Posts on Facebook claiming that an Italian news channel used a shot from the 1998 film Deep Impact to falsely illustrate people fleeing the Ukrainian capital Kyiv have been shared hundreds of times. The same claim is also circulating on Twitter.
The posts compare two versions of the same picture—an extremely congested road with people standing outside their vehicles facing toward the camera—though they are of slightly different quality.
One has the Italian flag and the logo for Italian news channel TGCOM24 in the top right corner, as well as the words “Escape from Kiev”. The other has the captions “CGI” and “Movie Deep Impact”. One of the Facebook posts, shared over 600 times, has been shared with the message: “Don’t believe a word they say.”
The image in the posts does appear to be from Deep Impact. However, as several Italian fact checkers have already stated, there is no evidence that TGCOM24 actually used footage from Deep Impact in a segment about Ukrainians leaving Kyiv following the Russian invasion. None of the organisations checking this clip could find a record of it having been broadcast as part of a programme.
Full Fact contacted TGCOM24 to ask for confirmation that this image hadn’t been used, but had not received a response at the time of publishing. However Italian fact checking organisation Butac stated that an editor for TGCOM24 had confirmed the scene depicted in the posts had never been broadcast.
There are some other signs the picture might not be genuine. The placement and appearance of the logo doesn’t appear to match other videos published by TGCOM24 on its website. Real footage from TGCOM24 shows its logo often appears in the bottom right of the screen, rather than the top right as the post shows. When it is in the top right corner, it appears to be in a different format.
Photo by Do U Remember