Shayan Sardarizadeh

Senior journalist at BBC Verify | verification, AI, disinformation, conspiracy theories, open source investigations, extremism | [email protected]

[Shayan Sardarizadeh @Shayan86]

Multiple weapons experts have disputed a US claim that Iran may have been responsible for a deadly strike on the town of Lamerd on the first day of the Iran war, which killed 21 people.

Weapons experts say a US PrSM missile was likely used in the strike.

https://t.co/kxQ5g6SnO0

[BBC Breaking News @BBCBreaking]

Brazil's left-wing President Lula elected for fourth term, beating Flávio Bolsonaro in knife-edge vote - follow updates
https://t.co/baS23hD6b8

[BBC News (World) @BBCWorld]

Serbia's Vučić concedes election defeat to student-led protest movement https://t.co/gJEKYNQbPw

[Ghoncheh Habibiazad | غنچه @GhonchehAzad]

Women’s participation in a sports exhibition in Tehran has sparked backlash from some hardliners and also media outlets.

Iran’s Ministry of Sport said it would investigate reports of a “failure to observe Islamic standards of conduct.”

[Shayan Sardarizadeh @Shayan86]

The alleged quote in this viral meme by Mary Anne Trump about her son Donald Trump is fabricated.

There's no evidence that she ever made such a statement about her son. The alleged quote has been circulating online for years and has been repeatedly debunked.

[Sarrah Bellus @sarrah_bellus]

Thank goodness, Google search hasn’t gone totally to shit. I found the image and the story. Mama didn’t think so highly of you. Damn did she nail it. 💯

[Shayan Sardarizadeh @Shayan86]

@GoldbergCFC And he certainly did that.

[bot blocker | блокировщик ботов @antibot4navalny]

🗓️ Oct 22:

Matryoshka weaponizes protests in France to influence the US midterms in favor of the Republicans.

🧵

[Ghoncheh Habibiazad | غنچه @GhonchehAzad]

A live performer in Tehran’s Tajrish Square has been portraying US President Donald Trump behind bars.

Videos of the performance have gone viral among Iranians online.

[Darren Linvill @DarrenLinvill]

It appears the Russian Storm-1516 narrative laundering campaign has finally come for the U.S. midterms.

Yesterday they placed a false story on X saying James Talarico sexually assaulted one of his students in 2012.

This follows the Russian playbook. Let me show you how.
1/5

[The Insider @InsiderEng]

Putin’s “Doppelgängers”: The Insider gets inside the operations of the Kremlin's foreign disinformation network

Internal documents demonstrate the cynisism of the Kremlin's information warriors — who describe their own work as generating "fakes."
https://t.co/C6C9cxsCBH

[Ghoncheh Habibiazad | غنچه @GhonchehAzad]

Rhetoric from IRGC officials is increasingly focusing on undersea internet cables in the Strait of Hormuz recently, with one senior official threatening to target seven major cables under the Strait if Iran’s infrastructure is attacked by the US and its allies.

[The Wall Street Journal @WSJ]

Breaking: Elon Musk ordered the Starlink slowdown that blindsided Ukraine https://t.co/bbLQBC4sbA

[David @davidnewschool]

@AmitOrfali , who was in the car in Taybeh surrounded by settlers, explains what happened with English subtitles. https://t.co/aGlaEZ6rMc

[Shayan Sardarizadeh @Shayan86]

This image, viewed over 6 million times and retweeted over 63,000 times, claims to show an elderly couple stripped down and robbed by rioters in France.

The image is AI-generated, and was created with Google AI, as detected by SynthID watermarks in the image.

[Ô.Mercedes @DolceVenezia74]

Pour moi, c'est l'image la plus horrible de ce 17 octobre:
Un couple d'octogénaire dépouillé de tout, en pleine rue, laissé à moitié nu.
Comme si les Rolex, les Vuiton, les Hermès, les Dior, les Sephora pillés n'étaient pas suffisants pour la revente.

L'image qui devrait être un signal d'alarme pour tout l'occident.

L'image d'un pseudo président qui a perdu le contrôle. Qui a totalement échoué envers son peuple.

L'image d'une gauche radicale qui a sacrifié votre propre identité pour faire de votre pays une zone de guerre, aux arrières-plans culturels qui n'ont rien à voir avec les vôtres.

Cette image est effrayante!

[Shayan Sardarizadeh @Shayan86]

@DolceVenezia74 The image is AI-generated and fake. It was created by Google AI, and has positive SynthID.

[Tal Hagin @talhagin]

This photograph from a photoshoot that was taken in 2024.....

And the couple in the photo are alive and well.

[WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 @WarMonitor3]

BREAKING: Ukraine has carried out the world’s first medical evacuation of a human via a drone from the battlefield the 30th mechanised brigade of Ukraine managed to save their injured comrade from a minefield.

Just absolutely insane.

[Shayan Sardarizadeh @Shayan86]

@DropSiteNews While the attack on a delegation of European diplomats by masked Israeli settlers in Taybeh is real, the video you've posted claiming to show the attack is AI-generated and not real.

https://t.co/8eE0hnYSfI

[Shayan Sardarizadeh @Shayan86]

The attack on a delegation of European diplomats by masked Israeli settlers in the village of Taybeh is real.

But this video, which claims to show the attack, is AI-generated. The original source, On n’y Comprend Rien, is an Instagram account that posts AI-generated illustrations of news events.

Multiple errors consistent with AI generation are also visible in the footage.

With @davidnewschool

[Shayan Sardarizadeh @Shayan86]

@tparsi That video is AI-generated and does not show real footage of the attack on European diplomats, as clarified by the source that posted it

https://t.co/4uSJsA1fqg

[NetBlocks @netblocks]

⚠️ Confirmed: Russian social media network VK (VKontakte) is currently experiencing a major disruption, with metrics showing connectivity at 56% of ordinary levels. The incident comes amid reports of a Ukrainian drone attack in the vicinity of its St. Petersburg data center