IT Home On October 19, according to Red Star News’ report on October 18, a video about a “ship burning and sinking in the Strait of Hormuz, with iPhone floating on the sea” has received over 80 million views on social platforms. However, fact-checking shows that the video is fictional content created by artificial intelligence.
The Singapore Maritime and Port Authority announced on October 14 that a Singapore cargo ship was attacked by an unidentified flying object while passing through the Hormuz Strait on October 13 local time. The ship suffered damage to its hull and an explosion, and ultimately sank. All 21 crew members aboard the ship were safely evacuated, and no injuries were reported. Another Singapore-registered container ship, “GFS Giselle”, was also damaged in the incident but eventually reached a safe anchorage after traveling through it.
Later, a batch of videos began to spread online. Some videos show large boxes with the Apple phone logo floating on the sea surface, with people gathering at the shore, trying to pick up the items washed ashore by the waves; other videos show small boats moving across the sea, and fishermen loading the floating goods into the boats.
A open-source information investigation team found through reverse search that multiple videos of so-called “Iranian people retrieving iPhones” originally came from the Instagram account “”.Nativora“.IT Home inquiry reveals that the account positions its content as images of fictional nature and wild animals created using artificial intelligence. The fake videos appeared on the Instagram account on October 16, and the creator explicitly added the “AI Content” label.”Indicated content is generated by artificial intelligence。
