Senior journalist at BBC Verify | verification, AI, disinformation, conspiracy theories, open source investigations, extremism | [email protected]
United Kingdom
Joined August 2009
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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.
bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gx…
Shayan Sardarizadeh retweeted
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.
Shayan Sardarizadeh retweeted
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
Shayan Sardarizadeh retweeted
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."
theins.press/en/inv/298359
Shayan Sardarizadeh retweeted
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.
Shayan Sardarizadeh retweeted
Breaking: Elon Musk ordered the Starlink slowdown that blindsided Ukraine on.wsj.com/4sgcpBv
Shayan Sardarizadeh retweeted
@AmitOrfali , who was in the car in Taybeh surrounded by settlers, explains what happened with English subtitles. xitter.cf/JustHerds/status/21118…
הקשיבו לעדות של @AmitOrfali שהותקף אתמול יחד עם דיפלומטים ע״י טרוריסטים יהודים בטייבה.
המסר שלו ברור: הסיפור הוא לא הדיפלומטים שביקרו ובמקרה היו אלה שהותקפו, אלא הפלסטינים שמותקפים יום-יום ע״י מתנחלים וחיים תחת כיבוש.
אנחנו לא נרתע ונמשיך לעמוד בסולידריות עם הפלסטינים. ואתם?
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.
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 retweeted
This photograph from a photoshoot that was taken in 2024.....
And the couple in the photo are alive and well.
This was their sins. The penalty for kissing a baby in the womb is the death penalty.
Islamic teachings are fundamentally terrorism.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
This image is from a photoshoot that was taken in 2024, it is not related to recent event, and the couple in the photo are alive and well.
x.com/talhagin/statu…
Shayan Sardarizadeh retweeted
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 retweeted
⚠️ 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
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
This quoted post is unavailable.
Veirfied footage of the attack, along with geolocations, can be found in this thread.
xitter.cf/davidnewschool/status/…
@GeoConfirmed @Cen4infoRes @viditbot @FaytuksNetwork 31.950423, 35.288745
A European diplomat sits against a vehicle, apparently injured, after their convoy was reportedly attacked by Israel settlers near Taybeh in the West Bank. xitter.cf/Doron_Kadosh/status/21…
Shayan Sardarizadeh retweeted
Iranian state TV has aired a report tonight featuring some “self-sacrificing” women receiving military trainings.
When asked by the reporter, one of the women responds that the first person they want to shoot at is “definitely Trump”.
Shayan Sardarizadeh retweeted
@GeoConfirmed @Cen4infoRes @viditbot @FaytuksNetwork 31.950423, 35.288745
A European diplomat sits against a vehicle, apparently injured, after their convoy was reportedly attacked by Israel settlers near Taybeh in the West Bank. xitter.cf/Doron_Kadosh/status/21…
אירוע חריג ביותר בכפר הפלסטיני טייבה בבנימין - בעת מסיק הזיתים:
רכבים של דיפלומטים מצרפת, בלגיה ופולין - הותקפו לפני זמן קצר בידי יהודים.
מעדויות שהגיעו מהשטח וכן מתיעודים שהגיעו לידי גלי צה״ל, עולה כי אחד הרכבים הדיפלומטיים הותקף באבנים ושמשתו נופצה.
בנוסף, אחד הקונסולים נצפה בתיעוד כשהוא שוכב על הרצפה, ככל הנראה לאחר שהותקף.
עדויות נוספות מצביעות על כך ש-7 יהודים רעולי פנים הגיעו על גבי טרקטורונים לשטח, הקיפו את הרכב הדיפלומטי, דרשו תעודות זהות, וניפצו את החלון ברכב של הקונסוליה הבלגית.
מדובר צה״ל טרם נמסרה תגובה.
Shayan Sardarizadeh retweeted
Des véhicules de police sont prises pour cible par la foule dans le secteur République à Paris.
#Paris #17octobre
Shayan Sardarizadeh retweeted
🔴 La mairie de Limoges s'effondre 😱
#17octobre
Shayan Sardarizadeh retweeted
EXCLUSIVE: Elon Musk came to Donald Trump with the plan to throttle Ukraine’s use of SpaceX’s Starshield satellite internet network, sources have told the Telegraph.
The tech billionaire made the proposal during the US President’s row with Volodymyr Zelensky over strikes on Russian oil refineries.
‘The reality is that they were both in it,’ a senior source said of Musk’s and Trump’s involvement.
But after a night of carnage in Kyiv caused by the slowdown, Musk was alarmed about the possibility of adverse consumer reaction in Europe.
The SpaceX boss then proceeded to tweet, blaming the US administration, and ultimately, President Trump for authorising the slowdown.
‘He tweeted out that he was innocent and that it was the US administration that did it,’ the source said.
Shayan Sardarizadeh retweeted
In the Ukrainian city of Sumy this morning, a Russian glide bomb hit an apartment building, failed to detonate, bounced off the building's facade, and landed in a reservoir.
Somehow, no one was injured.
I spoke to @CraigSilverman and Alexios Mantzarlis from the Indicator podcast about the way generative AI is changing and complicating the process of verification, reporting and and fact-checking of major news events for journalists and OSINT researchers.
youtube.com/watch?v=MlfEEbMF…