghanistan
Reports of the presence of forces affiliated with the Zainabiyoun Division of Pakistan have been published in various areas of Sistan and Baluchestan province."
- imdsm 16 hours agoI watched "One Battle After Another" and it shows how deranged people are. I don't think its a new thing, I just think in any stable society, people who don't thrive eventually find a way to destroy the society in the hope whatever comes next will serve them better. In a society where hard work and intelligent gives you an advantage, it stands to reason that lazy, stupid people will need to play differently in order to win.
I can't wait to read wikipedia in 30 years.
- fcarraldo 16 hours agoI'm sorry, your takeaway from that film was that Sean Penn was the good guy?
- akramachamarei 15 hours agoThis is a pretty obvious misinterpretation. Protagonist bad ≠ antagonist good. This isn't even the law of the excluded middle because there was only ever a statistical relationship between the morality of narrative opponents.
- lynndotpy 16 hours agoIsn't the film fiction? I haven't seen it but I would refrain from using a fiction film as something to measure "how deranged people are" by.
- ks2048 14 hours ago> I just think in any stable society, people who don't thrive eventually find a way to destroy the society in the hope whatever comes next will serve them better.
It seems our society is being destroyed by people who are thriving the most.
- delis-thumbs-7e 16 hours ago> In a society where hard work and intelligent gives you an advantage
Which society is this, Sweden? Xi Jinping is pretty smart and hard working, is China being demolished by lazy dumb twats? Because it seems to me its US that is overrun bu stupidity and sheer lazyness right now, but it seems to be because it rewards people like Musk, Trump etc.
- prh8 16 hours ago[flagged]
- dang 10 hours agoPlease don't perpetuate flamewars on HN. The GP comment was bad*, but responding in kind is the opposite of what we're trying for here.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
(* for reasons—I hasten to add—unrelated to which side of the conflict they or anyone else is identifying with)
- dmos62 16 hours agoIt's almost funny how both of these descriptions can apply to either country.
- spaghetdefects 16 hours ago[flagged]
- platinumrad 15 hours agoI agree that HN often turns a blind eye to all of the awful things that the US and Israel do, but Iran is hitting civilian targets as well.
- spaghetdefects 9 hours ago[flagged]
- victorbjorklund 15 hours agoIran hit a teaching hospital so I guess they technically managed to hit a school and a hospital at the same time.
- victorbjorklund 15 hours agoIran has helped Russia bomb many schools and hospitals.
- dmos62 14 hours agoIt's ironic how they've been so instrumental in bombing Ukraine's civilian targets (for years) and now they're likely to get their civilian infrastructure bombed, by a third party. Strange times.
- titanomachy 16 hours agoYou probably have to wait 2 more years to see if they're really a dictatorship, for the time being at least they still have an electoral mandate.
- dbdr 15 hours agoHaving an electoral mandate is a necessary condition, not a sufficient one. If you don't follow your own laws and your own constitution, for instance, you're not a in a democracy, even if you have been elected. Precisely because you are elected under the assumption that you will follow the laws and constitution, not have unlimited power to do whatever you like until the next elections.
- platinumrad 15 hours agoThe Trump regime is still borderline, but I think it's fair to call Netanyahu a dictator at this point.
- rolandog 15 hours agoNot to mention atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; 170,000+ deaths.
- fsckboy 12 hours agothe japanese killed around 50 times that number of people in ww2 (R.J. Rummel, Statistics of Democide, 1997)
- edgyquant 16 hours agoWho exactly are you talking about?
- barbazoo 16 hours agohttps://www.theguardian.com/news/2026/mar/26/ai-got-the-blam...
> On the first morning of Operation Epic Fury, 28 February 2026, American forces struck the Shajareh Tayyebeh primary school in Minab, in southern Iran, hitting the building at least two times during the morning session. American forces killed between 175 and 180 people, most of them girls between the ages of seven and 12
- pb7 15 hours ago[flagged]
- barbazoo 16 hours agoCheck out the history behind this and how the US has treated Iran because of their Oil for almost a hundred years now. This is 100% on the west in my opinion. We've been abusing these people for the longest time.
