One phenomenon coming with the advent of social media is fake news.
Seriously, fake news is “false or misleading information presented as news.” According to Google, fake news “often has the aim of damaging the reputation of a person or entity.” It is “often created to influence views or for political motives.” That it has been used to distort information about the ongoing pandemic especially by purveyors of conspiracy theories is a fact.
And the very serious matter of the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine is not an exception.
A lady broadcaster, obviously American, went to town giving examples of fake news in a video circulating about the Russian-Ukrainian war.
Among the fake news she bared were images of a Russian war tank running over a Ukrainian car with civilian passengers, which turned out to be a Ukranian tank that went out of control but fortunately the car passengers survived. The incident reportedly happened long before the invasion.
Another example is a video of several Russian bomber planes being downed by Ukrainian fighters which turned out to be a creative production cut from a popular video game entitled “Kombat” and many other video productions which were verified to be fake news after all.
An apolitical television news anchor who broadcast images of an explosion in the sky supposedly from the invading Russian forces found out that it was an explosion in China a long time ago. The lady broadcaster also admitted to have circuited fake news herself and apologized for it.
Now, now, having zero capability on fact-checking, we are not sure if what the broadcaster is saying is true or false.
