Media platforms and social media users have been warned to watch out for footage being shared on social media which purport to be from Ukraine but are in fact old or doctored images.
As the situation in Ukraine continues to escalate, news platforms rush to post visual images because they drive more traffic than anything else. That can lead to mistakes being made.
Even the venerable BBC stands corrected for using a clip of military planes for a report from Ukraine for BBC Breakfast on 25 February – but the clip, from May 2020, actually showed a military parade in Moscow.
https://twitter.com/chrismid259/status/1497123087749419011
BBC has since warned of the proliferation of “false images shared online” pointing out that “some videos, such as this clip of an aerial attack, are from previous conflicts.”
And they warned that video game footage was being used to create fake footage of the conflict.
“Misleading posts have come from “official” sources as well as from “ordinary” social media users,” the BBC reported
One example was a tweet posted by the verified account of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence.
Footage of an aerial dogfight is accompanied by the caption “MiG-29 of the Air Force of the Armed Forces destroys the ‘unparalleled’ Su-35 of the Russian occupiers”.
However, it’s video game footage from the game Digital Combat Simulator World.
Explosions from other conflicts elsewhere in the globe are being posted as real footage from Ukraine.
One military news site said there were many examples of why they wait days to publish Ukrainian footages. ” Half of what we posted in the first days ended up being doctored they require a lot more verification,” ASB said
https://twitter.com/ASBMilitary/status/1498412232459403264
“Ukrainian MoD also posted footage from Digital Combat Simulator and other official accounts have posted dozens of fakes from Syria & video games such as Arma 3 which is nearly indistinguishable to the untrained eye,” they wrote.
https://twitter.com/ASBMilitary/status/1498414885402816513
Some stories which were widely reported immediately after the invasion were also found to be, in part, unreliable. The story of the Snake Island 13 made news everywhere, with millions of views on social media.
13 guards stationed on Snake Island, were killed after refusing to abandon their posts 💔https://t.co/w8WZOiq93a
— JOE (@JOE_co_uk) February 25, 2022
Turned out that the 13 are, happily, still alive.
They had us all worried there! https://t.co/nT6vX2Jncg
— JOE (@JOE_co_uk) February 28, 2022
