Audiovisual evidence is no match for a viral conspiracy theory that Benjamin Netanyahu is dead.

Last Thursday, the CNN reporter Jeremy Diamond interrogated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a press conference in Jerusalem. This act of journalism was not unusual, but what happened next was. Diamond uploaded the exchange to social media, and the footage didn’t simply go viral—it became the locus of a mass digital delusion.

The clip racked up millions of impressions across X, Facebook, and Instagram, fueled not by interest in Netanyahu’s words, but by a conviction that the man speaking them didn’t exist. “That is such an obvious composite,” declared one of the most popular replies on X. “How are CNN journalists apparently in on this necromancer-y?!” Countless responses echoed these sentiments. “Netanyahu looks further away than he should,” the top comment on Instagram read. “Looks digitally edited.” Diamond’s reporting had been swarmed by a growing global contingent convinced that the Israeli leader is dead—and that everything we see of him today is the product of AI.

“What do you think about these Netanyahu AI videos?” Joe Rogan, the most popular podcaster in America, asked one of his show’s guests on March 20. “They think he might be dead.” Rogan went on to suggest that a recent clip of Netanyahu visiting a coffee shop was “clearly AI,” and that not only might the prime minister no longer be alive, but that “his brother got killed in a missile strike.” None of this was true, but Rogan was not alone in voicing the suspicions. “Is Benjamin dead?” Ayoub Khan, a member of the British Parliament, asked on March 14. “I suspect he is dead or at least very seriously injured. Yet the media is completely silent on this topic despite the social media meltdown around this topic!”

Famous people being prematurely buried by social media is not new. You’re not really a celebrity unless X has killed you off at least once. Mahmoud Abbas, the 90-year-old president of the Palestinian Authority, has been erroneously declared dead multiple times. What distinguishes the conspiracy theory about Netanyahu’s demise is its durability. Overwhelming audiovisual evidence, including recent videos of him interacting with journalists and ordinary people, shows Netanyahu to be very much alive. Still, the claim persists.