It’s a fact that not everything on social media is true, and people can be easily manipulated through the gimmicks being played there. A lot of incidents happen every day when rumors circulated on social media go to extremes until someone corrects them with facts. However, an incident of the same kind happened recently when a retired four-star general of the U.S., Barry McCaffrey, shared a video on his Twitter with the caption, “Russian aircraft getting nailed by [Ukraine] missile defense.” The video blew up the minds of the Twitterati, as, according to them, it’s footage of a video game. His inbox was filled with massive responses, which made him take down the video after six minutes.
Twitter users said that what he said in a caption is no doubt an authentic thing that is happening, but the footage is not real as it’s of a video game that was circulating a few days back. The caption which McCaffery wrote was, “Russian aircraft getting nailed by UKR missile defense. The Russians are losing large numbers of attack aircraft. “UKR air defense is becoming formidable.” However, he has deleted the entire tweet now with a reply of “OK,” after the magnitudinous comeback of users.
The video that the General shared was taken from the “Digital Combat Simulator” of the game known as “Arma 3”. McCaffery usually works as a paid analyst for NBC as well as MSNBC news. During his tenure in the military, he has received a lot of recognition for his services under President Clinton and has earned three Purple Heart medals and two Silver Stars as well.
As far as the video is concerned, it escalated rapidly due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, and people couldn’t withstand another fake video as a lot of people are posting manipulated videos of the Russia Ukraine conflict on the video-sharing app named “Tiktok.” Social media keeps taking down such videos, but obviously, due to an enormous number of users on such platforms, some videos are left unchecked. However, there has been no response from General about the fake video as of now after deleting the post.
To that end, this thing is clear that the power of social media cannot be underestimated.