Iran uses Lego and AI to make Propaganda "Diss tracks"
AI "Slopaganda" overcomes Language and Appearance barriers to create a Universal Style
Iran’s propagandists are using AI to generate Lego-themed “diss tracks.”1
AI Lego Theme
Using Lego-based AI characters enables Iran to overcome issues with accent and appearance that might otherwise mark the otherwise culturally fluent Iranian message as “foreign.”
“Young” Voters and Young Children
Lego has been popular since the 1960s and 1970s, so the appeal of Lego is almost as old and universal as Rock and Roll (1940s and 1950s).
The style is likely to appeal to a broad group of people worldwide, many of whom are less sympathetic to the Trump administration.
Critics point out that the use of Lego themes may expose young unsophisticated children to war propaganda disguised as toys.
Many of the Lego themed videos use Rap:
The below video was posted via a different channel. It portrays Iran as the champion of American grievances over George Floyd and against the “Epstein class.” The Trump administration has set a standard of (un)truthfulness that leaves them little room to complain about other propagandists.
Suppression
It appears that the spread of these videos is being suppressed by social media networks using a censorship standard that is applied unequally to foreign media, American politicians, commentators, and media networks.
Groups like Explosive Media have publicly challenged these bans (often on X), arguing that their animations are no more violent than Hollywood movies and that they are simply trying to "disrupt Western media dominance."
QUESTIONS:
What do you think about the Iranian propagandists’ decision to use AI and Lego as the medium for their message? Are you concerned that young children may be caught up in the propaganda? Do you agree with the NewYorker that “The subject matter is deathly serious—international war, unfolding in real time, killing thousands—yet the visual vocabulary is preposterously trivializing.”?
Do you agree with critics that Iranian propaganda should be suppressed because it is “too violent”? Do you believe a single standard should apply to both American and Foreign media?
Did you hear that President Trump gets 2 minute Tik-Tok-style highlight reels about the Iran War (but not coverage of Iranian “successes”)?
Should pro-Iranian propaganda be suppressed by online publishers? On what basis?
Do you think these videos would lead a casual viewer to be more sympathetic to the Iranian perspective?
Were you able to pick out evidence of white nationalism, antisemitism, or other negative symbolism in the videos? One thing I did notice was stereotypical characters uses to represent orthodox Jews as a stand-in for Israel.
ELSEWHERE:
Slopaganda | a new word for AI spin
At CMT this week, we had a good chortle about a new portmanteau describing a growing trend – ‘slopaganda’, a blend of 'AI slop' and ‘propaganda’ coined in a paper by Michał Klincewicz, Mark Alfano and Amir Ebrahimi Fard. As with any good portmanteau, it does what it says on the tin: it refers to unwanted AI-generated content aimed at manipulating beliefs for political ends.
(Tamara Markus, University of Sydney: Centre for Media Translation)
BBC:
Social media platforms have been shutting down accounts with the Lego-style videos, but new ones seem to pop up just as quickly.
It’s a form of agile, aggressive internet diplomacy that appears to be here to stay, according to Munk.
Crucially, she adds, it’s “cutting out the middlemen, cutting out the press, the mass media, and constantly circulating memes. (BBC News)
New Yorker:
Explosive News [Who was the earliest adopter of this style] posted its first Lego-style videos during the U.S. and Israel’s bombing campaign on Iranian nuclear facilities last June. When the war began, in February, the representative said, “Our team was ready, plans in place, engines revving—and, by day two, the Lego-style videos were back in action.” They started churning out new clips, writing scripts and then generating corresponding visuals using A.I. and digital editing tools. “Working full time, we can produce a two-minute video in about 24 hours,” the representative said.
.. However pure the team’s intentions, the Lego videos have succeeded, in part, because they meet the political discourse on the level to which it has already sunk. The Trump Administration has waged its own meme-based battles on its official social-media accounts with A.S.M.R. videos of deportations, white-nationalist in-jokes, and supercuts of bombings interwoven with video-game footage. Trump is reportedly shown a daily two-minute video montage of successful strikes on Iran to keep him up to date on the war, a kind of private military TikTok feed for a Commander-in-Chief with a toddler’s attention span. Even if Trump himself posts mainly on Truth Social, he is an image-obsessed creature of the internet; it stands to reason that Explosive News’ vengeful, mocking clips may actually reach his eyes, or at least grab public attention by speaking in the same showily combative terms as MAGA. With the help of A.I., the team can achieve a startling production value.
.. Last year, a trio of media scholars published a paper titled “Slopaganda,” a new bit of twenty-first-century slang to describe the intersection of generative A.I. and propaganda. The authors argue that this burgeoning form is uniquely toxic, both because it is so quickly and cheaply produced and because it “introduces mass personalisation, creating tailored messages and narratives” in an instant. Slopaganda has quickly become our new Esperanto of international conflict.
.. Last weekend, YouTube and Instagram abruptly took Explosive News’ accounts down. Instagram did not respond to a request for comment, but a spokesperson for YouTube said that it had removed the channel for “violating our Spam, deceptive practices and scams policies.” (The Explosive News representative blamed the ban on “ ‘false flag’ media actions” by “Zionist actors.”). (New Yorker)
FOOTNOTES:
A diss track, diss record or diss song (an abbreviation of disrespect or disparage) is a track that verbally attacks someone, usually another artist. Diss tracks are often the result of an existing, escalating feud between the two people; for example, the artists involved may be former members of a group, or artists on rival labels.
The diss track as a medium of its own was popularized within the hip-hop genre, fueled by the hip-hop rivalry phenomenon
Good point, using Lego maybe undermines their argument. But there is humour there, not for me though.