In late March, Iran circulated a shaky video supposedly showing an American F/A-18 under attack. Iranian officials claimed they had destroyed the jet, though the Pentagon denied that. The video quickly earned millions of views online, demonstrating how Iran has exploited the global media ecosystem to propagate an image of military prowess.
The New York Times reconstructed how Iran was able to use overt and covert global networks alongside unwitting participants to spread its message through social media, state-affiliated news organizations and American influencers.
Here is how the claim went from a single post to a global audience of millions in 69 minutes.
1:04 p.m.
An obscure account on X, linked to Iran, posted the video first, in English, at 1:04 Eastern, followed a minute later by a post on Telegram by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. The posts received little attention at first, according to an analysis based on data from Alethea, Graphika and Cyabra, three companies monitoring online activity during the war.
1:04 p.m.
Almost simultaneously, official accounts of Iranian embassies and consulates repeated the claim on X, giving the narrative an imprimatur of legitimacy.
1:06 p.m.
An Iranian state television network then shared the video on X. Within a minute, RT, Russia’s international network, reposted the video with its own logo. The timing suggested coordinated coverage of the war from Iran and Russia.
1:14 p.m.
One of the most popular posts about the attack, from a pro-Russian influencer account known as Megatron, amassed nearly two million views, according to Graphika. At that point, there was no confirmation of an attack from any other sources.
1:21 p.m.
Sixteen minutes after its first post on Telegram, the Revolutionary Guards posted an update, claiming that the jet had been “precisely hit” and “fell into the Indian Ocean,” a detail that may have been intended to explain why there was no evidence of wreckage on the ground.
1:25 p.m.
The conversation surrounding these posts included suspected bot accounts mingled with authentic profiles, according to an analysis by Cyabra, suggesting some of the engagement was manufactured. Replies to RT’s post, for instance, often featured “short, affirmative comments” with celebratory emojis to show support for Iran, Cyabra’s analysis said.
1:32 p.m.
As the video spread, prominent influencers began posting about it, giving a boost to Iran’s narrative whether they intended to or not. Sulaiman Ahmed, an anti-Israeli activist with more than 800,000 followers on X, shared RT’s video about 10 minutes later.
1:33 p.m.
Ed Krassenstein, an American influencer, shared the claim to his more than one million followers on X. While his post made it clear that the attack was not confirmed by any other sources, influence campaigns benefit from the attention of prominent voices to amplify their narratives to broader audiences.
“I am always as careful as I can be to note where the information is coming from if it’s from a foreign government,” Mr. Krassenstein said in response to questions.
The number of posts mentioning the F-18 or similar terms began to surge, generating more than 35 million views on X alone that day, according to data from Tweet Binder by Audiense. Some users doubted the claim, but many pro-Iranian accounts celebrated the attack as a military triumph.
2:00 p.m.
Barely an hour had gone by, and the narrative had reached millions of views on social media, amplified by authentic and fake accounts based in dozens of countries, from Afghanistan to Yemen. The video appeared not only on X and Telegram but also on TikTok, Facebook and Instagram.
2:01 p.m.
Mario Nawfal, an influencer who has spread right-wing talking points and misinformation in the past, also shared RT’s post and video to his more than 3.2 million followers, noting the historical significance of an attack — “if true.”
“Our approach is to present claims transparently while clearly signaling their verification status, allowing our audience to assess credibility in real time,” Mr. Nawfal wrote in a statement.
2:05 p.m.
Prominent news organizations around the world began reporting on the claim. They included Pravda, Al Jazeera, the India Economic Times and official state media in China. Many repeated Iran’s claim that it had shot down the jet.
2:13 p.m.
An hour and nine minutes after the claim, the United States Central Command posted a denial on X, saying no American aircraft had been shot down. Its post created a new flurry of debate. Some users wrestled with the language, asking whether the plane had in fact been hit but not “shot down.” It declined to comment further.
Despite the statement from Central Command, Iranian, Chinese and Russian state broadcasters continued to feature the video over the next 24 hours, and to post about it across social media. An anchor on Russia 24 reported on “the destruction of yet another U.S. Air Force aircraft,” citing Iranian sources along with the denial from Central Command.
Since the video appeared, no evidence has emerged that Iran shot down an American F/A-18 jet. (This month, Iran successfully downed an F-15E Strike Eagle and an A-10 Warthog.) Still, millions consumed the narrative, spread by witting and unwitting actors.
“By the time an official denial lands,” the monitoring company Alethea wrote in an analysis, “audiences in multiple countries have already processed the story as confirmed.”