- cobbzilla 16 hours agoBefore the US it was the British with BP.
Before the British with BP it was the British East India Company.
Before the British EIC there were various periods of Arab, Turk and Mongol control.
Persia has been a political football since Alexander the Great. Cursed geography.
- adrian_b 15 hours agoWhen I first heard about the protests in Iran, I assigned automatically the blame on the dictatorial regime.
Nevertheless, after the following events and after extra information provided by the US government itself, this is no longer so clear cut.
The truth is that we do not really know what happened in Iran, how many have been killed and whether that was really an internal protest against the regime or a coup attempt organized by USA.
The timing of the protests is too suspicious. The most plausible hypothesis is that US/Israeli agents have initiated the protests by influencing a great number of well-intended internal opponents of the regime, who probably have suffered then most from this action.
If some of the opposition had received US weapons, that can explain the paranoia of the dictatorial regime, even if there is little doubt that the retaliations against the opposition must have affected many who had no ties with USA or Israel.
Until credible information will surface about what really happened in Iran at the beginning of the year, we can affirm only that it is likely that the dictatorial regime has killed or tortured many non-violent opponents, but there is nothing certain about this.
On the other hand, the unprovoked crimes committed by USA since the beginning of the year against countries like Iran or Cuba are certain facts, about which there exists no doubt whatsoever, because the top US officials are bragging about them.
For all we know, USA might have already killed more Iranian civilians than the Iran government, so any claims that the attacks done by USA are somehow intended for supporting the Iranian people, are completely ridiculous.
- ndiddy 14 hours agoTrump said on Sunday that the US at least tried to arm the protestors.
> The U.S. sent guns to anti-regime protesters in Iran amid the wider war against Tehran, President Donald Trump confirmed to Fox News on Sunday.
> Trump made the comment during an interview with Fox News' Try Yingst, saying the U.S. delivered the weapons through the Kurds.
> "We sent them a lot of guns. We sent them through the Kurds. And I think the Kurds kept them," Trump said.
https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/us-iran-trump-israel-war-l...
- lostlogin 14 hours agoThe story seems plausible but the source is as poor as they get.
Trump facts change so quickly.
- torlok 15 hours agoI will side with any country that's being illegally attacked, and whose population is being illegally targeted, thank you very much. Sovereignty is fundamental, it's been broken. The state of Iran is the result of US and Israeli meddling. There was time for criticizing Iran before it was attacked.
- victorbjorklund 15 hours agoWhile Iran is bad - US is engaged in war crimes (they even brag about it). It’s like when Russians defend their war crimes by saying that Ukraine is corrupt.
- platinumrad 16 hours agoI agree with you on principle, but you're oversimplifying things if you think that opposition to the United States or Israel is all about a single person.
- saltyoldman 16 hours ago[flagged]
- ryandrake 15 hours agoI think it's possible to have a grown-up discussion about the production value, cultural relevance, and effectiveness of propaganda without "siding" with the videos' sponsors. This appears to be an uncomfortable case of bad people speaking at least some truth--to the point where it's resonating.
- alberto-m 16 hours agoChurchill and Eisenhower beg to disagree. When everyone is bad, you focus on restraining the most powerful actor first.
- Mikhail_Edoshin 15 hours agoThere was an interview with a historian and he said an interesting thing about the ancient Sparta: "Everything we know about Sparta we know from its enemies".
- jdthedisciple 16 hours agoSo instead we must side with another regime that slaughtered 72'000 innocent civilians of another country, most of whom were women and children?
- ted_bunny 12 hours agoThat 72k is a bare minimum. Those are just the recovered and identified bodies.
- thendrill 15 hours agoDo you mean the US of I?
Remember Snowden? Remmeber Assange? Remember Aaron Swartz? Remember the terrorizing of Occupy Wallstreet organizers? Remember the funding of terrorists all over Africa? Remember Libya? Remember who funded Isis?
