How social media can skew views of Ukraine war : NPR

by Shane Doe · March 20, 2022

Iryna Holoshchapova, a Ukrainian refugee who fled the embattled metropolis of Mykolaiv, reveals a video on her smartphone of an house block on hearth following a Russian assault.

Sean Gallup/Getty Photos

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Sean Gallup/Getty Photos

Iryna Holoshchapova, a Ukrainian refugee who fled the embattled metropolis of Mykolaiv, reveals a video on her smartphone of an house block on hearth following a Russian assault.

Sean Gallup/Getty Photos

Because the battle in Ukraine unfolds, many individuals are watching it on their telephones. Social media is awash in pictures, movies and satellite tv for pc pictures. However some consultants fear that the image painted by these on-line posts is just not all the time correct. Listed below are some tricks to information you as you navigate by way of the flood of on-line details about Ukraine.

Satellites aren’t all-seeing

Photos from satellites are shaping our understanding of this battle like by no means earlier than. They’ve spied Russian bases and cataloged the destruction attributable to Russia’s brutal assaults on Ukrainian cities.

However satellites cannot do all of it.

Deepfake video of Zelenskyy could be 'tip of the iceberg' in info war, experts warn

Imaging satellites journey across the Earth from south to north each 90 minutes or so, photographing a ribbon of the land as they go. “You are going by actually quick, and also you’re seeing issues actually shortly,” says Robert Cardillo, a former director of the U.S. Nationwide Geospatial-Intelligence Company and now a senior govt on the industrial firm Planet Labs.

Meaning any given satellite tv for pc can take an image of a selected place solely as soon as a day, and the upper the decision of the satellite tv for pc, the much less space on the bottom it might picture.

A March 15 satellite tv for pc picture reveals fires burning at Ukraine’s Kherson air base after a reported strike in opposition to Russian forces utilizing the bottom. Satellites are enjoying a significant position in documenting occasions within the battle in Ukraine, however they’ve restricted capabilities.

Planet Labs PBC

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Planet Labs PBC

All this makes satellites good at taking a look at a recognized location, like a metropolis or an air base, however there’s nonetheless loads they’ll miss: notably troops on the transfer. Furthermore, if it is overcast, optical imaging satellites cannot see something in any respect by way of the clouds.

Planet Labs operates over 200 satellites so it might test a spot on the Earth a number of occasions a day. Different firms have their very own units of satellites. It is an unprecedented time for civilian imaging from area, Cardillo says. However the know-how continues to be removed from the unblinking eyes which are normally depicted within the films.

Not the whole lot you see could also be actual

On Wednesday, a “deepfake” video confirmed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy calling on troopers to put down their weapons.

A deepfake of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky calling on his troopers to put down their weapons was reportedly uploaded to a hacked Ukrainian information web site immediately, per @Shayan86 pic.twitter.com/tXLrYECGY4

— Mikael Thalen (@MikaelThalen) March 16, 2022

The video, which was closely manipulated, “is just not very nicely executed,” mentioned Sam Gregory of human rights group Witness, which focuses on detecting inauthentic media in crises. Nonetheless, the emergence of this video factors to potential issues, particularly a “so-called liar’s dividend, the place it is simple to assert a real video is falsified and place the onus on folks to show it is genuine,” Gregory mentioned.

Outright fakes aren’t all the time wanted. Typically pictures are stolen from earlier wars or different components of the world and relabeled. For instance, a photograph of an injured little one was circulated in the beginning of the battle. It was taken a number of years earlier in Syria.

Usually, consultants say the most effective concept is to cease earlier than punching the share button and ask questions of what you are seeing: What is the supply? Are different folks reporting the identical factor? And does it feed into biases it’s possible you’ll have already got?

Social media throughout a battle is like social media the remainder of the time

A whole lot of movies and pictures are being posted every day, however most individuals are simply seeing the handful that get probably the most likes and shares.

And simply because one thing is upvoted would not make it correct. Take, for instance, a TikTok video of a beautiful girl exhibiting the best way to begin a Russian armored automobile.

The video has over 7 million views. “It was depicted as this [vehicle] has been, you understand, taken by Ukrainian forces or resistance,” says Rita Konaev at Georgetown College’s Heart for Safety and Rising Expertise. “That is not what it was.”

In response to a reality test by Reuters, the girl is a Russian auto mechanic and vlogger. She filmed herself a few yr earlier than the invasion driving the armored automobile for enjoyable in Russia.

“Despite the fact that that isn’t one thing important, I feel it tells a part of a broader story about the kind of issues that get amplified,” Konaev says.

The enjoyable how-to-drive-an-armored-vehicle video will get a number of likes and shares, however that is as a result of it is enjoyable to observe, not as a result of it is true.

Keep in mind you are seeing only a small a part of the image

Social media likes easy, bite-size tales. However this battle is much more sophisticated.

“You would see a TikTok video exhibiting 10 destroyed Russian tanks, however 10 tanks is simply a small pattern of what the Russians have,” says Jeffrey Lewis, a professor of arms management on the Middlebury Institute of Worldwide Research at Monterey.

A destroyed Russian automobile is seen after battles on a important highway north of Kyiv, Ukraine. The picture of a single automobile is highly effective, however it would not inform the entire story.

Felipe Dana/AP

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Felipe Dana/AP

Skilled students like Lewis spend hours attempting to match battle harm movies to satellite tv for pc imagery and different reviews. “It is much more sophisticated than simply taking a look at your telephone,” he says.

Konaev says an actual threat is that folks fill within the gaps with their very own biases. When a video of some Russian troopers surrendering goes viral, “it begins main to those narratives about, you understand, large desertion, mutiny — Russian troops are about to show round.”

That, frankly, would not appear to be the case.

Konaev understands why persons are in search of out details about the battle on-line. “These bits of knowledge do offer you a way of management in a second of utter chaos round you,” she says. Simply bear in mind: There’ll by no means be a single submit, article or Twitter thread that may actually seize all of what is taking place in Ukraine.

NPR’s Bobby Allyn and Shannon Bond contributed to this report.