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“The First TikTok War”A video game so realistic, that even former high-ranking officers are fooled
Social media is overflowing with images allegedly showing scenes of war in Ukraine. These are actually fake clips mostly from “Arma 3”.
“Live” or “Breaking news” banners are often added to these clips to make them more authentic.
AFP
Soldiers clash in burning cities, warplanes are shot down by missiles, drones pulverize tanks: these images seem larger than life, but are actually taken from war games like “Arma 3” which feed the flood of misinformation. “Live” or “Breaking news” banners are often added to these clips to make them look more authentic.
The ease with which these images deceive the public, and sometimes even television channels, worries researchers. It’s “a reminder of how easily people can be fooled,” said Claire Wardle, co-director of Brown University’s Information Futures Lab. “With video game visuals improving, CGI can, at first glance, look real,” she explains. “People need to know how to verify the veracity of these images, especially how to review the metadata, so that these errors are avoided, especially by the media.”
Arma 3, from the Czech studio Bohemia Interactive, allows you to generate various battle scenarios using planes, tanks and various weapons. Many players then share videos of their adventures online, which are sometimes diverted. Below images from Arma 3 titled “The Ukraine Counteroffensive!” a misled Internet user for example commented: “We must ask Ukraine, following this war, to train NATO forces.”
A tough fight
“Although it is flattering that Arma 3 simulates modern conflicts so realistically, we are unhappy that it can be mistaken for real combat images and used as war propaganda,” reacted in a press release. a studio representative. “We try to combat this content by reporting it to the platforms, but it is not at all effective. For every video unpublished, ten more are uploaded every day.
In recent years, Arma 3 footage has also been used to falsely depict the conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan and Palestine, fake news regularly denounced by digital verification media. According to Bohemia Interactive, these hijackings experienced a resurgence in popularity with the invasion of Ukraine, sometimes dubbed the “first TikTok war” because of the many images that illustrate it on social networks.
The media have also been fooled: the Romanian channel Romania TV presented an old Arma 3 video in November as showing combat in Ukraine. A former defense minister as well as an ex-intelligence chief both commented on the images as if they were genuine. Already in February, another Romanian channel, Antena 3, mistakenly broadcast an old Arma 3 video and invited the Defense Ministry spokesperson to analyze it. This will be limited to general remarks on the conflict.
(AFP)
