For months, an anonymous TikTok account hosted dozens of AI-generated videos of explosions and burning cities. The videos racked up tens of millions of views and fuelled other posts that claimed, falsely, they were real footage of the war in Ukraine.
After CBC News contacted TikTok and the account owner for comment, it disappeared from the platform.
The account, flight_area_zone, had several videos featuring massive explosions which reached millions of viewers. The videos featured hallmarks of AI generation, but lacked any disclaimer as required by TikTok guidelines. TikTok declined to comment about the account.
Several of the videos were spread across different social media platforms by other users, who posted them alongside claims they depicted actual war footage, with several gaining tens of thousands of views. In those posts, some commenters appear to take the videos at face value, and either celebrate or denounce the purported damage, leaving them with an inaccurate sense of the war.
The rise of ‘AI slop’
The flight_area_zone account is just one …