An Iranian state television report showing an alleged Hezbollah sniper shooting six ISIS soldiers that has circulated around the Middle East was proven fake by French media; it was footage taken from a Let’s Play video of 2010’s Medal of Honor.
The “incredible footage” featured, according to the Iranian report, “six Daesh combatants are killed in 2 minutes by a Hezbollah sniper.” (Daesh is the Arabic name for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which Western countries have been calling ISIS.)
French news outlet France 24 recognized the action as streamed video from Medal of Honor, probably shot on a cell phone of action on a television screen or monitor. For one, killing in the video were accompanied by a blurry popup, which was the icon players received when they scored a headshot.
This was almost certainly deliberate on the Iranian state television’s part, because the moments at which there were pop ups from the player’s friends in the upper right hand part of the screen, the video was zoomed away from it. Hell, even the bottom part of the monitor was in the footage, so it was hardly “live video” of anything.
This isn’t the first time a television station mistook videogames for reality. UK broadcaster ITV mistook ArmA II gameplay footage for the real thing, which was a major controversy, leading to official criticism of the station by a governmental regulatory committee.
The Let’s Play video was posted back in 2012, two years after Medal of Honor was released. The game was a mediocre effort by Electronic Arts, but no matter how obscure and dated a source is, plagiary of that scale will be outed on the internet.
