#FactCheck : Old Video of Birds Misleadingly Linked to Iran’s Attack on Israel Goes Viral
Executive Summary
Amid the ongoing hostilities between Israel and Iran, a video is rapidly going viral on social media with Hindi and Urdu captions. The clip shows several vehicles on a road while a large number of black birds can be seen circling in the sky. Users are sharing the video with the claim that it shows thousands of crows hovering over Tel Aviv after an Iranian attack. Some have even described it as a sign of a major impending event.
However, an research by the CyberPeace found the claim to be misleading. The viral video is old and has no connection to the ongoing conflict between Iran and Israel.
Fact Check
To verify the claim, a keyframe from the video was reverse searched on Yandex. This led to the same video being shared on Reddit on June 13, 2024, where it was described as footage from the US state of Texas. Further searches using the keywords “Crows in Texas” revealed that the same video had been shared on Facebook in April and June 2024. These posts also claimed that the visuals were captured near a supermarket in Texas, where a large number of crows were seening.
While the exact location of the video cannot be independently confirmed, the available evidence clearly establishes that the footage predates the current conflict and is unrelated to any recent events involving Iran or Israel.
Conclusion
The viral video showing a flock of birds in the sky is not linked to any Iranian attack on Israel. It has been available online since 2024 and is being falsely shared in the context of the ongoing conflict.
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Introduction
Two of the most influential voices offered strikingly divergent visions of humanity’s technological future in May 2026. On one side of the equation was Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, who spoke of a future in which intelligence would be a "service like electricity or water," available on a metered basis and powered by massive AI infrastructure. On the other side was Leo XIV, the Pope of the Catholic Church, whose encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, presented the Church's most substantial response to AI, presenting the technology not simply as a technical innovation but also as a crucial moral, social, and civilizational challenge.
The differences in their views run much deeper than merely those regarding control and development. At issue is a conflict in understanding intelligence, the purpose of technology, and the dignity of man. While Altman saw intelligence as an abundant economic factor, one that could be produced, distributed, and consumed, Leo XIV emphasized that intelligence is indissociable from the person and that we should be wary of turning human potential into mere merchandise. Their clash of visions can essentially be understood as two different answers to the question: What is a human being, and to whose service should technology be devoted?
Intelligence as Infrastructure
Altman implies that artificial intelligence will follow the trajectory of electricity in industrial society, where the utility became available everywhere as part of the bedrock of society. The ultimate goal is to generate abundance. Cognitive ability will become cheaper and more readily available until it is so inexpensive that it is built into everything.
From the perspective of the business, this is compelling. In many ways modern AI already has infrastructure-like properties. Programmers, businesses, governments, and even individuals are using intelligence as a commodity delivered by a centralized platform and API in a way similar to how previous generations would have used the electricity grid. Altman is essentially predicting that this trend will reach its ultimate form, where intelligence becomes a utility.
There are several assumptions inherent in this utility metaphor; however, utilities are never neutral technologies; they are all forms of governance, ownership, and control. It is not merely the resource being delivered that makes electricity grids, telephone systems, and water infrastructure powerful but the institutions that mediate access to those resources. In Altman's statement "people will buy it from us," there is a political question inherent: Who does the infrastructure of cognition belong to?
Altman himself is also concerned with these issues, often reiterating that this technology could lead to an unprecedented concentration of power and wealth. Yet this concern is a paradox, as truly democratized artificial intelligence does not appear possible without immense capital investment, colossal data centers, proprietary models, and a monopolization of talent. The path to making intelligence universally available appears to lie through unprecedented centralization.
The Vatican's Response: Beyond Technology
Magnifica Humanitas approaches this from a different perspective. It is not, fundamentally, a document on AI policy but on social philosophy, rooted in the Catholic tradition of social teaching. Just as Rerum Novarum, published in 1891, had explored the social implications of industrial capitalism, Leo XIV views AI as a new juncture in humankind's engagement with technology and power.
