Current wars are not fought on the battlefields alone but also on social media. Whether it is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or Israel’s pummeling of Gaza, the media is always awash with images and videos allegedly from the war. Sadly, fake images and videos circulate along with real ones. Czech game development studio Bohemia Interactive recently found in-game footage from Arma 3 being circulated as events from the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
“It’s disheartening to us to see the game we all love being used in this way,” the studio wrote through their X social media handle. “While we have found ways to tackle this issue somewhat effectively by closely cooperating with leading fact-checking agencies, sadly we can’t mitigate it entirely.”
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According to Bohemia Interactive in-game footage from Arma 3 was falsely being circulated as the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. Sadly, false narratives tend to go viral on social media since many people rarely verify these videos or images before hitting the share button.
Arma 3 is an open sandbox military simulation game set in the “middle of a futuristic fictional conflict in 2035”. What makes the game really stand out is its openness to user-generated content and customizations.
Modders can create “whole new terrains, ground vehicles, aircraft, weapons, uniforms, equipment, and scenarios,” according to Bohemia Interactive. This user-generated content can be shared with a community of players.
The studio noted that there are over 20,000 Arma 3 mods available to download via Steam Workshop as of October 2023. What that means is that modders “can recreate and simulate any historic, present, or future conflict in great detail”.
Challenges with Bohemia Interactive’s attempts to fight the disinformation
While Arma 3 modding possibilities have been a delight, it has also made it possible for mischievous people to use the modified game to spread fake news. According to Bohemia Interactive, some of these videos are shared by news agencies.
“While it’s flattering that Arma 3 simulates modern war conflicts in such a realistic way, we are certainly not pleased that it can be mistaken for real-life combat footage and used as war propaganda,” said the studio’s PR Manager Pavel Křižka in a statement.
The studio mentioned that footage from Arma 3 has been used in the past to depict conflict in “Afghanistan, Syria, Palestine, and even between India and Pakistan”. On their part, Bohemia Interactive tries to get such malicious use of their in-game footage flagged and removed. However, that has not worked effectively.
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“With every video taken down, ten more are uploaded each day,” Křižka said. “We found the best way to tackle this is to actively cooperate with leading media outlets and fact-checkers (such as AFP, Reuters, and others), who have better reach and the capacity to fight the spreading of fake news footage effectively.”
Bohemia Interactive highlights ways to identify fake videos from in-game
One of the approaches to fighting fake news is to educate the end users on ways to identify fake videos. Bohemia Interactive tried to do that by highlighting some of the ways social media users can distinguish real-world footage from in-game videos. Some of the fine details the studio wants viewers to watch out for include;
- Very low resolution: fake videos are often of low quality and are intentionally made blurry or pixelated to hide the details that will make them easily identifiable as fake.
- Shaky camera: the videos are filmed from screens with exaggerated shakes to make it feel like they were filmed on the field.
- Videos captured at night: to hide the scenes in the video game.
- Often captured without sound: knowing that sound will easily blow their cover, these bad actors capture these videos without sound.
- Videos don’t feature humans in motion: Bohemia Interactive said simulating natural-looking humans in motion is still very difficult even for the most advanced games which is why they avoid capturing human movements which would make it easy to identify the videos as fake.
- Visible Heads-Up Display elements: the studio advised users to pay attention to the edges or corners of the footage for the game’s user interfaces like “vehicle status, ammunition counters, weapon selection, and in-game messages”.
- Unnatural particle effects: just like human movements, properly capturing particle effects like explosions, smoke, fire, and dust, are still very difficult.
- Unrealistic vehicles, equipment, and uniforms: it’s easy to identify unrealistic military assets if you have knowledge of advanced military equipment.
Finally, Bohemia Interactive asked modders to ensure the responsible use of their game footage. They also asked modders to refrain from using clickbait titles and clearly state that the video was generated from a video game. The studio also called on the public to help point out such videos.
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