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Comment by almogo

2 days ago

Ukraine was historically more or less a free-for-all as far as front-line cinema is concerned.

I have to imagine the situation in Iran is more difficult for a few reasons:

1. Gen AI is much better today than it was in 2022. So, both sides can generate much more realistic fakes.

2. There was an article here on HN about Iran's internet slowly coming back on a whitelist basis. We're probably getting more pro-Government videos now than we were at the beginning of the current events.

3. Further crackdown on Starlink minimizes authentic leaks (I only heard about this and have no way to confirm how impactful this really is)

I'll add my own anecdotal agreement with your suspicion though - the footage coming out of Iran has been, for me, more difficult than other conflicts to piece together into a cohesive story. Western countries are claiming 30k+ dead, and while I don't necessarily reject the claim, the situation on the ground is still very blurry to me.

Regarding the whitelist: is anyone working on getting the list?

I am sure some people would like to know who’s on the whitelist.