False authorities. How BBC has become a favorite brand for the creators of fake videos

Mass production of fake videos with logos of famous international media is one of the characteristic features of Russia's information war against Ukraine. After the start of a full -scale invasion, the creators of such fakes released dozens of video imitating the design Al jazeera, Euronews, Deutsche Welle, Reuters, Fox News and other large foreign media. But the British broadcasting corporation enjoys special love among the disinfectors. “Verified” tells how the BBCs are made from BBC, which they are dedicated to and how to distinguish genuine content from fake.

What are fake videos report

At first glance, the videos that are presented for BBC plots are devoted to the events taking place in different countries of the world, but they all show in a negative way Ukraine and the Western countries. In total, “verified” is known about nine such records, but in reality there could be more: some could not cause resonance and not get to the eye of a factor. 

The freshest of these videos appeared In mid -December 2023. It reported that in Ukraine more than 10,000 cameras have been discovered, from which since 2004 it was transferred to Russia and stored on Russian servers. Although this video is neither on the site or in the official BBC accounts in social networks, it is based on a real journalistic investigationwho published a project a few days earlier "Schemes". Its authors found out that TRASSIR cameras were supplied to Ukraine, data from which were transmitted through Russian servers and potentially Could be available to the FSB.

This is the only well -known “verified” case when reliable information was based on the BBC fake video. The video probably had only an auxiliary function - it spread with Fake The screenshot of the news from the British broadcasting corporation, which provides a comment by the American congressman Matt Ghetz: “For two years we have supported a country that has not even worried about getting rid of Russian cameras in its capital. The question remains, who is stupid: we or Ukrainians? " Getz sequentially protrudes against further American assistance to Kyiv, his statements on this topic regularly Quote Russian State Media.

In another video released in December Approvedthat the investigators of Bellingcat have information about the sale of Ukrainian weapons by the Hamas terrorist group, which attacked Israel on October 7. The organization of the transaction was charged with the chairman of the Servant of the People’s Party in the Verkhovna Rada David Arahamia, and the information was allegedly confirmed by the BBC Verify journalist Shayan Sardarizade and the founder of Bellingcat Eliot Higgins. Only in the Russian -language segment of Telegram, TGSTAT data are evidenced by the video (as found out Reuters factory, fabricated) looked more than 1 million times. 

Similar statements (and also with reference to Bellingcat) were present in the video, disassembled "Retrieved" in October 2023. Then, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense was accused of selling weapons. In the design of the video, which collected about the same amount of views as in the case of a later, the BBC screensaver and logo, as well as other characteristic design elements, but this record were used It turned out Fake.

The third based on the “finds” of Bellingcat, the alleged BBC, spread At the end of November. The video, citing the investigation group, claimed that the ex-adviser of the Office of the President of Ukraine Alexei Ardsnutovich spent $ 500,000 for renting private aircraft. The founder of Bellingcat Eliot Higgins Refuted Conducting such an investigation. There are no traces of the video on the BBC website either.

In early October 2023, the video with the forecast of the essayist Nassim Taleb, which was designed as a BBC plot, spread - he allegedly claimed that the United States was going to leave NATO and stop assistance to Ukraine. There were no traces of the video that scored several hundred thousand views in Telegram on the site and on the accounts of the British media corporation in social networks, and the writer himself RefutedWhat I have ever made a similar statement. 

August 30, Logically Facts factor published analysis The next video released on behalf of the BBC, which claimed that Evgeny Prigozhin did not die in a plane crash in the Tver region - his death was allegedly staged by the Kremlin with the consent of the head of the Wagner PMC. The video became popular not only among Russian-speaking Internet users (more than 3 million views in Telegram), but also in the English-language segment (so, one of the posts In X looked more than 380,000 times). As in other cases, the video turned out to be a fake, and BBC has nothing to do with it.

The above videos were mounted in a vertical format, but some fake records also issued more familiar horizontal plots. For example, in early August 2023 It spread A video telling that “Britain is aching from sanctions” introduced by London in relation to the Russian Federation due to aggression against Ukraine. However, deciding to change the format of the video, its creators fell into trouble - the BBC does not use such a design in such plots. Viral video, which consists of cutting photos and reports, Not related To the topic of sanctions, there is neither on the site or in social networks of the broadcasting company. The experiment ended relatively unsuccessfully - neither in English nor in Russian the fake plot did not cause a large stir. 

