how not to be fooled by the images circulating on social networks?

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Beware of manipulation. Since the start of the invasion of Ukraine by Russian armed troops on Thursday February 24, photos and videos of the conflict have been quickly shared on social networks. But some of these images are sometimes taken out of context, or even staged for propaganda purposes.

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To guard against false information, franceinfo gives you the main reflexes to adopt before sharing videos or photos related to the war in Ukraine.

1Read the text and comments that accompany these contents

Before participating in the dissemination of information, a video or a photo on social networks, the first instinct must be to read the accompanying text. A title can sometimes be misunderstood or deliberately misleading. Reading the entire content therefore makes it possible to better assess the credibility of the information.

Good reflex also: read the comments. They sometimes make it possible to find the original photo or video and certain messages, posted by people present when the images were captured, can give more details about their context. In addition, fact-checking carried out by Internet users adept at OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) is sometimes hidden in the comments of misleading content. Thereby, this response from an American journalist* to a photo shared on Twitter reveals that the snap, which shows two children in front of Ukrainian tanks, is actually from 2016.

Once these first checks have been made, if you decide to broadcast the video or photo in turn, favor sharing the original post. Also consider Donbornr contextual elements, so that your message is not misinterpreted.

2 Identify the source behind the images

The source of information is also a good indicator of its reliability. If it is not explicitly mentioned or is difficult to identify, great caution is required. Indeed, many videos circulate on social networks via content aggregators, which take them and distribute them on their behalf without systematically checking them. It is therefore better to be wary of this type of source, especially if the images are sensationalist.

The ideal is to refer to accounts known and considered serious. These are, for example, specialized journalists (like the great reporters of France Télévisions who are in Ukraine), leaders, heads of institutions, experts, etc.

Most of these accounts benefit from Twitter certification (the little blue badge next to the name), which is supposed to ensure their authenticity. But this indicator does not always guarantee the accuracy of the information disseminated. So the Belarusian media NEXTA, which relays a large number of photos and amateur videos on social networks, was pinned at the end of February for having shared a false front page of the American magazine Time.

The news site, which defines itself on Twitter as “the largest media in Eastern Europe“, yet benefits from Twitter certification. The misleading post is still online, but NEXTA has published a correction in the comments of its own tweet.

Also be careful with photos and videos of the war in Ukraine relayed on social networks by general accounts, even entertainment. “Like a restaurant that does pancakes, sushi and burgers at the same time, the quality may not be there”, explains Linh-Lan Dao, from FranceTV’s Les Révélateurs verification unit. Honeyload Media has thus shared on Twitter* An image of a child confronting a soldier, which actually shows a Palestinian protester confronting an Israeli soldier in 2012.

3Check the release date of a document…

Identifying a source and assessing its reliability is a good first step, but it does not guarantee that the video or photo is not taken out of context. DMany images are shared on social networks with captions pretending that they relate to the war in Ukraine. But they actually date from earlier events.

Practical case with this photo relayed on Twitter, showing Ukrainians praying on their knees in the snow. A quick reverse image search on the TinyEye site shows that the first occurrence of this shot dates back to 2019. Long before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

A good reflex to adopt to verify the authenticity of a photo or video is therefore to make sure that it has not already been published in the past. To do this, it is possible to perform a reverse image search. This tool, available on most search engines, makes it possible to identify all occurrences of an image on the web. If Photos or videos presented as recent appear in results that are months or years old, so their use is certainly misleading.

It is also possible to install the InVid plugin on your browser to perform a reverse image search, by right-clicking on an image found on social networks. This verification tool also allows you to analyze videos based on key images, to find their previous occurrences on the web.

4… and its geographical origin

Some photos or videos are presented as taken in Ukraine while they relate to conflicts in other regions of the world. To spot them, you have to track down several clues. Identifying the language spoken or written on elements present in the image (such as signs or posters) can raise awareness.

If a place is explicitly mentioned in the caption of the image or in its geolocation, a little tour on Google Maps can make it possible to verify that the action is indeed located at the place indicated. Beware, however, of landscape changes over time, if the photo or video was taken several years ago.

With these tricks, we were able to spot videos of the explosion at the port of Beirut, which occurred in August 2020, which circulated on social networks being wrongly presented as images of the war in Ukraine.

The explosion at the port of Beirut, which occurred in August 2020, was presented as a bombing in Ukraine on a Facebook post dated February 24, 2022. (FACEBOOK SCREEN CAPTURE)

5Get information from fact-checking units

War also involves communication on social networks. Russia broadcasts staged videos there to justify its invasion of Ukraine. But the camp opposite sometimes also shares false information. The Ministry Ukrainian of Defense thus posted on Twitter, Friday, February 25, a video supposed to show a Russian plane shot down by Ukrainian forces. These are actually images from the video game. Digital Combat Simulator, as demonstrated a BBC reporter*.

The institutional accounts of the armed forces on the ground are therefore not always reliable. This tweet from the Ukrainian ministry is still online, but the social network signal in an alert message that “this medium does not match the context”referring to dverification items from Reuters Fact Check* and AP Fact Check*.

It is indeed one of the resources to have in mind in case of doubt about a content: cn recent years, press agencies, like most major media, have set up image verification units. The photos and videos relayed by these accounts are systematically authenticated before being published. In September 2021, France Télévisions opened its own verification unit, The FranceTV Revealers. You can follow them on Twitter to catch up on the images of the war in Ukraine circulating on social media.

In summary, if you come across a dubious photo, video or statement on social networks, a good reflex is to consult the sites or Twitter pages of the fact-checking cells (AFP Factual, Checknews, Info or Intox and, of course , True or Fake). An article may have already been written on the subject. In this case, you can share this article on social networks in response to the misleading post, in order to inform other Internet users.

If no verification has already been carried out, you can contact the various editorial offices and submit your question to them. To alert journalists to our True or Fake section, do not hesitate to write to them via franceinfo live. Attention, do not forget to paste the link of the post leading to the photo or video!

* Links marked with asterisks refer to content in English.


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