Having bought, sold as much - this is how influencers and the media "fence" today when they copy dubious news from social networks, usually unverifiable, but too tempting to miss out on earning a few clicks on them. The latest example, which was very nicely analyzed by the "New York Times", is the downing of an American plane over Iran.
It is interesting for two reasons. One is understanding the spread of information from an obscure source to a worldwide audience of millions in an hour and nine minutes. The second is that the Iranians are using American weapons in this propaganda war - they are more skillful in managing social networks. There is a third reason, which is the simplicity of the so-called embeddings, that is, showing some content without a "physical" download, which could represent both copyright infringement and responsibility for the person who popularized that content. Embedding, if someone does not know, is placing a link to some content on the Internet, but in such a way that this content is displayed as part of our page and may mislead a less experienced user that it is the product of an author or media that he normally trusts.
Let's go back to the example. Somewhere at the end of March, on the profile of an unknown Xx user, whom the "New York Times" claims is connected to the state of Iran, a video allegedly recorded from the ground, with a phone, but actually generated by artificial intelligence, appeared, showing the outlines of an American F-18 fighter being chased and finally arriving by Iranian missiles. Only a few minutes later, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard broadcasts the video on its Telegram account, but it is still relatively low visibility. However, the announcement on the guard's account is enough to be reported by the state media in Iran, which is closely followed by various people around the world, many of whom are opponents of American policy in general, and attacks on Iran in particular. Among others, the Russian and Chinese state media. The matter now already looks serious enough that some prominent critics of Israel in the West are getting involved (there are more radical and more appropriate expressions than "critics"), who are starting to rejoice over this outcome.
Of course, those who doubt such an event immediately come forward and ask why there are no videos from the plane crash site in Iran, but those doubts are quickly dispelled by the addition that the plane flew towards the Indian Ocean where it allegedly crashed. Now we're talking about millions of views around the world and the story is spreading like wildfire and it's very likely that you yourself have seen this video on Viber, WhatsApp or wherever your friends share this kind of stuff. Only after an hour, the American army denies that any apparatus was lost that day over Iran (a few days later it really happened), but now we are already entering the zone of general disbelief, some think that the story is made up, some think that the American army is hiding losses and everyone believes what they like. What is more important, especially for Iranians, is that social networks destroy the myth of the success of the American military, which is at war with virtually no casualties. And all that in nine minutes over an hour.
This is where we come back to embedding. No one in the series of those who passed on this information will admit that they lied, but only passed on what they heard. Well, let the follower decide for himself, he is smart enough. It's as if forwarding cancels all responsibility, which we witness every day when various things, now perfected by artificial intelligence, reach us from friends and acquaintances through all digital channels.
Gone are the days when the news had to be verified in order to be published, today it is enough for serious media that it has crossed many screens to take it into account, because - who knows.
In such a world, the key question is no longer whether something is true, but who will be the first to succeed in making some information believable enough to look as if it is correct, even for those crucial first hours. And that is quite enough to change the mood of the public, influence the market, ignite propaganda and once again confirm that in digital wars it is not necessarily the one who has the strongest weapon who wins, but the one who better understands how other people's weaknesses work. If they lied to me, that doesn't mean they won. But if I believed them just because it was convenient for me to believe them, then I finished their work myself.
