Here is an uncomfortable truth: in the age of high-definition gaming and social media speed, we have lost the ability to distinguish fiction from reality. And it only took a War Thunder gameplay clip to prove it.
Last week, a video depicting a naval battle began circulating on X (formerly Twitter). The clip garnered over seven million views, shared across platforms by accounts claiming it showed a US warship destroying an Iranian fighter jet during the current Middle Eastern conflict. The imagery was visceral: a damaged ship blazing with gunfire, a plane struck and spiralling into the water.
The problem was simple but devastating. None of it was real.
Agence France-Presse investigated and found that the footage almost certainly originates from War Thunder and shows the USS Tennessee, a dreadnought built in the 1910s that was decommissioned in 1947. The supposed Iranian fighter plane appears to be a Messerschmitt Me 163B-1a Komet, which is a military vehicle that was used in World War 2.
So we had a World War II-era battleship and a Nazi-era fighter jet being sold as contemporary combat footage. Millions believed it anyway.
When Political Leaders Get Fooled
The story might have remained a footnote in the expanding catalogue of online hoaxes, except for who decided to amplify it. The post was shared by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, in which he captioned the clip with "Bye bye" before deleting it.
This was not some random social media user making a mistake. This was an elected leader with significant influence choosing to share unverified war footage with his followers. The fact that he later deleted the post suggests someone on his staff realised the error, but the damage had already been done. His amplification had lent credibility to false information at a moment when the public was trying to understand a serious global crisis.
The incident raises legitimate questions about due diligence in the digital age. If a state governor cannot verify the content he shares before posting it, what hope do ordinary citizens have? The fact that War Thunder could dupe a state leader speaks to its impressive graphics. The game allows 32 to 64 players to battle it out on over 140 different maps representing historical combat zones. Players engage in combined battles where tanks, helicopters, and ships all fight in the same match, utilizing damage models that are strictly based on physics. For a casual observer, the chaos of multiple rocket launchers and anti-aircraft guns creating a firestorm can be mistaken for modern news, especially when viewed on a small smartphone screen.
A Broader Pattern of Deception
This was not an isolated incident. This is not an exceptional incident, but a trend in contemporary warfare. Last year, as war loomed in the Middle East, clips of both Arma 3 and War Thunder were used as propaganda, with even the Israeli military getting involved to clarify "the footage is fake." Arma 3 especially is often mis-used in this way, thanks to its realistic visual style.
The White House itself demonstrated the problem. The White House even recently published a video montage of air strikes and warship sinkings, bizarrely laced with references to the Call of Duty games. When governments blend game footage with real conflict material, they legitimise the entire genre as a source of war information.
Here is where the centre-right concern about institutional credibility becomes crucial. Governments, news organisations, and political leaders have a responsibility to verify information before broadcasting it to the public. Abbott's mistake was not a personal failing so much as a symptom of institutional decay. When responsible sources cannot be trusted to distinguish fact from fiction, citizens have no reliable anchor for understanding major events.
The Information Vacuum Problem
But there is another layer to this story, and it complicates any simple morality tale. With verified footage from the current war limited due to security restrictions, these simulations fill the information gap all too convincingly. The US military and its allies do not release comprehensive battle footage in real time. Iran releases propagandistic material of its own. Independent journalists often cannot reach active conflict zones.
Into this vacuum, high-fidelity games naturally flow. The appeal is obvious: they look authentic, they require no classified intelligence to create, and they satisfy a basic human hunger to understand what is happening in the world.
This is where the real scandal lies. The scandal is not that a video game clip got mistaken for real footage. That was almost inevitable given modern graphics technology. The scandal is that governments and media organisations have not adapted their communication strategies to this new reality. There should be strict protocols in place. Military sources should provide verified footage more regularly. News organisations should employ verification specialists trained specifically to detect gaming footage.
The Case for Scepticism
The War Thunder incident teaches a lesson that cuts across ideological lines. Those on the left should question whether their trust in "citizen journalism" and user-generated content is misplaced. Those on the right should question whether their scepticism of mainstream media has left them more vulnerable to outright fabrication when it flows from sources they find politically agreeable.
The pragmatic response is neither total trust nor total scepticism. It is structural reform. Social media platforms should implement mandatory verification systems for conflict footage. Educational campaigns should teach the public how to spot gaming footage. And political leaders should adopt a simple rule: if you cannot verify it in the moment, do not amplify it.
Abbott's deleted post was embarrassing, but it need not have been tragic. The real question is whether the incident will catalyse genuine change in how we handle information during crises, or whether it will be forgotten by next week, only to happen again with the next conflict.