Is that regime you are talking about?
- throwuxiytayq 16 hours agoThe number is well in the thousands/tens of thousands, and we have no way of knowing precisely because, well, it's a dictatorial regime.
- pasquinelli 16 hours agoalso because, well, our dictatorial regime.
- spaghetdefects 16 hours ago[flagged]
- swat535 15 hours ago> Siding with a dictatorial regime that’s murdered 100s of their own people and aided terrorist organizations
I'm getting really tired of this. United States and Israel have bombed and killed more innocent people than I can count on. The biggest terrorist regime is United States right now, bombing schools.
Your own president tweets out war crimes, your secretary of defense proudly proclaims "no quarters" and "send them back to the stone age".
Do me a favor, and please lay off the morality lecture.
How about you talk about the Gaza genocide for once? Or the IRAQ war that killed millions of people? Or using nuclear weapons on Japan? or the killing and raping of Vietnamese ?
Or the fact that you backed Saddam to use chemical weapons on Iranians during the 8 year war?
- pasquinelli 16 hours agoi really can't tell which side you're talking about
- tomjen3 13 hours agoYou are absolutely correct. However, I fear you're running up against the basic human instinct of "my enemy's enemy is my friend.".
I also wonder how many actually support them, and how much is just a result of opinions boosted by bots?
- praptak 16 hours agoA regime driven by a weird religious cult and murdering their own citizens is battling a regime which is driven by a weird religious cult and is murdering their own citizens.
I think in this situation it is okay to cheer on both sides.
- some_random 15 hours agoCue dozens of comments doing exactly that...
- bigtex88 15 hours agoWho is siding with Iran?
- some_random 15 hours agoMost commenters in this thread.
- josefritzishere 16 hours agoI appreciate that this statement accurately describes all three regimes primarily involved without naming one.
- jmyeet 15 hours agoYou mean like siding with the dictatorial regime that provided material support to the 9/11 hijackers, 15/19 of whom were nationals of that country? And then we wanted to question 3 menders of the royal family who were implicated they all mysteriously fell out of windows, died in a car accident or otherwise died?
Another national was a renowned arms dealer linked to both Robert Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein. And then that arms dealer’s nephew was chopped up in a foreign embassy and taken away in pieces?
They murdered thousands of our citizens let alone theirs.
What leg do we have to stand on here exactly?
- spaghetdefects 16 hours agoTrump just yesterday admitted to arming anti-Iranian insurrectionists. So Iran did not "murder 100s of their own people", they fought off a CIA armed coup.
- lenerdenator 16 hours agoThere's an implicit tolerance of authoritarian regimes so long as the price is right. This is nothing new.
- raincole 16 hours agoWhich one? If you mean Iran, "100s of" seems like a weird understatement.
- pasquinelli 16 hours agowhat numbers can you trust? i mean, you can trust whatever suits you, but *i* don't trust, really, any of the things i hear about the global bad guys, particularly iran when america is making war on them or building a case for war.
- akramachamarei 15 hours agoHow about start with the number that the regime itself admits to; namely, thousands of protestors killed.
- cryptoegorophy 16 hours agoToday’s world is messed up. Look at EU leaders rubbing shoulders with Syrian president/ex-terrorist.
- lenerdenator 16 hours agoToday's?
We were shuffling capital to China after Tiananmen Square. People were talking about how we should have left Saddam alone because of how "orderly" Iraq was under his boot. Europeans were happy to ink the plans for Nordstream 2 after Russia sent tanks into Georgia, and Russia received no less than a FIFA World Cup and Olympic games after seizing Crimea.
There is incredibly little will to stick to the whole "humans have rights and we should have a rules-based international order" when the rubber meets the road.