Two biblical images are recurring throughout the encyclical: Babel and Jerusalem. Babel, the archetype of technical ambition without purpose or moral intent, is an effort to reorder and recenter human society based on conformity, centralization, and the delusion of self-sufficiency. Jerusalem, rebuilt under Nehemiah, is an image of collective reconstruction based on participation and responsibility.
The symbolic weight is critical. Leo XIV is not arguing that technology in itself is inherently dangerous. He is, rather, suggesting that the tools of technology will inherently contain and perpetuate whatever values, incentives, and priorities of the architects and wielders of these technologies. The question is not therefore whether AI should exist, but rather whether it increases human flourishing or enhances systems of control.
This provides what is likely the most significant realization within the encyclical that AI and human intelligence are categories distinct in kind, not in degree. AI can simulate, calculate, and compute, but it can never possess awareness, ethical responsibility, embodiment, or meaningful relationships. As such, decisions impacting human life can no longer be deferred to algorithms in a manner that negates the human good.
The Problem of Power
The most evident clash between Altman's vision and Magnifica Humanitas lies in power dynamics.
The utility model of Altman places the assumption that intelligence can be centrally controlled and widely disseminated. However, the Vatican perceives major political consequences from the concentration of cognitive ability. According to the encyclical, this kind of concentration can lead to major political problems because small groups are given immense power over the economy, public debate, and democracy by possessing the necessary control over data, computation, and the network.
This idea is becoming more prominent in recent research. Experts like Kate Crawford, for instance, have described AI as 'a registry of power' in which systems build up hierarchies of social, political, and economic power. Digital colonialism scholars also show that the control of the network of intelligence under a few transnational corporations may diminish power that would otherwise reside with local authorities and democratic institutions.
The problem, seen from this point of view, does not simply address technology but sovereignty itself. If intelligence is provided as a metered service within private platforms, the access to knowledge, reason, and decision-making tools might rest with entities outside the public sphere, unconcerned with democracy.
The Vatican's solution relies on the principle of subsidiarity; decisions should be taken at the lowest possible levels, respecting the autonomy of individuals, communities, and local institutions. This principle directly contradicts the proposals that see cognitive infrastructure located within a few multinational organizations.
The Hidden Labour Behind AI
A particularly important segment of Magnifica Humanitas addresses the invisible labor of the AI economy.
While discourse on AI frequently conceptualizes it as an intangible or ethereal technology residing within "the cloud," the opposite is in fact the case. AI relies on the unseen labors of data annotators, content moderators, miners harvesting rare earth metals, construction workers creating data centers, and technicians repairing digital infrastructure. In many cases, these workers exist in marginal situations; investigations have revealed poor wages, minimal rights, and psychologically damaging working conditions, especially for content moderators and data annotators in the Global South. Critics contend that the AI of today exists on the backbone of an unacknowledged global workforce that is shielded from consumers of AI technology. In the encyclical, this idea of the AI economy is framed in terms of human dignity, the standard by which all progress, technological or otherwise, must be measured. Progress cannot be defined solely in terms of efficiency and productivity but must be defined by its consequences for workers, society, and human relationships. While the technology of AI may confer tremendous value to a few, it must not do so at the expense of the humanity of others. It gives a key critique of Altman’s utility model that the appeal of abundant intelligence often focuses on products while neglecting the social and material conditions in which it is produced.
A Clash of Anthropologies
The deepest philosophical disagreement of Altman's and Leo XIV's is over anthropology, i.e., who human beings actually are.
Altman’s view presumes an ability to quantify and allocate the human capacity for intelligence. The more intelligent the society, the better the society; and intelligence becomes the prime causal factor whose production must be maximized by the machine.
The Vatican rejects this fundamental principle. According to the argument of Magnifica Humanitas, human value is not located in intelligent productivity or efficiency or economic productivity. Dignity is non-conditional and cannot be reduced to measures of performance. One has dignity not because one can compute, produce, and optimize, but because one is a person.
The implications of this difference are vast. If intelligence is principally treated as an economic asset, then humans will constantly have to deal with being judged as being of greater or lesser use compared to the machine. If dignity is intrinsic, machines must remain instruments of the flourishing of the human, irrespective of machine efficiency. In sum, this is not a debate over machines. It is a debate over whether society is going to be defined according to an ideology of optimization or an ideology of humanity.
