BEWARE—Fake news and Phony Photos all the Rage now

May 10, 2024

Iran’s state television tried to impress its viewers with the success of the Islamic Republic’s attack on Israel by showing videos it said were from Israel when they were actually old videos from places like Chile and Argentina. Meanwhile, the internet is being bedeviled with miscaptioned photographs that say they show some current event when they actually were taken years previously of something else.

 It is necessary to be very suspicious of internet postings by groups or individuals that are not recognized as proven news outlets. State television in Iran is supposed to be run by professionals, but sometimes they have a political agenda that overrides all other concerns. Right after the Islamic Republic’s missile barrage on Israel, state television broadcast footage it said showed “Israelis panicking” while under attack, with people running around and screaming. Actually, the video did not show either Israelis or people panicking.

BBC Monitoring said the video was actually taken a week earlier showing excited fans in Argentina greeting British musician Louis Tomlinson. Another video showed a multitude of fires erupting on the horizon, which state television said showed the explosions after Iranian missiles exploded all across Israel. BBC monitoring said that video was taken in February of forest fires that ravaged Chile.

Yet another video showed Palestinians celebrating outside the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. State television said they were cheering over the multitude of Iranian missiles smashing into Israel. But they were actually celebrating the end of Ramadan days earlier. State broadcasting also proclaimed that drones launched by the Islamic Republic “had struck specific targets in the occupied territories.”

But that was broadcast just after the Pasdaran announced the launch of the drones, which then faced a 6-1/2-hour flight to reach Israel and hadn’t struck anything when state broadcasting was proclaiming their devastating impact. Someone recognized the error and quickly re-broadcast the launch story without including the tale of targets being obliterated.