Explosive Media, the group behind most of the pro-Iran AI videos resembling The Lego Movie is reintroducing itself, this time to Iranians who have been without internet access for months.
Iranian authorities imposed an internet blackout as US and Israeli strikes began on February 28.
Online access began to resume on Tuesday shortly after President Masoud Pezeshkian approved a vote by a cyberspace task force to allow Iranians back online.
“International internet access has been restored in Iran again … hello to all dear Iranians” Explosive Media posted to its Telegram channel with more than 17,000 subscribers.
“While you were defending our country in the streets, we were waging a media war in Iran's favour with Lego videos,” the message continued.
The videos, created with the help of AI, have received millions of views on social media and became a major influence tool during the Iran war.
Explosive Media's prolific content, however, has not been without controversy. Alphabet owned video platform YouTube suspended Explosive Media's account several months ago.
A YouTube representative told The National that the group had breached the platform's spam, deceptive practices and scams policies.
One of Explosive Media's recent videos caused concern after terrorism experts said it depicted the assassination of a Swedish prime minister and contained a “veiled threat” to the politicians currently in power in the country.
The video used Lego characters to portray the murder of Olof Palme, who was assassinated in Stockholm 40 years ago.
Concerns have also been raised that Explosive Media was using Denmark-based Lego Group's intellectual property for propaganda purposes without permission, potentially damaging the Lego toy brand.
The Lego Group has so not provided any comment on the matter.
Explosive Media, meanwhile, recently posted a video titled “Trump's Victory Delusion”, which portrays the US President as an infant sleeping while clutching a bottle of oil. The video then contrasts Mr Trump's claims of victory via a split screen with what Iran claims to be the reality of the conflict.
“Reality is against you Mr President,” a caption accompanying the video read. “You cannot change it with slop tweets.”
In a follow-up message on Telegram shortly after greeting Iranians with internet access for the first time in months, Explosive Media directed fans of the group's content to donate funds.
“Many of our friends message us to say they want to donate to us but don't know how to open a crypto account,” the correspondence read in part, followed by instructions on how to transfer funds.
According to NetBlocks, which monitors global internet governance and access, connectivity in Iran is still being restored and cautioned it remains limited.
“Service remains heavily filtered, with new restrictions on messaging and app stores compared to pre-January,” NetBlocks said on Wednesday.
NetBlocks says Iran's self-imposed internet blackout was the longest of its kind since the group began tracking such incidents.
Cloudflare Radar, which also examines internet power cut, said internet restoration in Iran remained a work in progress.
“Our traffic volume data shows that traffic increases are concentrated primarily in Tehran, with smaller spikes in other regions,” Cloudflare said.
