Soldiers crash in burning cities, warplanes are shot down by missiles, drones pulverize tanks – these images appear larger than life, but are actually taken from war video games like “Weapon 3” that fuel the avalanche of misinformation.
Clips from this game, often attached with “Live” or “Breaking News” banners to appear more authentic, have frequently been used in fake videos purporting to depict the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Images that may seem real
The ease with which they deceive the public, and sometimes even television channels, worries researchers. It is “a reminder of how easy it is to fool people,” Claire Wardle, co-director of Brown University’s Information Futures Lab, told AFP.
“People need to know how to verify the veracity of these images, particularly how to examine the metadata, to avoid these errors, especially by the media,” adds Claire Wardle.
weapon 3, from the Czech studio Bohemia Interactive, allows you to generate various battle scenarios using planes, tanks and various weapons. Many gamers then share videos of their adventures online, which sometimes go sideways.
under pictures ofweapon 3 Titled “Ukrainian Counter-Offensive!”, one misled Internet user, for example, commented: “We must ask Ukraine, after this war, to train NATO forces.”
Methods to identify fake videos
“Though it’s flattering thatweapon 3 It simulates modern conflicts so realistically that we are disgusted that it could be mistaken for actual combat footage and used as war propaganda,” a studio representative reacted in a press release. He even points out methods to identify fake videos of his video game.
In recent years, images ofweapon 3 they have also been used to falsely illustrate the conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan and Palestine, fake news regularly reported by digital verification outlets. AFP has tracked several, including one in November that claims to show Russian tanks being hit by Javelin missiles and viewed tens of thousands of times.
According to Bohemia Interactive, these kidnappings experienced a resurgence in popularity with the invasion of Ukraine, sometimes referred to as the “first TikTok war” for the many images illustrating it on social media.
Error broadcasts on television
The media have also been deceived: the Romanian channel Romania TV presented in November an old video ofweapon 3 as showing fighting in Ukraine, and a former defense minister and former intelligence chief commented on the footage as if it were genuine.
Back in February, another Romanian channel, Antena 3, mistakenly broadcast an old video ofweapon 3 and invited the spokesman for the Ministry of Defense to analyze it. This will be limited to general comments about the conflict.
On social media, the reasons for sharing these fake clips vary.
Easier to verify than “deepfakes”
Those who then share these posts are, according to him, “naive people” trying to gain visibility or subscribers on the internet.
Given the unsophisticated nature of disinformation based on excerpts fromweapon 3it is unlikely to have come from state actors, the researchers say.
For them, these clips are easier to verify than “deepfakes” (or “hyperfakes”), which consist of using artificial intelligence to create confusingly realistic images, which are increasingly used in the criminal world.
“If you know what to expect, these videos (fromweapon 3) are actually not that hard to identify as fake,” adds Nick Waters. Unfortunately, he laments, “a lot of people don’t have the skills” to spot misinformation.
Source: BFM TV
