One way you could convince people something happened (when it actually didn’t) would be to create and share a fake video, image or quote. The problem is, it can be pretty hard to falsify a convincing piece of media, so one strategy used to avoid going through all that effort is just to take some real content and create a false context matching the desired narrative.
A good way to get a better understanding of how this might work is by seeing it in action, so let’s do that. This image shows a pigeon which got a plastic bag stuck on its head … well, whole body really:
Members of the Birds Aren’t Real community claim that birds are actually government drones used to spy on us. One user took the above image and reposted with their own inauthentic context, claiming that government operatives forgot to properly unpack the bird drone:
This image has been taken out of its original legitimate context (the bird got stuck in a bag), and presented as evidence of the desired narrative (birds are drones, and this one wasn’t unpacked properly). This tactic meant the user could create a story backed up by imagery, without having to make the image.
Real World Examples
At the time of writing we are in the second day of Russia’s (2022) invasion of Ukraine. Here are some examples I am seeing where investigators uncover the use of False Context surrounding the subject:
- Abbie Richards on Twitter: A fake TikTok from Ukraine has garnered over 5 million views in 12 hours. It features a couple repeating “oh my god, oh my god” then there’s a loud explosion, screaming and he saw “ow my leg.” I found this exact audio on another video from the 2020 Beirut explosion.
- Devika Khandelwal on Twitter: This video circulating on TikTok has 18 MILLION views with the claim, “Ukrainian and Russian soldiers face to face.” This video is actually from 2014 from the Belbek Air Base.
- Ben Collins on Twitter: Here’s a good example of war misinfo that’s plaguing TikTok right now. This video of a parachuting soldier has 20 million views on TikTok. The top comment? “Bro is recording an invasion.” But he isn’t. This video is from 2016.
(For anyone counting, that’s 43 million views across just three pieces of media shared with false context).
Further Reading
- Ukraine conflict: Many misleading images have been shared online by Alistair Coleman & Shayan Sardarizadeh on 24 Feb 2022
- Ukraine conflict: Further false images shared online by Alistair Coleman on 25 Feb 2022
- An image shows people in Ukraine praying in the snow amid conflict with Russia by Annie Priya on 24 Feb 2022
- First Draft’s Essential Guide to Understanding Information Disorder by First Draft in Oct 2019
Relevant Content from the Article Archives
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