The clips surfaced after Iranian officials claimed to have hit the USS Abraham Lincoln with several missiles on Tuesday, the fourth day of conflict with United States and Israeli forces, News.Az reports, citing foreign media.
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The Abraham Lincoln and a second supercarrier, the Gerald R. Ford, are among the forces participating in airstrikes launched against Iran on Saturday.
China’s AI industry is booming, with well-funded startups believed to be closing the gap with the U.S., tech leaders say, despite export curbs imposed by Washington over national security concerns. The video highlights how realistic images produced by generative AI models are increasingly effective tools for misinformation.
State-owned China Central Television (CCTV) on Tuesday repeated a claim by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that it had struck the Abraham Lincoln with cruise missiles while it was allegedly operating in the Gulf of Oman off Iran’s southern coast, rendering it inoperable and forcing it to withdraw.
The report followed a similar Iranian claim on Monday. The U.S. Central Command denied any flattop had been hit, calling the allegation part of the “Iranian regime’s false messaging machine.”
Nevertheless, the claim spread rapidly across Chinese platforms, including Weibo and Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok. By Tuesday evening, it ranked among the top 10 trending topics, drawing more than 10 million views.
One AI-generated video shows missiles raining down on the Lincoln, blasting fighter jets into the sea and causing the 1,092-foot vessel to break apart. The creator appears to have used the likeness of a CCTV news host and added narration styled after the media outlet.
Another video, also apparently created using AI, shows explosions rippling across the deck and claims the Lincoln’s first officer was killed.
Both the CCTV report and related user-generated content have drawn mixed reactions on Chinese social media. Some netizens have expressed excitement over what they believed to be a blow to U.S. aggression against an ally, while others are skeptical that a carrier could be taken out of commission so easily.
“The internet said two [carriers] were hit, and I don’t know if it’s true or false,” one Weibo user wrote. “Iran’s failure is not good for our country. Oil prices will rise, and the dollar will dominate,” another said.
China, a longtime political partner of the Islamic Republic, has sharply criticized the U.S. and Israel for launching the strikes during indirect negotiations between Washington and Tehran over Iran’s nuclear program, and for assassinating Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.
Beijing has called for an immediate halt to the fighting and urged respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Gulf states, amid Iranian retaliatory attacks targeting U.S. forces and energy infrastructure in several neighboring countries.
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