In this week's report on, "oh come on man", were going to be looking at an Indian news channel that fraudulently aired footage from a video game as if it were real.
First reported by IGN India, the footage apparently appeared on the Indian broadcast channels, Republic TV, Times Now Navbharat, Zee Hindustan, and TV9 Bharatvarsh. While this isn't the first time fraudulent information has been peddled on the news, it might be the first time gameplay footage has been used to besmirch an enemy.
Arma 3 is an open-world military tactical shooter that was released by Bohemia Interactive in 2013 exclusively on Steam.
The footage was used to prove that Pakistan had been helping the Taliban in their fight over Panjshir Valley. However, Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair noticed some odd similarities between the footage presented in the newscast and the above video of actual in-game footage.
Hello @republic, The 'exclusive video' that your team has accessed of Airstrikes at #PanjshirValley is actually from a video game "Arma-3". pic.twitter.com/TG7dJmvsQ9
— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) September 6, 2021
Zubair made a thread on Twitter calling out the news stations. The footage is credited to ‘Hasti TV’, and while the original Facebook post has now been deleted, the Arma 3 clip had already made its way onto major news outlets.
India Today quotes a fake account (@Mohsood123) to claim that a Pakistani Jet was shot down in #Panjshir. The 3 year old image tweeted by the fake account is of a U.S. F-16 fighting falcon crash landing during a training in Arizona.pic.twitter.com/dHcWBqkfHT
— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) September 6, 2021
So let this be a lesson or reminder, don't believe everything you see on the news kiddos, because you never know, that viral clip just might be from your favorite videogame.
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