Conclusion
The juxtaposition of Sam Altman’s model of utility and Leo XIV’s idea of Magnifica Humanitas defines one of the key intellectual arguments of our times. Altman presents a vision of abundance, efficiency, and humanly impossible intellectual capacity. Leo XIV represents what happens when intelligence is divorced from the demands of ethics, democracy, and human dignity; when the demands they represent only contribute to its ultimate capacity to wound the needs it serves.
It is not whether we will build machines more and more intelligent; it is what politics and values will govern these machines. When intelligence becomes a service, whose interests will govern the machine, who will write the rules, and who will be the direct beneficiaries? When dignity is the source from which man and machine alike emerge, the service must not be judged on what the machine does best but on what it can do for man. The ultimate question is whether we will be able to maintain a view of ourselves that is larger than just our capacity to engineer.
References:
- Atlas of AI, Crawford, Kate. Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021.
- Pope Leo XIV. Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence. Vatican City: Holy See, 2026.
- Pope Leo XIII. Rerum Novarum. Vatican City: Holy See, 1891.
- Pope John Paul II. Laborem Exercens. Vatican City: Holy See, 1981.
- Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. Dignitas Infinita. Vatican City: Holy See, 2024.
- International Theological Commission. Quo Vadis, Humanitas? Thinking About Christian Anthropology in the Face of Some Scenarios on the Future of Humanity. Vatican City, 2026.
- Nick Lichtenberg. "Sam Altman Admits AI Is Killing the Labor-Capital Balance—and Says Nobody Knows What to Do About It." Fortune, 12 March 2026.
Executive Summary
A dramatic video showing several people jumping from the upper floors of a building into what appears to be thick snow has been circulating on social media, with users claiming that it captures a real incident in Russia during heavy snowfall. In the footage, individuals can be seen leaping one after another from a multi-storey structure onto a snow-covered surface below, eliciting reactions ranging from amusement to concern. The claim accompanying the video suggests that it depicts a reckless real-life episode in a snow-hit region of Russia.
A thorough analysis by CyberPeace confirmed that the video is not a real-world recording but an AI-generated creation. The footage exhibits multiple signs of synthetic media, including unnatural human movements, inconsistent physics, blurred or distorted edges, and a glossy, computer-rendered appearance. In some frames, a partial watermark from an AI video generation tool is visible. Further verification using the Hive Moderation AI-detection platform indicated that 98.7% of the video is AI-generated, confirming that the clip is entirely digitally created and does not depict any actual incident in Russia.
Claim:
The video was shared on social media by an X (formerly Twitter) user ‘Report Minds’ on January 25, claiming it showed a real-life event in Russia. The post caption read: "People jumping off from a building during serious snow in Russia. This is funny, how they jumped from a storey building. Those kids shouldn't be trying this. It's dangerous." Here is the link to the post, and below is a screenshot.
Fact Check:
The Desk used the InVid tool to extract keyframes from the viral video and conducted a reverse image search, which revealed multiple instances of the same video shared by other users with similar claims. Upon close visual examination, several anomalies were observed, including unnatural human movements, blurred and distorted sections, a glossy, digitally-rendered appearance, and a partially concealed logo of the AI video generation tool ‘Sora AI’ visible in certain frames. Screenshots highlighting these inconsistencies were captured during the research .
- https://x.com/DailyLoud/status/2015107152772297086?s=20
- https://x.com/75secondes/status/2015134928745164848?s=20
The video was analyzed on Hive Moderation, an AI-detection platform, which confirmed that 98.7% of the content is AI-generated.
The viral video showing people jumping off a building into snow, claimed to depict a real incident in Russia, is entirely AI-generated. Social media users who shared it presented the digitally created footage as if it were real, making the claim false and misleading.
