Posted on 02/25/2022 10:27:19 AM PST by algore
ArmA III, a video game that in the right circumstances can look pretty realistic, has a long history of turning up on news broadcasts and being either confused with or intentionally used in place of actual camera footage of real-world events. That trend is continuing in the current crisis in Ukraine.
As Bloomberg reports, some of the most-viewed videos on Facebook’s gaming channel today were a number of clips purporting to be of military action taking place in Ukraine, “watched by more than 110,000 people and shared more than 25,000 times,” before they were taken down by Facebook.
The same videos are also circulating on other social media, including Twitter; here’s one of the clips, posted with the text, “Ukraine fires missiles to intercept Russian aircraft’s artillery fire,” though really it’s some Arma III footage
At time of posting, that tweet has 11,000 likes and almost 2,000 retweets. It’s easy for you and I to sit here and say, “Well of course that’s a video game,” but not everyone is familiar with ArmA’s attention to detail and visual fidelity. And remember, the smaller and blurrier these videos get on social media, the easier they are to pass off as actual footage.
This also speaks to a wider problem that anyone who has been online in the last 24 hours (or last 10 years) will have seen unfolding: any coverage of the invasion that allows input from the community is overflowing with opportunists looking for engagement, no matter how inaccurate the content they’re actually sharing is
Ha! Was thinking of this same thing today.
That was likely from Call of Duty, NOT Arma III.
😆
The videos I saw on YT were all labeled Arma something. That’s all I know. Never heard of Arma before
Who?
Tag says Air Force.
Is it typical for an Army officer to wear an Air Force uniform?
One ‘really terrifying’ US soldier - nice regulation butch hair cut, must be all the rage with the gay crowd.
My bad. She is Air Force
https://www.army.mil/article/239432/u_s_embassy_personnel_distinguished_visitors_tour_jmtg_u
I just haven’t seen much about her since she visited Donbas with the Ukrainian Army, and laid flowers on a grave.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eyz2CwrXMAA_jSo?format=jpg&name=large
From DCS Digital Combat Simulator video game
I still get residulals from my cameo in this!
That’s the one! You nailed it.
That looks like a Ukrainian uniform. What the ... ?
Yes, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence, aside from posting video game footage as real has bomb making instructions posted.
I tried to file a content complaint @twitter for the bomb making one, and it kept unmarking it, and checking an innocuous tweet.
Great! Old Ukraine Grannies with cataracts, trained in weaponry by Azov neo-Nazis can now make bombs in their kitchens with instructions from the Ukrainian Defence Ministry.
Oh my! Do you have a !ink for that?
If you mean Twitter user “Defence of Ukraine” — surely that is not the Ukrainian Defense Department, but some guy using that handle.
Sorry, I was replying and my internet went down. 2nd time this week, and the first time it happened my mobile network which is a completely separate company also went down.
https://mobile.twitter.com/DefenceU
Looks like they have cleaned up their page while my internet was incommunicado. Lots of sensitive content warnings and tweets that went “poof”.
Thanks! Check your Freepmail in a few.
Meanwhile, it’s very creepy watching this in real time on Google maps.
Not real!
You can tell by the pixels.
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