Mastodawn

Embrace Civil Disobedience

You can call these videos Iranian propaganda as much as you want, but mixed with a small amount of propaganda is a large amt of truth, suspicion & questions the American public deserve answers to.

There's lots of innuendo in this one. You may need to watch more than once to catch it all.

YouTube is removing some of the videos, but many are still available. Whomever is making the videos is well aware of questions we all discuss on social media.

#USPOL #Iran #Lego

https://www.thecanary.co/skwawkbox/2026/04/12/iran-hilarious-anti-trump-video/

Makers of Iran's hilarious anti-Trump videos mark YouTube ban with new release

Iran's Lego themed Trump videos have gone viral all over the world. Gen-Z can't get enough of them. So now they've been banned by YouTube

Canary

Diligence Jones 10h ago

What's interesting to me about this propaganda onslaught (and why it's, frankly, working) is that the US could have inoculated its population against this kind of manipulation if it had actually acted with ANY accountability in its history.

But it didn't. It loves its white supremacy and nationalist patriarchy too much. It refuses to evolve.

So here we are. Ingesting the propaganda of another country against our own because there's a sizeable kernel of truth embedded in it. Truth our own nation refuses to recognize.

Embrace Civil Disobedience 10h ago

@DeliaChristina I think you're right. I've watched several of the videos. They have all the components needed to attract viewers; music that's appealing (catchy), they use characters we're all familiar with (Legos), they use common terminology, and they contain a fair amount of the truth the public is desperate for. In addition they touch on many of the conspiracy theories that have been making the rounds. But one thing they aren't blatantly doing is asking viewers to adopt Iranian beliefs; yet.

Diligence Jones 9h ago

A journalist (I think she was a journalist) made this really good point:

These are basically a type of ISIS videos.

Back in the day, she said, she and her colleagues would receive these and would never share them because their recruiting intent was so clear.

But they were also largely Other and so less successful in the West. But instead of some hooded dude speaking another language in front of an ISIS flag in a stark room, reading a speech into a camera, we have hip hop and LEGOs.

But the LEGO diss tracks allow direct and wider messaging - they're basically the same thing (harsh indictment of corrupt and immoral America) but the call to action, like you said, is a bit more opaque and the messenger (a LEGO) is already inside our cultural reference bank.

Embrace Civil Disobedience 9h ago

@DeliaChristina I just responded to someone else about what you said. I hesitated when sharing this one, but I wanted to make a point. The videos are garnering wide spread support for the videos themselves and for the government of Iran. People in the comments are literally cheering for Iran. I hate Donald Trump and everything he stands for, but I certainly don't want to live under Iranian rule.

Diligence Jones 9h ago

I don't either. Authoritarian governments aren't my jam at all.

But as a communicator, I pay attention to good propaganda; they clearly studied enough American culture over a long period of time.

More specifically, they paid attention to BLACK AMERICAN CULTURE over a long period of time.

This is good propaganda.
They found an exploitable crack in the American myth.

It's the same crack MAGA found but from the other side.

Embrace Civil Disobedience 9h ago

@DeliaChristina All great points and observations. My hope is that it causes enough MAGA people to actually start asking questions of their leader and rejecting non-answers and rhetoric.

The failure of the talks today are going to cause gasoline prices to go up again, and most average Americans don't have room in their budgets for higher inflation. It's going to become much more difficult to blame Biden.

Taran Rampersad 10h ago

@PattyHanson it can't possibly be the Iranians wasting electricity on AI slop...

Embrace Civil Disobedience 10h ago

@knowprose I think you're right. But who knows. From what I've read the videos are coming from different sources. One of those was removed from YouTube, but for the life of me, I don't remember the name of the account.

Speed demon 🇪🇺 🇳🇴🇺🇦🇵🇸9h ago

@PattyHanson That's the way all propaganda works.Some truth to get you nodding along, some hyperbole to get you wondering, then something totally outside the box to get you questioning yourself.

Embrace Civil Disobedience 9h ago

@hakona It's sort of fascinating to watch. The only other social media platform I use is Instagram and the videos rack up thousands of comments and words of support for Iran. One day it will be studied. How easy it was to turn Americans away from their own government in support for Iran.

Speed demon 🇪🇺 🇳🇴🇺🇦🇵🇸9h ago

@PattyHanson They're *very* good 😁

Embrace Civil Disobedience 9h ago

@hakona They are a lesson in political vulnerability. I don't know how many have been released, but it's a bunch. They are a form of gaslighting and viewers are eating it up.

Speed demon 🇪🇺 🇳🇴🇺🇦🇵🇸9h ago

@PattyHanson Lets hope some opposition in the US will emerge to address the genuine issues they point to. If not, the US has even further to fall.

Diligence Jones 9h ago

@PattyHanson @hakona

I will quibble slightly here.
Yes, I think their intent includes turning Americans against our government.

But I don't think that's what's happening in the intended audience. While it could be interpreted as 'turning against' the US, what those comments are largely demanding is for ANYONE to hold the US accountable for its sins.

The diss track that they released that made a pretty clear connection between different US liberation movements and other freedom movements globally (ironically not in their own backyard *cough*) is a really good example. Their message was 'We're doing this for YOU, oppressed Black and Brown people who have been oppressed by your own government for too long." And the response from USians was: Fuck Yeah!

It's a different type of grievance they've identified. And the US is probably going to ignore it because it's 'woke.'

Speed demon 🇪🇺 🇳🇴🇺🇦🇵🇸9h ago

@DeliaChristina I sincerely hope it won't be ignored. There really are some good points being made. Dealing honestly will be a test for if they are *serious*. The US needs serious now. @PattyHanson

Embrace Civil Disobedience 9h ago

@DeliaChristina @hakona I don't think you're wrong. I'm far from a political expert. Crap. Most of the time I can't even figure out what I'm thinking of for myself, and I've fallen for a few misinformation stories and videos. Thankfully, there are people around me who set me back on track.

It's hard to know the true intent of Iran plus I don't think the majority of the videos are coming from them anymore. Others have jumped on the bandwagon. I wouldn't be surprised if Russia is in the mix.

@PattyHanson
It wasn't that long ago you'd expect something like that from a US satirist.

Paul Sutton (zleap)9h ago

Maybe they can share on peertube :)

Paul Sutton (zleap)9h ago

Brilliant

It is objectively propaganda in that its trying to make us sympathetic towards Iran and their struggle....

Which is shocking they're putting in this much effort since I have yet to meet ANYONE in favor of this war (in real life and therefore a verifiably real person)

Martin Vermeer FCD 8h ago

@PattyHanson So Google complied in advance... or perhaps there was a phone call. About this being 'propaganda', if the American big corporate media was as high on actual news and valid analysis and as low on propaganda as this one, America would be a whole lot better place. And yes, calling this propaganda and giving your own country's same (or worse!) a pass is implicitly racist.

@martinvermeer @PattyHanson It's best to think of corporate media as the stenographer pool of the well to do, not journalists.

Embrace Civil Disobedience 8h ago

@martinvermeer Well, we now know what is going to happen to our media, especially since it's already happening. There is less than a handful of people who control what we watch and hear, and they are all fascists. It will be up to all of us to weed through it and help others get the truth.