- acessoproibido 16 hours agorules-based international order is mostly a propaganda term that the Us empire invented. It also was mostly "rules for thee but not for me"
Its a nice thing in theory but in practice power always overruled morals and I think the current US admin not only freely admits this but also kind of rubs your nose in it. In a way its less hypocritical than previously but also incredibly sobering for someone who grew up in a seemingly more "stable" world
- lenerdenator 16 hours ago> rules-based international order is mostly a propaganda term that the Us empire invented. It also was mostly "rules for thee but not for me"
I think there was an effort to try to stick to it, at least early on after WWII when people had seen what the old system resulted in.
Then the Berlin blockade, Korea, and Hungarian intervention happened and the implication was made that the rules were what were to be aspired to, not actually followed, and it's been all downhill from there.
Incidentally, most of those aren't on the "Us empire".
- some_random 15 hours agoDon't worry, the multipolar world you dream of will be here soon, and it will be as brutal and violent as you're hoping.
- lenerdenator 10 hours ago> Don't worry, the multipolar world you dream of will be here soon, and it will be as brutal and violent as you're hoping.
... I don't hope for that?
- u8080 16 hours agoIndeed, we even had deals with Germany and Belgium who bombed hospitals in Yugoslavia in 1999!
- the_duke 16 hours agoThat's in part because many EU countries would like to ship the Syrian refugees back to Syria.
- glawre 16 hours agoDon't forget Trump rubbing shoulders with al-Sharaa either.
- lostlogin 14 hours agoAnd Putin, and Orban etc.
- chaostheory 16 hours agoNo one cares about who made these videos in the US. The bigger issue is why are we engaging in a ground war in Iran when it doesn’t really serve US interests? Everyone on both political spectrums in the US can see why it benefits Saudi Arabia and Israel, but not the US.
We’re using precious resources like missiles that we will need in the Pacific theater in next 1-2 years
- harrall 16 hours agoBecause it wasn’t planned that far. The administration probably thought it would go like Venezuela. A Middle East historian would have told you Iran has building for all our war for decades because it trusts none of its neighbors.
A second problem is that the US knew for a while that we were weak at asymmetric warfare but we didn’t fix it. There was a war game in 2002 (the Millennium Challenge, which was actually set in the Strait of Hormuz) that, though the red team did very much cheat, it did hint at a major weakness that wasn’t resolved.
There are US defense companies today that actually specialize in that but they weren’t given the same attention (but boy are they now).
- etc-hosts 5 hours agoWhen one side complains no fair the other side is cheating, you've probably already lost.
Relevant The Far Side cartoon: https://static0.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/...
- themafia 2 hours ago> though the red team did very much cheat,
My Army buddy once said "If you're not cheating you're not trying."
What did they expect? That's the whole point of a red team.
Reminds me of Admiral Ching Lee. He used to run red team exercises against US facilities. He once walked into a maximum security facility with a badge bearing the name and photograph of Adolf Hitler.
- chaostheory 13 hours agoWhich defense companies?
- harrall 12 hours agoAnduril is the biggest one. They are based in Costa Mesa, CA and are building a bigger R&D facility in "Space Beach" (Long Beach, CA) and a manufacturing facility near Columbus, Ohio.
Afterwards, you have smaller companies like Shield AI (San Diego, CA), Saronic Technologies (Austin, TX) and some other smaller ones.
- nashashmi 4 hours agoWe will need the weapons to counter when Israel goes off the rails and starts waging war everywhere.
Here we are getting snaked into a war that we dont want, by a country that probably wants us to become weaker in the future.
- elzbardico 9 hours agoBecause this war is driven by Israel, not the US. The destruction of Iran, no matter what the costs for the world, is seen as an existential matter for the current Israeli government.
But, destroying Iran without using nukes is not a Job Israel can do by themselves, they need the US. And while the Democrat establishment (although not the base) don't see an issue with supporting Israel activities in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon, a war with Iran was not something the Democrats would agree with.
So, they had this window of opportunity with Trump, before the midterms, and they acted.
We may not agree, but under the point of view of the Likud, it makes perfect sense.
- pjc50 59 minutes agoThe Pacific war is not happening unless Trump chooses to start it. China is also having political issues; a massive purge of top brass is the worst preparation for a war. See Stalin.