In May 2022, on the social network x wide spread the video in which the BBC journalists allegedly showed order About sending the Polish military to Ukraine. The document was falsified, Installed FACHERS from the Polish Demagog project, and their colleagues from Reuters dismantled The imitating design of the BBC video came to a similar conclusion. In Russian, it became more Popular It is a picture of the order, in English - a fake plot. 

In April 2022 viral became video clip About a missile strike on station in Kramatorskthat cited to death of 61 civilians. In the video allegedly released by BBC, Ukraine was accused of what happened - as reported in subtitles, Russia does not use Mod-u missiles, a Serial number On the wreckage of the projectile, which was found at the place of the tragedy, says that the rocket belongs to Ukraine. 

This “plot from the BBC” was broadcast on Russian state television channels (in particular, “Russia 24”), as well as Log The basis numerous publications in Russian Media.

Then, last spring, journalists, factor and media researchers for the first time Turned Attention to the appearance of several fabricated plots dedicated to the war in Ukraine and spread under BBC brands and other famous media. Joe Invud media corporation correspondent wrote In his account on the network X (then Twitter): "... someone seems to have received a BBC video tool and created a convincing but false video." 

The fake videos described above were identical, they used the BBC News screen saver, the British TV channel logo, and a single design code. The vast majority of these videos are vertical and imitate the style of BBC publications on social networks. Fake plots are mainly a cut from fragments of video in the public domain or shot by other media, which are accompanied by subtitles and background music. Similarly, as mentioned above, over the past one and a half years, videos have been forged, the creation of which was attributed to the media from around the world.

Along with fake rollers Distributed and the same fake Screenshots publications on sites of various foreign media, including BBC. Sometimes they even became elements of misinformation videos. So, the screenshot of non -existent news from BBC was demonstrated In the video of the alleged Reuters agency, which told about the appeals of boxer Mike Tyson and actor Elijah Wood to Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelensky (the Western stars, it was claimed, asked for a policy to begin treatment with drug addiction).

Fake reports, the authorship of which was attributed to the BBC, appeared earlier, but were much less numerous, looked different and, apparently, in most cases were not created with the aim of misinformation. For example, in 2018, the video was viral about the inevitable nuclear war between NATO and Russia (The second wave Its distribution fell on January 2022). The video supposedly was a fragment of the BBC television broadcast, but it turned out that the recording was created independently of the British broadcaster and "exclusively for entertainment purposes." In the case of more fresh videos, neither “checked” or others could not find any similar disclaimers in the case of fresher videos.

There are no traces of any of those who appeared in 2022–2023 and described above on the BBC website, or in the Corporation accounts on social networks, and official representatives of the media concerns are forced over and over again declare The fact that the plots are fabricated. Independent confirmations of these comments are found by factskening projects working in different countries of the world. However, by this moment, fake publications have time to gain millions of views and influence the opinion of a large number of people about the situation in the world. 

Who is for falsifications?

Many videos described above began to spread through social networks shortly after the publication of the same abstracts of Russian officials and speakers cooperating with the state media. So, the narrative about Ukrainian weapons in the hands of Hamas militants appeared October 7, on the day of the attack of the group on Israel. About this in the commentary "arguments and facts" told without reference to the source of orientalist Evgeny Satanovsky, Until recently Regular guest of the broadcast of TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov. On October 9, about the same in your Telegram channel declared Deputy Security Council of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev, and the very next day in the Russian -speaking segment of Telegram Started Cross the fake video about the non -existent investigation of Bellingcat. The message that the blow to the station in Kramatorsk was inflicted by Ukrainian troops, and not Russian, was massive Distributed in the Russian Federation federal Media on the day of the attack, April 8, 2022. Soon, a video with the BBC logo appeared in social networks, repeating the official Russian narrative. 

Is the production of such videos, designed to support the statements of the Russian authorities, directly from the Kremlin or is it an initiative from below? Researchers from the Poynter Institute in the spring of 2022 They wroteIt’s hard to say about it unambiguous. More confidently about the Russian trace and the likely coordinated misinformation campaign She said Josephine Lukito, professor of the Journalism and Media University of Journalism and Media in Austin. In her opinion, the task of such fakes is to sow the distrust of the media. On the alleged Russian roots of accounts in X, which distributed the fake about the "Point-U" in Kramatorsk in English, Spanish and other foreign languages, in an interview with the Bavarian radio factory service He said Cybersecurity expert Sandro Gaiken. 

