Lego-Style AI Videos Hide Pro-Iran Propaganda and Have Already Reached Millions
Artificial Intelligence has become a powerful tool in the hands of anyone who wants to tell a story — and that story is not always true.
What looks like a colorful Lego-style animated video, with blocky characters and quick-cut scenes, actually hides a much heavier layer underneath. These viral clips are spreading across social networks with estimated hundreds of millions of views, and their content goes way beyond the innocent entertainment the visuals suggest.
We are talking about AI-generated, large-scale, pro-Iran propaganda, produced so well that disinformation experts were left stunned. 🤯
The BBC, through its podcast Top Comment, went after the source and managed to talk to the man behind much of this content — a representative of the account Explosive Media, one of the main profiles responsible for churning out these videos. He asked to be called Mr. Explosive.
What he revealed shed light on an operation that is small in headcount but huge in impact — and that raises serious questions about how AI is rewriting the rules of information in the digital world.
Who Is Mr. Explosive and How the Operation Works
The story starts with a skilled social media operator leading a team of fewer than ten people. Together, they use Artificial Intelligence tools to produce videos that look like they came out of a professional animation studio. The visual format evokes the playful world of building blocks, with bright colors and simplified characters — exactly the kind of content people stop to watch without thinking twice.
According to Mr. Explosive, the choice of a Lego-like aesthetic is intentional: the blocky graphics work as a universal language. Anyone, regardless of language or culture, can quickly understand the message. The disarming style is part of the strategy: the more harmless it looks, the easier it is to share.
During the video call with the BBC, Mr. Explosive appeared in silhouette, framed by red and green lights — the colors of the Iranian flag. On his desk there was a helmet with green plumes, associated with the warrior Husayn ibn Ali, a figure who appears in several of Explosive Media’s videos.
Iranian and Russian state media accounts on X regularly share these videos with millions of followers, amplifying their reach even further. The production flow is extremely fast: videos are often posted in real time, right after major developments in the war. In one notable case, a video about a ceasefire deal was posted even before any official announcement. 🎯
The Message Behind the Colorful Blocks
The central message running through all this content is clear: Iran is portrayed as standing up to what it sees as a powerful global oppressor — the United States.
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The videos are not subtle. In one of them, US President Donald Trump falls into a whirlwind of documents labeled Epstein files, while a rap verse says secrets are leaking and pressure is building. In another, George Floyd appears under a police officer’s boot as the narration claims Iran is standing up for everyone the American system has ever harmed.
When the BBC asked about the heavy emphasis on the Epstein files in the videos, Mr. Explosive said the goal was to show the public the kind of confrontation taking place — between Iran, which he says is seeking truth and freedom, and those he associates with cannibals. This refers to a conspiracy theory without any credible evidence that links the Trump administration to cannibalism via the Epstein files.
Despite the flashy visuals and flat, black-and-white narratives, that has not stopped the content from being widely shared and discussed. And that is exactly where the danger lies. 😬
Factual Inaccuracies and Alternative Narratives
Explosive Media’s videos are also riddled with factual inaccuracies, something the BBC team confronted head-on during the interview.
One key example: in one clip, the Iranian military is shown capturing an American pilot whose jet was shot down. In reality, US officials confirmed that the pilot — who was stranded in a remote mountainous area of Iran after his aircraft was downed — was rescued by US special forces on April 4.
Mr. Explosive rejected this version of events. He claimed there may never have been any missing pilot, no rescue operation, and that the Americans’ real objective was to steal uranium from Iran. When the BBC pushed back, citing official US statements that the pilot was receiving treatment in Kuwait, he responded bluntly: only 13 percent of what Trump says is based on facts.
The problem is that this video about the pilot successfully amplified this alternative narrative among English-speaking audiences. An American TikTok influencer known as @newswithsteph told her followers that the Lego-style videos had been surprisingly accurate so far, and that they had revealed before anyone else that the pilot’s mission was not a rescue, but a special operation to obtain uranium.
This dynamic shows how disinformation can take on a life of its own when the format is attractive and distribution is efficient. Once it goes viral, the content becomes almost impossible to contain.
Slopaganda: When AI Propaganda Is Too Powerful to Ignore
Dr Emma Briant, one of the leading experts on propaganda, reviewed these videos and argued that the term slopaganda — coined in an academic paper as a spin on AI slop — is too weak to capture just how powerful and highly sophisticated this content actually is.
According to Briant, Artificial Intelligence has allowed Iran and other actors to communicate directly with Western audiences more effectively than ever before. AI tools were largely trained on Western data, which makes them ideal for creating culturally tuned content for audiences in the US and Europe. This is the missing piece for authoritarian states that want to reach the West and in the past did not have that capability.
