AI VIDEOS AND images have been shared online alongside claims they show iPhones and other luxury goods washing up ashore by the Strait of Hormuz, following the sinking of a passing ship that was struck by a missile.

Parts of the story are true, even though fake images of the scene have been shared online.

A ship carrying more than 2,500 containers sank in mid-October after it struck a mine, according to the Iranian military, which controls the strait.

Iran has enforced a blockade on most vessels from traversing the strait in the wake of American attacks on the country.  

Other container ships were also damaged while passing through the strait in October, though they made it through afloat.

Oil tankers have also been hit, causing massive leaks and oil slicks on the waterway. The blockade, which has stopped fuel from being exported from Gulf countries, has prompted global oil prices to surge.

US strikes on Iran continued on Monday, with five explosions reported on Qeshm Island, while US President Donald Trump continued to promise that a deal with Iran was forthcoming.

However, following these strikes, multiple fake images flooded social media along with claims that these show expensive consumer goods being washed ashore along the Strait of Hormuz.

“Cargo Ship Runs Aground in Hormuz, iPhones Wash Ashore,” reads a 17 October Facebook post which features a picture of a beach filled with men in the traditional clothing of the Gulf States — long white robes and a headdress — picking through what appear to be scores of Apple branded electronics boxes, as a cargo ship sinks in the background.

One of the fake images

A series of videos posted to a Facebook page shows what appear to be iPhones, perfume bottles, and even containers full of cash floating in the ocean, along with a caption about strikes on cargo vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.

These videos have been viewed more than a million times since the first one was posted on Facebook on 17 October.

Both the still images and the videos have tell-tale signs of being AI-generated. The boxes of electronics don’t match actual Apple products, and the sinking cargo ship did not run aground next to a beach.

In the videos, some of the containers seem to pass through each other, and the sight of various electronics and perfume bottles floating by themselves undamaged in the water seems unlikely for a real event, where the products would have been in individual packages, which were in turn in larger boxes for transport, which were in turn held in large shipping containers.

A still from one of the videos

However, there is more definitive proof that these are AI-generated — the generator used to make them left an invisible watermark.

Using a detection tool provided by AI companies, a “SynthID” was found on both images. The SynthID is an invisible, digital watermark purposely added by some AI image generators so that their creations can be readily identified.

While it is impossible to definitively give a reason for these fake images to be circulated with claims that they are real, we can guess that their ability to get interactions and likes was a factor.

The same Facebook page that posted all the video had previously been posting AI-generated videos of children in cute situations, though none of these had garnered more than 6,000 views.

The first fake video of floating iPhones and perfumes garnered more than 800,000 views. Since then the same user has posted dozens of variations of this video, though views have steadily decreased.

Recently, they have started posting cooking and baking videos — which also have clear signs of being AI-generated.

With reporting from AFP

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