At the end of September, a video allegedly filmed in the United States went viral on the Internet; the Ukrainian president was greeted on the screen. It is reported that due to a technical error, the word urine (“urine” or “urine”) appeared on the media façade instead of the name of the country. We have verified the authenticity of the video.
Vladimir Zelensky arrived to New York on the evening of September 18, 2023. “Next are important and busy days. UN General Assembly, Sustainable Development Goals Summit, Security Council. Significant bilateral meetings have already been scheduled,” wrote President of Ukraine in his Telegram channel. The video, where the phrase Glory to Urine (“Glory to Urine”) is written against the background of the Ukrainian flag, circulated on September 21. Most common video description reads: “In New York they wrote “Glory to Moche” on the Ukrainian flag. A greeting appeared on the big screen in the city, but instead of Glory to Ukraine (“Glory to Ukraine”), Glory to Urine was written on the flag. The company that owns the screen explained that the error occurred due to a program that matched the yellow color with the inscription “Ukraine” and automatically corrected it to the closest consonant word - urine (“urine”).” Often meets addition: “The editor did not notice the changes, and the video with the word “urine” ended up on a huge screen.”
Official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova in her Telegram channel (333,000 views at the time of writing this analysis) wrote: ““Glory to Urina” - this was the video greeting the President of Ukraine in New York. Not fake. Moreover, all this is on a yellow background and with a photograph of Zelensky. Apparently they know something." The official’s words were quoted by the publication “News", "Constantinople", "Arguments and facts", "Sight" And "Regnum" Other media and news sites that wrote about the alleged mistake on the media facade in New York include TV channelsNTV", "Moscow 24" And "360", "Moskovsky Komsomolets", "Russian newspaper", "Ukraine.ru", "TV Center", EADaily, "Voice of the people", "Notebook" And "Zov Kherson"
According to the TGStat service, at the time of writing this text, posts about the viral video on Telegram had received a total of more than 5 million views - in particular, the channels “Live broadcast"(625,000 views), "Ne.Sugar"(253,000), "Uncle Slava"(189,000), "Putin on Telegram"(155,000), "Observer"(152,000), "Gasparyan"(137,000), Voblya (121,000), "Ostashko! Important"(102,000), "First People's"(99,000), "Evil proof️"(97,000), "Bullet"(96,000), "Scott Ritter on Telegram" (81,000) and "Kot Kostyan - official channel"(79,000). The video was widely shared on X (formerly Twitter). For example, only one English-language tweet from the pro-Russian blogger Sprinter dialed 1.4 million views (other examples here, here And here). There are also posts about videos on VKontakte (here, here, here, here And here) And LiveJournal, on YouTube And "Peekaboo"
The earliest publication that “Verified” was able to track appeared in the Telegram channel “Why do women kill assholes?"(4200 views) September 21 at 14:04 Moscow time. At the same time, at the end of the post there is a hashtag #suggestion, which means that the material was supposedly sent by a subscriber (this popular method of spreading fakes). Less than an hour later, at 15:01, in the channel "Sheikh Tamir” (111,000 views) in addition to the video, a screenshot of an Instagram* story appeared with an apology from Clear Channel Outdoor, which is allegedly responsible for the screen where the alleged greeting was shown with an error.
Clear Channel Outdoor deeply apologizes for a technical error that occurred during a video display on one of the company's screens in New York. The error occurred due to a software update that included an intelligent system for distinguishing between graphic material (color) and text.
Since “Verified” regularly monitors publications of Telegram channels that have previously been caught spreading disinformation more than once (and “Sheikh Tamir" is one of them), we checked the presence of stories in instagram Clear Channel Outdoor within five minutes of the screenshot appearing on September 21st. However, there was no such publication in the company’s profile, although the story was allegedly posted 14 hours ago and should have been displayed for about 10 more hours.
“Verified” did not find a single English-language reputable news media that would write about the alleged error on the screen, which is strange, given the virality of the video and the resonance it provoked. At the same time, in the upper right corner of the viral post there is the logo of the Fox News Digital platform, which was previously used in a fake video about Zelensky from New York. Our colleagues from Snopes contacted with a representative of the Fox News channel, who said that they did not publish such a video. In addition, the same video recording and screenshot of the story are being distributed across the Internet, that is, there is no other photo and/or video evidence of the incident, although the video was filmed in a busy place and would hardly have gone unnoticed by passers-by. All these factors, as well as the fact that the recording initially appeared in Russian-language Telegram channels, already indicate that it could have been fabricated.
As for the place captured in the video, this is indeed New York. “Checked” found out that the screen we are interested in is located on the building, located at the intersection of Eighth Avenue and Forty-second Street. However, according to the logo below the screen, the operator of this media facade is not Clear Channel Outdoor, but Big Outdoor, which also indicated on her website. We wrote to the Big Outdoor press service, sending the viral video and its screenshot, and received a response from the company's general counsel Erin Watkins: “We confirm that the copy shown in the photo and video was not placed on our signage. The images are 100 percent fake."
After the video went viral in English, some users of the social network X on the same day went to the media facade of interest to us and published their pictures and videos of that place on September 21. For example, Markian Kuzmovich, engaged in digital threat analysis at Microsoft, posted a couple photo and one video clip, while indicatingthat the intersection is different from how it is shown on the viral recording. For example, in the video that went viral, there are no logos on the building on the left, although there is now a McDonald's restaurant there. Also in the viral recording, building structures are visible under the screen, which are not in Kuzmovich’s photo. A senior NBC News reporter also visited the same intersection. Ben Collins, covering the spread of fake news. Journalist recorded from there a video where he ironically praised American builders and entrepreneurs who managed to change their location in a few hours and open several new enterprises there.
Thus, the video with the phrase Glory to Urine on the media façade is fake. According to the Fox News press service, the channel did not publish such a video, and a representative of the screen operator company called the viral recording 100 percent fake. At the same time, the authors of the fake faked stories from the wrong company. Previously, “Verified” had already sorted out similar fakes about other videos with Zelensky from New York (here, here And here) And Tokyo.
*Russian authorities think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social network Instagram, is an extremist organization; its activities in Russia are prohibited.
Cover photo: social networks
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