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Thomas Copeland @thomascopeland.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

I've not posted much on here about my AI & disinformation reporting for BBC Verify, the BBC's OSINT unit, but after this week's surge of AI-generated Iran war videos, now's a good time. A common question we get is: "Why do people create & post this stuff?" Today's story tries to answer that 👇

bbc.co.uk

AI-generated Iran war videos surge as creators use new tech to cash in

The US-Israel war with Iran is being monetised by online creators with AI-generated misinformation.

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Shayan Sardarizadeh @shayan86.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

@thomascopeland.bsky.social and I try to explain why the rollout of user location data by X matters and how it's changing the conversation on the platform after some high-engagement political accounts were criticised for misleading users. www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKr3...

youtube.com

X's new location feature exposes misleading politics accounts | Global News Podcast

YouTube video by BBC News

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Richard Irvine-Brown @richib.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

What BBC Verify can do for the audience and the whole corporation. Yesterday, @jcheetham.bsky.social, @thomascopeland.bsky.social and I advised news eds why we thought which flight the Tates were on. Then did the same on the News Channel. Later proven correct. www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

linkedin.com

Richard Irvine-Brown on LinkedIn: Again, bolting together the work of Joshua Cheetham and Thomas C. with…

Again, bolting together the work of Joshua Cheetham and Thomas C. with mine to say what we could on the BBC News Channel while the Tate brothers were airborne…

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Richard Irvine-Brown @richib.bsky.social · 27/02/2025

This was correct, at time of writing, around 3pm, London time. Last reckoning was the plane was about 50km from Ft Lauderdale, expected landing time around 4pm. Great working (literally) elbow-to-elbow with @thomascopeland.bsky.social today.

Florida-bound jet now in final hour of flight

By Thomas Copeland and Richard Irvine-Brown

The flight we have been following today, a Gulfstream jet with the registration number N5430G, is currently bound for the Florida coast.

As we said before, it is the only private flight we saw take off from Bucharest early this morning.

We cannot currently confirm whether the Tate brothers are on board, but we know it is headed to Fort Lauderdale in Florida.

At the time of writing, it is roughly 700km away and travelling at 350kts, and therefore due to land around 16:00 GMT (11:00 local time) .

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Richard Irvine-Brown @richib.bsky.social · 27/02/2025

Lots of monitoring of FlightRadar24 and ADS-B Exchange going on right now from @jcheetham.bsky.social and @thomascopeland.bsky.social, who are standing up a lot of what we can say on the flight speculated to be used by the Tate Brothers. www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c7...

bbc.co.uk

Andrew Tate and Tristan Tate leave Romania on jet bound for Florida, sources tell BBC - live updates

Prosecutors confirm the brothers' request to be able to leave Romania has been accepted, but they remain under investigation.

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Richard Irvine-Brown @richib.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

1/ THREAD How do we know what we know about Gaza this morning, going from SnapChat. Essentially, how did @thomascopeland.bsky.social and I work out where the banner was, and you can too? (Call it OSint if you must.) www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cd...

bbc.co.uk

Israel says eight hostages are dead, as hundreds of thousands of Gazans head north on foot

Israel says an updated list from Hamas

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