Dr Tine Munk, a cyberwarfare specialist at Nottingham Trent University, describes Iran’s tactics as defensive memetic warfare. In the creators’ view, this type of content is necessary to counter American rhetoric. It is a kind of aggressive, fast-moving digital diplomacy that, according to Munk, is here to stay.
Crucially, Munk stresses that this model removes intermediaries — it cuts out the press and mainstream media — and keeps memes circulating constantly. Traditional diplomacy does not exist in this environment. That blurs our understanding of what is really happening while increasing the risk of misinterpretation and conflict escalation. We are, in her words, in a kind of limbo. 💡
The War Context and the Scale of Real-World Destruction
Explosive Media’s videos began appearing in early 2025, but their popularity exploded with the start of the US–Iran war. The current conflict began in February, when the United States and Israel launched attacks against Iran. Since then, thousands of people have been killed in Iran, Lebanon, and other countries in the Middle East, according to officials in those nations.
The Lego-style clips are becoming more detailed, showing highly specific locations in the Gulf — including power plants, airports, and industrial facilities — being completely destroyed by Iranian missiles. In reality, most of these sites have suffered only limited damage. This gap between what the videos show and what actually happened is one of the most alarming aspects of the operation.
The US–Israeli military campaign has caused significant destruction in Iran since the war began in February, and this real conflict backdrop makes the ground even more fertile for disinformation to thrive.
The Relationship with the Iranian Government
One of the most revealing moments in the interview came when Mr. Explosive ended up admitting something he had never publicly confirmed before. At first, he denied working for the Iranian government. In previous interviews, Explosive Media had always presented itself as fully independent. But after more pointed questioning from the BBC, he acknowledged that the Iranian regime is a client of his company.
In earlier Instagram messages exchanged with the BBC team, Mr. Explosive had already indicated that his operation had been directly commissioned for multiple projects by Iranian officials. In the video interview, he defended this relationship, saying it was an honor to work for the homeland.
An important piece of context: before the war broke out, thousands of protesters were killed in a brutal crackdown by the Iranian regime. The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (Hrana) reports at least 7,000 civilians killed. Mr. Explosive dismissed these mass protests as a coup funded by President Trump.
When confronted with allegations that his videos use antisemitic tropes, he rejected them, saying the videos are not antisemitic but anti-Zionist. He defended portraying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu drinking blood as a way to highlight atrocities he believes Netanyahu has committed.
Restricted Internet and Press Freedom on the Line
There is a troubling irony at the heart of this story. Most Iranians cannot use the internet because of a widespread network shutdown in the country. In other words, ordinary Iranian citizens cannot even see the content that is being produced in their name.
Mr. Explosive explained that he was able to communicate with the BBC using an internet connection for journalists, granted by the Iranian government. It is worth remembering that Iran is consistently ranked as one of the most repressive countries in the world in terms of press freedom.
The contradiction is stark: a government that cuts off internet access for its own population while funding sophisticated propaganda operations aimed at Western audiences. 🌐
Platforms Try to React, but the Problem Remains
Social media platforms have been taking down accounts that post the Lego-style videos, but new accounts pop up just as quickly. It is a cat-and-mouse game that, for now, the content creators seem to be winning.
According to Dr Tine Munk, this is a fast and aggressive form of digital diplomacy that appears to be here to stay. The model removes intermediaries, bypasses the traditional press, and keeps a constant circulation of memes and narratives. Conventional diplomacy simply does not operate in this space, creating a dangerous vacuum where disinformation flourishes without an effective counterweight.
What This Story Leaves Behind
This case is a clear snapshot of the moment we are living through: Artificial Intelligence is not inherently good or bad — it amplifies intent. In the hands of a content creator with a clear political agenda, it becomes a low-cost, highly efficient propaganda machine. In the hands of investigative journalists, it can help track and expose these operations. The same set of technologies serves both sides, which is why the debate over platform regulation, transparency, and responsibility has never been more urgent.
The Explosive Media case uncovered by the BBC is not an isolated incident. It is a documented example of a trend that disinformation researchers have been tracking in different contexts around the world. Similar operations have been identified involving other countries and interest groups, all exploiting the same vector: accessible AI tools, distribution algorithms that favor emotional engagement, and a global audience increasingly dependent on social networks as a primary source of information.
The technique used in these videos rarely relies on outright lies. Instead, it cherry-picks real facts, strips away crucial context, and frames complex situations in ways that benefit a specific perspective. This approach, known as disinformation by omission, is much harder to fight than straightforward lies, because it cannot be easily debunked with traditional fact-checking. And with AI speeding up the production of this type of content, the challenge for fact-checkers keeps getting bigger.
Digital diplomacy in the 21st century is being written right now, in real time, in 60-second videos with Lego-style blocks animated by AI. And while the debate on how to regulate and flag this type of content is still in its early days, production is running at full speed. Understanding these dynamics is no longer a bonus — it is a basic requirement for anyone who consumes information online.
