Journalists worldwide have started receiving emails with a fake video claiming to be a video by WIRED, a world-renowned technology-themed magazine. The video claims that GSC Game World is supposedly collecting data from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 players and passing it on to the Ukrainian government. The video is also being actively shared on Telegram channels.

Source: 404 Media

Details: 404 Media noted that the fake video says that "Ukrainian game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 helps the government locate citizens suitable for mobilisation". It was also said in the video that "an embedded program was discovered in the game’s code that collects player data and transmits it to the developer’s servers. The program collects data about the device, name, IP address and current location of the player. The information is transmitted every second."

Indeed, WIRED has nothing to do with this video. In the best traditions of fake news, the video shows just footage from the game and some incomprehensible piece of code that randomly selects a date or platform.

The French news agency AFP, along with many other media outlets, received the fake video and called it "Operation Matryoshka". Researchers from the Digital Forensic Research Lab stated that the goal of such operations is to flood the public discourse with false and low-quality materials and force journalists to ignore a particular topic. The Russians simply cannot accept the fact that the Ukrainian game is being played and discussed all over the world.

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