It is time to start screaming about fake war videos

One of the distinguishing features of the current conflict in the Middle East is the creation and use of fake videos. These videos have firmly established that visual media are the fastest way to reach tens of millions of people in a very short time and create a widely believed false narrative on which public judgment and real lives depend. Used as propaganda and psychological pressure, such videos have never been as pervasive as they are today.

This war is proving, beyond any serious doubt, that visual media have joined bombs, aircraft, missiles, and drones in the arsenal of modern warfare. They shape perceptions of military success, show false civilian suffering, create vulnerabilities, and lessen or heighten political legitimacy. They are far more than the old methods of propaganda, such as planting fake stories in newspapers.
The appeal is obvious: a fake video can be created in a few minutes at almost no cost and can reach tens of millions of viewers. In some cases, new footage does not even need to be created, only cut from existing media. For example, a short video purporting to show an Iranian missile hitting a U.S. aircraft has received more than 70 million views. It is footage from a video game.

That should alarm us for an obvious reason: video has become the easiest route to deception for psychological effect. People may doubt a statement by a political leader, and they may question a government statistic. But show them a huge fireball, a missile trail, a building collapsing, or a screaming child, and millions will assume they are seeing truth with their own eyes.

Today, a trained eye can still often spot a fake video. Very soon, it may not be able to. We are approaching a turning point in human history: the total inability to distinguish fact from fiction with confidence. That should worry us greatly.

Here is the moral divide we should be talking about: should we allow the power of visual media to be captured entirely by those who create falsehood rather than truth? Those of us who use mass media for ethical reasons, to inform and shape opinion and behaviour honestly through messaging rigorously anchored in truth, need to confront this perverse use of modern communications not by gentle persuasion alone, but by loudly sounding the alarm about its implications for the future of humanity.