In favor of the version of the existence of a coordinated campaign for the production of fake videos, the unified design of the vast majority of the video allegedly released by the BBC and other Western media is said. The theses expressed in them not only repeat the narratives of the Kremlin propaganda - with reference to the alleged message of the authoritative Western publication, the plots begin to quote state Russian media. Although at the moment it is impossible to unequivocally indicate the manufacturer of fake content, the distribution of such fakes goes through pro-Russian Telegram channels. For example, as TGSTAT data shows, the October plot of Ukrainian weapons at the disposal of Hamas was the first to publish the Cat Kostyan - Official Channel, about the forecast of Taleb - the Vzvod channel, about the surviving Prigozhin - the channel "Sheikh Tamir". These and other The plots distributed channels "Truthfulness","Russia now","Special operation z"And many others. The rollers fell into the English -language social networks after they appeared in the Russian -speaking Telegram.

The above applies not only to fake videos of the British broadcasting corporation, but also to other fake videos, the creation of which was attributed to a large foreign media. So, the earliest publication Fake video About the cake with the figure of the hanged Zelensky attributed to the Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post, was published in the channel "Sheikh Tamir", And only then the video hit in the English segment X. in the same channel, Installed "Checked" for the first time laid out And a fake video with the MSNBC logo, which tells about the decision of Pornhub to convey the fees of the ex-porno-star Mia Khalifa in favor of Israel. The fundamental difference between them is only in the use of different logos and design codes. It is doubtful that dozens of fake videos that imitate the style of different authoritative media are created according to the same scheme by several independent enthusiasts, and then spread over the network through Russian-speaking Telegram channels.

It is difficult to say which particular audience are the fakes for, but they become viral in different languages, primarily in Russian and English. Probably, the calculation is made that ordinary Internet users do not follow the publications of large international media daily, while most of the media from the list of “victims” of misinformers in the mass consciousness are quite authoritative. This primarily applies to BBC - the brand is known around the world, including because the corporation releases Content in 42 languages, and its journalists work in almost 60 countries.

In response to the request “verified” about the commentary on fake videos imitating BBC stories, representatives of the media corporation called on Internet users to check links and URLs to make sure that they receive news from a reliable source.

How to distinguish a genuine video from fake?

In almost all the videos studied "tested" and other facts, the design of the rollers is simulated, which the BBC uses in its account on the social network X and sometimes in Instagram, and they are really difficult to immediately distinguish from the real ones. However, sometimes it’s enough to just go to the site or to the official BBC News accounts in X, Instagram, YouTube or Tiktok And make sure that such information was not published there.

There are also a number of significant differences in the design of fake and real videos, which allow even without special tools and skills to check the video content to determine whether the video is fabricated or not. 

Firstly, background music sounds in fake videos, while it is practically not used in the original ones (if the music is applied, then on top of the main sound path). In the so -called Caption Video (video with built -in subtitles), which is published by the BBC, Used Original sound of the plot of the plot video recordings, and in fake rollers it, on the contrary, is absent.

Secondly, if a fragment is shown in the real plot of the BBC in which this or that person says something, his voice will not drown out. And, for example, in the fabricated December video about the sale of Hamas weapons, on the shots where Eliot Higgins and Shayan Sardarizade allegedly declared this, only background music can be heard, and by the movement of the lips of a British journalist it is noticeable that he pronounces absolutely not the phrase that is displayed in the signature. In the same way, shots with Nasim Taleb in the plot about the upcoming US exit from NATO were used in the same way. 

Thirdly, although disinformers use the BBC video design elements (a screensaver, logo, a characteristic vertical red strip near the titer), the font in fake rollers does not coincide with the branded.

Fourth, native speakers may note that in the credits to such fake rollers, spelling, grammatical and stylistic errors are regularly found, the appearance of which in the products of authoritative media corporation is almost impossible. For example, in the October video on the Bellingcat investigation there is a wording “UKRANIAN Defense Prime Minister), and there are no necessary articles in the titrates of the Nassim Taleb’s forecast.

These recommendations work for any videos of this kind, whose logo you will never see in the frame. And they should be adopted, since there is no reason to assume that the used fake scheme for news stories, which brings millions of views, will bother the misinformers in the foreseeable future.

Photo on the cover: collage "Checked"