The team behind a pro-Iran, Lego-themed viral-video campaign (newyorker.com)

by tantalor 266 comments 167 points
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266 comments

[−] dvh 39d ago
I'm much more impressed by Chinese state-made eagles vs. cats video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dGY0_pgkv8
[−] Havoc 39d ago
That'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
[−] morkalork 38d ago
Here's another one featuring some camels, the Japanese prime minister and "Meowatollah":

https://old.reddit.com/r/Destiny/comments/1s5m1vj/chinese_pr...

[−] riffraff 39d ago
I thought that's supposed to be an Oryx (Qatar) while the camels are Saudi/UAE, but who knows.
[−] Havoc 38d ago
Hmm. That makes contextual sense though the animation is definitely more springbok than oryx
[−] livinglist 39d ago
I think it just represents people/entities who conduct business internationally, since camels used to be a major transportation method on the Silk Road.
[−] wiseowise 38d ago
Who is Europe here?
[−] Yiin 38d ago
who?
[−] spaghetdefects 39d ago
That one is so good.
[−] Georgelemental 38d ago
It's well-made and entertaining. However, it gets the cause of the war wrong; it is not over oil. China's Communist framework misleads it here
[−] juliusceasar 38d ago
Indeed, the cause of the war ISRAELi lies. Just like with Iraq. And they control the US administration with the Epstein files. It is actually 2nd Epstein War.
[−] rawgabbit 39d ago
Unrelated. 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.

https://youtu.be/As0rplNJTZI

[−] stuaxo 38d ago
Who is "the chamber of commerce" in this?
[−] rawgabbit 38d ago
I believe it is everyone China is marketing the Belt and Road initiative to.
[−] bulletsvshumans 38d ago
I presume U.S. Western allies
[−] titanomachy 39d ago
I 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 39d ago
Iranian drones just hit the 30 billion dollar Aramco facility in Jubail. They are definitely a threat.
[−] expedition32 38d ago
Arab countries have US military bases inside their countries. Cry me a fucking river.

You sided on with a mad men- who didn't even bother to consult you on the shit storm he was going to unleash. And now you reap the whirlwind.

It all makes fire lord Xi look good. As sad as that is.

[−] ece 38d ago
The 2nd paragraph of the story states numerous techniques of propaganda the videos contain and several examples.
[−] aaa_aaa 39d ago
Contains more truth than US media and current admin.
[−] altmanaltman 39d ago
Its 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 39d ago
Again, are you sure of it?
[−] UltraSane 38d ago
I'm sure that the Shia Theocracy that runs Iran is a very bad government and is willing to and has killed many Iranians to stay in power.
[−] Mythli 38d ago
So u have been there?

That country was safe, had a decent standard of living and high life expectancy and that despite the sanctions.

Without sanctions & active support I guess it might have surpassed UAE.

It seems to me, the US government that makes the citiziens of other countries as miserable as possible and despite these attempts Iran managed just fine.

[−] elzbardico 38d ago
[flagged]
[−] aaa_aaa 39d ago
"Its a regime that killed 10s of thousands of its own people for protesting. " This information is simply not true.
[−] _DeadFred_ 38d ago
The regime's own published number is 3,000. If you look to how the regime provably undercounts the executions it commits with them normally reporting only 10%, going by historical precedent you would come out to 30,000 dead.
[−] aaa_aaa 36d ago
You completely made up that 10 percent number.
[−] throwaway290 38d ago
Actually is true
[−] aaa_aaa 36d ago
Show two independent source.
[−] throwaway290 35d ago
any source I show you'll say is propaganda right?

friend of a friend was there during but that's "anecdotal" right?

[−] wat10000 39d ago
Is it really necessary to mention something so obvious?
[−] elzbardico 39d ago
Are you sure of it?
[−] gib444 39d ago
Propaganda contains lies? Is water wet?

Does the average reader of this publication need to be told this?

[−] nashashmi 39d ago
Propaganda videos are not meant to tell the truth. They are meant to exaggerate the facts. You know, like CNN exaggerates how terrible iran is.
[−] 2Gkashmiri 39d ago
Oh poor Dubai and Saudi Arabia. Im sure my pet animal is shedding a tear or two for them
[−] input_sh 39d ago
Given the headline, they found out nothing about "the team".
[−] sschueller 39d ago
I 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 39d ago
It 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

[−] alsetmusic 39d ago
A 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...

[−] elzbardico 39d ago
There's also an Anime style one, more martial and militant in style.

https://www.instagram.com/kutub.production/

[−] dbvn 39d ago
Hate to admit it... but the video goes hard
[−] spwa4 26d ago
What one wonders when seeing this ... when choosing between Iran and the US, are there really people dumb enough to pretend Iran winning is good for anyone?

What am I saying? Of course there are.

[−] josefritzishere 39d ago
The production values were great. I can't deny it.
[−] KellyCriterion 39d ago
Is 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.)

[−] elwray 38d ago
I hope we never get there but what do you think could push Israel into using Nukes?
[−] delis-thumbs-7e 39d ago
Is 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.
[−] bombcar 39d ago
If Iran was the axis of evil they'd use Megabloks
[−] mhitza 38d ago

> A spokesperson for the group says, “Let’s face it—if truth isn’t flashy, it’s kinda lonely.”

Was the spokeperson human or just chatgpt?

[−] ece 39d ago
Puppet regime has competition. Now do Putin.
[−] bad_haircut72 39d ago
Lego must be so mad hahaha
[−] rixed 38d ago
Am I the only one to believe that they used Lego, a company strongly associated with Denmark, to prime Europeans into associating Iran with Greenland?
[−] dfir-lab 39d ago
[flagged]
[−] devcraft_ai 39d ago
[dead]
[−] hk1337 39d ago
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[−] chaostheory 39d ago
No 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