Until the end of 2021, the TikTok account mainly featured videos of motorbikes driving around UK roads. Then, in February, something changed: the account began uploading purported Ukrainian war footage, garnering tens of millions of views.
But this motorcycle enthusiast didn’t go to a war zone. Instead, he’s uploading video game footage to TikTok and tagging it with a Ukrainian flag. As Russia’s attack on Ukraine dominates the headlines, some social media are transferring gameplay videos as battle footage. They are drawing huge viewership — and playing into the Kremlin’s nefarious conspiracy theories about war.
The British motorcyclist’s video, showing computer-generated rocket launches, amassed more than 27 million views at the end of February, when YouTuber Kitboga did a video exposing it like a scam.
Video has been deleted. But thanks to TikTok’s “mix” and “duet” functionality, which allowed users to remix each other’s videos, the clip re-appeared on other channels, sometimes paired with user comments or (in a field). especially surreal) with adult advertising -just a video site.
Other opportunists have uploaded their own war-faking TikToks. One of such videos, first flagged by BBC reporter Shayan Sardarizadeh, purports to show a fighter jet firing at a parachutist. As some of the clip’s more than 6.5 million viewers have noted, the footage isn’t from Ukraine, or even the real world, but from the video game Arma 3.
As a realistic first-person shooter, Arma 3 became an odd breakout on social media channels dedicated to Russia’s war with Ukraine. On TikTok, a small industry of video producers has used the game to simulate Ukrainian battlefields, imagine what war might be like from the front lines, or even create CGI footage of people fighting in the country. Ukrainian soldiers dance next to surface-to-air missiles. The dancing soldier animations are clearly fakes and are labeled with the hashtag “Arma3”. But other clips from the game are harder to identify.
Immediately after the first Russian attack last month, live-streaming platform Facebook Gaming hosted more than 90 channels that misrepresented Arma 3 footage as real video from Ukraine, Bloomberg report. Meanwhile, footage from another video game, Digital Combat Simulator, went viral after gamers falsely claimed it showed “Ghost of Kyiv,” a legendary Ukrainian fighter jet.
Fake videos don’t just help TikTok attract users. They are taking on a digital fog of war.
After the news stations in Spain and Romania aired Arma 3 clips as legitimate, conspiracy theorists on TikTok, and Telegram pointed to the footage as proof that the entire fight was fake. For example, on a large QAnon Telegram channel, commenters suggested that the Spanish footage was proof that Democrats were trying to wage war to distract from the scandal.
Meanwhile, some of the creators of the wildly viral Ukrainian video game scene have clarified that their clip isn’t real.
“This video is from DCS [Digital Combat Simulator]”, wrote the author of the video with over 2 million views,” but was still shown out of respect for the ‘Ghost of Kiev.’ If he is real, may God be with him; if he is fake, i pray to be more like ‘him’. “
