The Irish company combating fake news about the invasion of Ukraine – Buzz.ie

A photograph of a heavily pregnant woman wrapped in a blanket, her face smeared with blood, stumbling out of a ruined maternity hospital in Mariupol may well be one of the most striking images to come out of the invasion of Ukraine so far.

But alongside an outpouring of sympathy, the photo was soon being used to promote a very different narrative.

The Russian Embassy to the UK claimed in a series of now-removed tweets the woman was a beauty influencer hired as an actor to cover up the fact the hospital was empty of patients and being used as a military base. Her injuries? Some very realistic make-up, it said.

The story illustrates how social media has become a battleground in the war. Thousands of videos and images purporting to be from the conflict are posted every day to an audience of millions as Ukraine and Russia fight to influence public opinion at home and abroad. While some are genuine, many are misleading, mistaken or outright fakes.

Razan Ibraheem, an analyst at Kinzen, has spent years researching misinformation and said social media fakes have played a role in every conflict since the Syrian civil war.

But the scale of fake news coming out of Ukraine is beyond what shes seen before, she told Buzz. The narrative is evolving unbelievably fast It is a really challenging time.

The Dublin-based company was founded in 2018 by former employees of Facebook and RT. Its team of journalists and researchers monitors online discussion to sift news from noise spotting hoaxes and hate speech related to wars, elections and other crises around the world before they go viral. Up until recently, Covid-19 was a huge part of their work, but now the war is their main focus.

Many fakes circulating are similar to those weve seen before. But Ibraheem said one emerging trend is pro-Kremlin accounts using fact-checking language against Ukraine.

Clips and photos which may or may not be related to the war are taken out of context and used to say that Ukraine is spreading fake news or employing crisis actors. The posts are often tagged with phrases like debunked and see it for yourself.

They are trying to take examples from misleading content and saying its a fake, so it means the whole war is a fake, Ibraheem said.

Even government accounts are using this tactic. Usually you will see Russian-sponsored media spreading misinformation or justifications for the invasion, she explained. But now because they are blocked on many platforms, the Russian official accounts are replacing them.

Although Russia has been a major source of misinformation, pro-Ukraine accounts are also posting hoaxes of their own. Ibraheem said she has seen several clips which claimed to show Ukrainians in a good light, but were actually taken from a video game or TV show.

However, she was keen to point out that while all misinformation is damaging, pro-Ukraine fakes are incomparable in terms of the harm.

The Russian misinformations agenda is to justify war, invasion, killing and bombing a hospitalWhereas if we sometimes identify Ukrainian misinformation, its coming from [a place of] defence.

They are the victim, they are under invasion They are sharing content to get more support and solidarity.

Identifying misinformation from any source is complicated, Ibraheem said. I understand sometimes when people share content and they dont know it is misleading, because its not an easy process to do.

Video quality is one indicator. A low quality, pixelated clip could have been copied and shared multiple times, meaning it's more likely to have been taken out of context.

Viewers should also search for the original source to spot if a clip is from another war, or has had new audio added. Google Image search can uncover where screenshots were taken from, while account names or dates on the video itself may help you trace it.

Meanwhile, the surroundings can offer clues. Its very cold at this time of year in Ukraine, so look for people wearing light clothes or short sleeves as a clue the image is from another country.

When in doubt, several organisations and journalists are dedicated to exposing fake news. As well as Kinzen, check the likes of Bellingcat, Snopes and Politifact to see if they have already debunked a particular piece of content.

TikTok has been mentioned frequently as a hub for misleading content during the war. But Ibraheem said the problem is bigger than one platform: fake news can spread anywhere online.

Whats dangerous about TikTok, however, is how engaging and therefore convincing its short videos can be.

You listen, you watch, [you read] the language, so it captures more of your senses than a post or a phone, she said. On TikTok videos get millions of views because of that. We are seeing some videos being watched 20 million times.

Many who post deceptive content may not have an agenda to push beyond increasing their follower count.

But even innocently shared misinformation can have a heavy toll. For example, experts believe Russia may be planning to use misinformation to pin a false flag chemical weapons attack on Ukraine.

Misinformation can change the whole political narrative, said Ibraheem. Thats why its really important for the integrity of news and journalism to separate the news from the noise and have trusted information.

Read the rest here:

The Irish company combating fake news about the invasion of Ukraine - Buzz.ie