It seems that the UK Russian Embassy in London has provided the world with a picture from a popular video game in order to distribute a news story. Instead of using actual footage and photographs in a recent Twitter post, the Embassy has used a screenshot from the video game Command and Conquer: Generals.
Aleppo, the subject of the tweet, is the largest city in Syria with over 2 million people living there. It is also one of the oldest. Unfortunately, this means that it has seen its fair share of violence throughout the years, so many people are not taking this use of a video game image lightly. It looks like a ceasefire has ended today, resulting in an airstrike on the city.
Many people have questioned the Embassy’s choice of using a video game picture as opposed to one showing the real life trucks. But despite the lack of a legitimate image worthy of a news story, it has also received some hilarious feedback from Twitter users. It seems that social media never fails when you need a good laugh.
This isn’t the first time that a news outlet has used a video game image in a news story. A few years ago, BBC accidentally used an image from the mega-popular game Halo in a news story. It looks like that was purely an ignorant accident due to a less than thorough Google search.
At least we can be thankful the UK Russian Embassy added a caption to their photo in their tweet stating that the image was used for illustration purposes only. I am sure they did not want to fall into the footsteps of the BBC and be accused of not knowing that their picture was from a video game.