Examples of False Social Media Postings About Ukraine
Reuters News Agency "fact checking" reveals a long list of false information disseminated on social media about Ukraine. Similar lists appear on other media fact-checking sites.
One example is a video posted on Twitter which shows a young girl confronting a soldier, with a caption: "'Go back to your country': brave little girl confronts invading Putin's Army telling him to 'go home.'" Reuters informs that "social media users have incorrectly linked a 2012 video of a Palestinian girl confronting Israeli soldiers with Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine." The video, it says, "is nearly 10 years old and shows Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi confronting Israeli soldiers in the West Bank." For its part, Twitter has not removed the posting, but informs that "this media is presented out of context." A TikTok posting of a still shot from the same video carries the caption "Little Girl Try to Stop ... Pray for Ukraine" and was liked by over 800,000 viewers and circulated by 16,000 people.
This is hardly a brilliant discovery requiring the computing power of artificial intelligence: the backdrop is a desert; it is clearly hot weather, the young girl is wearing a sleeveless t-shirt.
Other items listed are:
- A CNN caption quoting Putin warning against India's interference in the 2022 Ukraine crisis is a fake. Social media users have shared a digitally altered screenshot of a CNN news clip that includes a caption quoting Russian President Vladimir Putin as saying: "India should not interfere, otherwise be ready to face the consequences." Reuters found no evidence of this statement being reported by CNN or any other news outlet.
- Social media users are sharing a fabricated story
about a
CNN journalist allegedly killed in Ukraine amid Russia's recent
invasion. The posts are claiming CNN shared a tweet about the
man's
death amidst the ongoing crisis in Ukraine using the same
story
shared during the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August
2021. - CNN
did not tweet that a journalist was killed in both Ukraine and
Afghanistan, a claim that stems from imposter accounts. No such
stories
were posted by the news outlet and the screen shots in the
tweets come
from unverified Twitter accounts posing as CNN pages.
- A photograph circulating online of an injured girl is from 2018 and was taken during the Syrian war, not Russia's invasion of Ukraine as users claim.
- Photos and a video captured during the 2014 Maidan protests in Ukraine, against the U.S. backed coup, have been shared on social media in February 2022 to falsely claim they depict crimes committed by Russia against civilians.
A photo of two children watching Ukrainian soldiers roll past atop two tanks have been falsely called Russian tanks today. Reuters has traced the photo back to 2016.
- A miscaptioned clip from the videogame Digital Combat Simulator has been circulating online, with social media users claiming it shows a Ukrainian fighter jet shooting down a Russian plane.
- A clip of artillery fire from what looks like a military camp in low light attributed to Russians dates to at least 2019, despite the clip being shared widely by social media users online as portraying current events.
- Video of a warehouse explosion is from Beirut in 2020, not Ukraine. The explosion in Beirut killed more than 200 people. It does not show civilians casualties incurred by Russians in Ukraine.
- A photo purported to portray Russia bombing Ukraine in 2022 is actually taken of the bombardment of Gaza by Israeli forces in 2021.
On February 26, videos and photos were circulated in the media
with
headlines such as “Russian Missile Hits Apartment Building in
Kyiv.” The Russian Ministry of Defence issued a
statement
saying that the building was struck by a Ukrainian anti-aircraft
projectile. It stated: “In attempts of repelling a rocket
attack
on the military infrastructure of the Ukrainian Armed Forces,
failure
occurred in the missile guidance system of a Ukrainian AF-BUK-M1
medium-range air defence system and the missile hit the corner
of a
residential building.” This assertion by the Russians has not
been refuted, but the photo continues to circulate as "evidence"
of
Russian attacks on civilians.
People are also taking to social media to denounce examples of false news, such as in the tweet below where a photo of damage done by Ukranian forces in the Donetsk region is presented as damage by Russian troops.
This article was published in
Volume 52
Number 3 - March 1, 2022
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2022/Articles/MS52033.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca