Dissecting Dissimulation 0
The Associated Press offers a round-up of dis- and misinformation about the conflict in between Israel and Hamas currently being “shared” (that’s another word for “spewed”) on “social” media.
I commend it to your attention, not only for the debunking, but also for the descriptions how the lies are crafted, from misrepresenting videos to mistranslating transcripts. Here’s one example:
THE FACTS: The video is from 2022 and shows soldiers from the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division arriving in Romania.
The footage shows soldiers dressed in fatigues getting off of a plane at night, carrying their belongings and walking across the tarmac.
One post with the video on X, formerly known as Twitter, had more than 9,000 likes with text that reads: “HAPPENING NOW: Thousands of U.S. Marines Just Landed in Israel WW3 HIGH ALERT”
However the video doesn’t show Marines nor Israel, and it isn’t recent.
The original can be found on the Defense Department’s media distribution website, which says it shows U.S. Army soldiers arriving in Romania in June last year. “101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) Soldiers arrive in Mihail Kogainiceani, Romania, June 28, 2022,” reads the video’s description.
The site says the unit was there “to reinforce NATO’s eastern flank” and conduct multinational exercises with allies across Europe.
One more time, “social” media isn’t.
And it especially isn’t a reliable source of factual news.
