Video Game Footage Viral as ‘IAF Airstrikes in PoK’

The same footage went viral with false claims after the Balakot airstrike in 2019.

Footage from a video game Arma 2 went viral on social media with several users passing it off as the “exclusive footage” of the attack by the Indian army.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

Video Editor: Ashutosh Bhardwaj

On Thursday, 20 November, several news channels, based on a report by news agency PTI, reported that the Indian Army had carried out ‘pinpoint strikes’ to destroy terror launchpads in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK). This claim was later refuted by the Indian Army.

Amid this, footage from a video game Arma 2 went viral on social media with several users passing it off as the “exclusive footage” of the attack.

CLAIM

The video is being shared on Facebook and Twitter with a claim which reads: “ Big Breaking News:- One more #AirStrike by @IAF_MCC in the Pok, Many #terrorists and their training camps demolished by #indianairforce Many terrorists also killed in this air strike.” (sic)

Some users also insinuated that the said airstrikes are a gift from the forces to the country this Diwali.

An archived version of the tweet can be accessed here.(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

An archived version of the tweet can be accessed here.(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

An archived version of the tweet can be accessed here.(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

An archived version of the post can be accessed here.(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

WHAT WE FOUND

The fact that the Indian Army had refuted claims of any strikes in PoK meant that the visuals being circulated on social media were unrelated. To further verify them, we fragmented the video into several keyframes using the InVid Google Chrome extension and ran a reverse image search.

It was revealed that the clip of the viral video is taken from a YouTube video uploaded in 2015 by a channel called Double Doppler.

According to the description of this video, it is from a video game called Arma 2. Next, we compared the frames from the viral with those of the video game footage and found that the viral clip was indeed lifted from Arma 2.

(Photo: The Quint)

(Photo: The Quint)

Clearly, an old and unrelated clip was circulated to claim that it shows a purported IAF strike in PoK.

It is noteworthy that the same footage went viral with misleading claims after the Balakot airstrike in 2019. You can read our story here.

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