Posted 25 Feb. 2022 at 20:05
In addition to the rapid progress of Russian troops on Ukrainian soil since Thursday, there is also that of false information and manipulation on social networks. Tampered TV banners, backdated videos of fighter planes or the hijacked photo of a woman holding a dummy rifle: the “infox” are already surging on the platforms.
Only a few hours following Vladimir Putin’s speech announcing the start of hostilities, publications of all kinds have invaded social networks around the world. There are of course very real scenes reported live by journalists present on the ground or filmed by the inhabitants in the streets or in the metro of Kiev, where many Ukrainians had taken refuge in the morning.
« Urgent Ukraine »
But there is also a proliferation of videos or photos widely relayed without sources or details, accompanied by sometimes laconic or alarmist comments on the evolution of the situation. “Urgent Ukraine: Russian fighter jets and bombers flying over a Ukrainian city,” wrote a Facebook user in a post at 7:36 a.m. (French time) and accompanied by a short 30-second video.
Seen several thousand times in the space of a few hours and relayed by numerous Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts, this video shows fighter planes passing low over apartment buildings with the sound of a siren in the background. “Russian planes in Ukrainian skies. The war in Europe has just started…”, comments a user, relaying it, without giving any details on the origin of the video.
However, the latter has no connection with the current situation in Ukraine. A quick reverse image search on Yandex, the Russian search engine, brings up a longer video released in 2020 showing a rehearsal of the “victory parade” held each year on May 9 in Russia to commemorate the end of the Second World War.
Far from being an isolated case, this video recycled and taken out of context, on purpose or by mistake, symbolizes one of the many facets of online misinformation. Thursday, more than a dozen viral publications had been pinned by AFP verification teams. Among them, a video showing nightly missile fires that allegedly took place in Ukraine at night: it was in fact the missile fires from Gaza towards Israel in May 2021.
Manipulate opinion
Even before the start of the Russian invasion, disinformation related to Ukraine was in full swing. In mid-February, the photo of a young woman on a bus, assault rifle in hand with the only caption “life in Ukraine at the moment”, had gone around the web before being, too, , demystified. The photo was taken in 2020 and the weapon in question was fake.
Almost at the same time, in the United States, a tweet from TV host Jack Posobiec went viral. He relayed a banner from CNN – “Putin will delay the invasion until Biden sends weapons to Ukraine so that Russia can seize them” – which had in fact been doctored.
This resurgence of fake news likely to influence public opinion is not without cause for concern. On February 19, the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, warned once morest an “intensification of efforts to manipulate information”, intended, according to him, to serve as fabricated pretexts to justify a military escalation. in Ukraine.
Meta and Twitter on deck
Faced with this epidemic of fake news, social networks have implemented several measures. On Thursday, Meta opened a “special operations center” for Ukraine. This crisis unit aims to detect hateful, violent or manipulative content as quickly as possible. It is staffed by experts who speak Ukrainian and Russian. Facebook has also launched, as in 2011 in Afghanistan, a function allowing lock his profile, for security, in one click.
For its part, Twitter, another epicenter of online information, has published a set of recommendations for the public but also for journalists. One ” thread was posted in English and Ukrainian, linking to various good practice pages.
“When using Twitter in conflict zones or high-risk regions, it is important to know how to control your account and your digital information,” this official account called. Do these tools and guides have the power to stem fake news?