Black smoke in the sky, thundering sirens, distant bombardments: on Instagram, Twitter or even TikTok, it’s war live. Armed with their phones, many Ukrainians document their daily lives there since the invasion of their country by Moscow. But through the thousands of photos and videos posted on social networks, misinformation always makes its way and puts our judgment to the test.
Barely hours after the announcement of the launch of a “military operation” by Russian President Vladimir Putin on the night of Wednesday to Thursday, testimonies began to multiply on digital platforms. On the videos, we see buildings on fire, military tanks crossing a village, pieces of missiles on the ground. On others, it is above all deafening noises, signs of an explosion or a bombardment, which attract our attention, without our eye always being able to verify it.
Citizens and journalists on the spot thus told through their telephone the evolution of the situation in Ukraine, but also the fear and the ambient incomprehension throughout the day of Thursday. In Kyiv, for example, some took refuge in the metro waiting for the shelling to stop. Others wanted to leave the city as quickly as possible by taking the road to the west, which created a huge traffic jam, as evidenced by several live from their car. This is without forgetting the images showing the long queues in front of pharmacies and food stores in several major cities of the country.
These images quickly went viral, “shared” and “re-shared” thousands of times around the world. “To have access to this information so quickly, without any filter, directly from people’s phones in Ukraine, we can consider that a privilege. Especially in a conflict that involves an opaque regime like that of Russia,” judge Camille Lopez, a freelance journalist specializing in disinformation and digital culture.
Social networks, she says, have the advantage of giving access to many testimonials in a few clicks and allowing users to follow the evolution of events in real time, even when they are on the other side of the world.
A few years ago, you had to rely on the traditional media to relay information in times of war or major disasters. It involved some barriers, says Marc-François Bernier, professor of journalism at the University of Ottawa. “There is necessarily a selection of testimonies and images, because we can’t pass everything. A waiting time also between the action and the passage of information to the citizens”, he gives as an example. However, today, we have access to everything, immediately.
Social networks thus represent a gold mine of information while being “a real minefield”, underlines the professor.
Disinformation
As with every event of this magnitude, fake news has crept in at breakneck speed among the thousands of publications on the crisis between Kiev and Moscow.
Several media have also begun to list them to warn the public. Agence France-Presse (AFP) gives the example of this video widely distributed and seen several thousand times, supposed to show Russian fighter planes flying close to apartment buildings in Ukraine. This is actually a military parade rehearsal in Russia performed from 2020.
Another video that has gone viral, in which we see night-time missile firings that would have taken place in Ukraine overnight, instead shows us missiles fired from Gaza towards Israel in May 2021, still according to AFP, which pinned some dozens like that.
“It’s the reverse of social networks, it’s a double-edged sword. Since it’s unfiltered, that means anyone can post, take out images of old conflicts and hashtag #Ukraine on them. Many do this just to get clicks, notes journalist Camille Lopez. You have to be extremely careful, especially if you cannot verify the information yourself. »
And the more the conflict will advance, the more it will be necessary to be careful, according to Marc-François Bernier. Because in addition to human errors and intentional misinformation, propaganda will also carve out a place on social networks. “Whether it’s Russia or the Western allies, you have to be clear, it’s going to come from both sides. Some will send messages to influence people in this conflict, and for that, they will use the tactics of fake news predicts the professor.
“Our worst enemy in this is ourselves, because it is our judgment that will be constantly tested,” he concludes, inviting the population to fall back on reliable sources such as the media. traditional.