In the last few days, some videos are going viral in which some are seen Kamchatka apartment buildingsin Russia, totally covered in snow: we’re talking about high snowdrifts tens of meters on which people ski, walk or sled. But are these real images or generated with AI? As we will see, for the most part it is artificially generated videos which not only were shared by millions of users, but they were also covered by TV news and information sites – including some Italian media.
The first thing to keep in mind is that the context of these videos is real: Kamchatka was actually hit by one of the strongest snowstorms in 30 years. At a local level this has created quite a few problems: people trapped in their homes, roads and airports totally unusable and there is even talk of some victims buried by snow falling from the roofs.
By looking at the data – for example by consulting Russian and local media – it is easy to discover how the maximum height reached by the snow is never higher than 5-6 meters. These are enormous values, sure, but a far cry from having an entire apartment building covered in snow. Below is an authentic video in which you can see the effort in trying to shovel the driveways of a residential area:
It is precisely here, however, that the dozens of videos made with AI: these are contents that show mountains of snow tens of meters high on which people ski happily. These are clearly fake images and we can deduce this from several elements:
- snowdrifts have unlikely and unrealistic heights;
- the snow drifts do not have uniform heights and are concentrated only along the edges of the buildings, “randomly” forming perfect ski slopes;
- the snow appears excessively homogeneous in appearance;
- in some videos there is no snow on the balcony windowsills and on the roofs;
- in many videos the movements of people, skis and sleds are unrealistic.
In case you still have doubts about this, know that the official denial it also came from various Russian media, such as the Курсив Медиаwhich confirmed the presence of numerous fake videos online – also considered disrespectful given the presence of victims.
The important thing, and which will become increasingly important, is to be critics and don’t believe everything we see, even if the information is given to us by national TV news or famous newspapers.