Introduction
In an alarming event, one of India’s premier healthcare institutes, AIIMS Delhi, has fallen victim to a malicious cyberattack for the second time in the year. The Incident serves as a clear-cut reminder of the escalating threat landscape faced by the healthcare organisation in this digital age. In the attack, which unfolded with grave implications, the attackers not only explored the vulnerabilities present in the healthcare sector, but this also raised the concern about the security of patient data and the uninterrupted delivery of critical healthcare services. In this blog post, we will explore the incident, what happened, and what safety measures can be taken.
Backdrop
The cyber-security systems deployed in AIIMS, New Delhi, recently detected a malware attack. The nature and scope of the attack were both sophisticated and targeted. This second hack acts as a wake-up call for healthcare organisations nationwide. As the healthcare business increasingly depends on digital technology to improve patient care and operational efficiency, cybersecurity must be prioritised to protect sensitive data. To minimise cyber-attack dangers, healthcare organisations must invest in robust defences such as multi-factor authentication, network security, frequent system upgrades, and employee training.
The attempt was successfully prevented, and the deployed cyber-security systems neutralised the threat. The e-Hospital services remain to be fully secure and are functioning normally.
Impact on AIIMS
Healthcare services have been under hackers’ radar worldwide, and the healthcare sector has been impacted badly. The attack on AIIMS Delhi’s effects has been both immediate and far-reaching. The organisation, which is recognised for delivering excellent healthcare services and performing breakthrough medical research, faced significant interruptions in its everyday operations. Patient care and treatment processes were considerably impeded, resulting in delays, cancellations, and the inability to access essential medical documents. The stolen data raises serious concerns about patient privacy and confidentiality, raising doubts about the institution’s capacity to protect sensitive information. Furthermore, the financial ramifications of the assault, such as the cost of recovery, deploying more robust cybersecurity measures, and potential legal penalties and forensic analyses, contribute to the scale of the effect. The event has also generated public concerns about the institution’s ability to preserve personal information, undermining confidence and degrading AIIMS Delhi’s image.
Impact on Patients: The attacks not only impact the institutes but also have serious implications for the patients and here are some key highlights:
Healthcare Service Disruption: The hack has affected the seamless delivery of healthcare services at AIIMS Delhi. Appointments, surgeries, and other medical treatments may be delayed, cancelled, or rescheduled. This disturbance can result in longer wait times, longer treatment periods, and potential problems from delayed or interrupted therapy.
Patient Privacy and Confidentiality are jeopardised because of the breach of sensitive patient data. Medical data, test findings, and treatment plans may have been compromised. This breach may diminish patient faith in the institution’s capacity to safeguard their personal information, discouraging them from seeking care or submitting sensitive information in the future.
As a result of the cyberattack, patients may endure mental anguish and worry. Fear of possible exploitation of personal health information, confusion about the scope of the breach, and concerns about the security of their healthcare data can all have a negative impact on their mental health. This stress might aggravate pre-existing medical issues and impede total recovery.
Trust at stake: A data breach may harm patients’ faith and confidence in AIIMS Delhi and the healthcare system. Patients rely on healthcare facilities to keep their information secure and confidential while providing safe, high-quality care. A hack can doubt the institution’s ability to safeguard patient data, affecting patients’ overall faith in the organisation and potentially leading to patients seeking care elsewhere.
Cybersecurity Measures
To avoid future hacks and protect patient data, AIIMS Delhi must prioritize enhancing its cybersecurity procedures. The institution can strengthen its resistance to changing threats by establishing strong security practices. The following steps can be considered.
Using Multi-factor Authentication: By forcing users to submit several forms of identity to access systems and data, multi-factor authentication offers an extra layer of protection. AIIMS Delhi may considerably lower the danger of unauthorised access by applying this precaution, even in the case of leaked passwords or credentials. Biometrics and one-time passwords, for example, should be integrated into the institution’s authentication systems.
Improving Network Security and Firewalls: AIIMS Delhi should improve network security by implementing strong firewalls, intrusion detection and prevention systems, and network segmentation. These techniques serve to construct barriers between internal systems and external threats, reducing attackers’ lateral movement within the network. Regular network traffic monitoring and analysis can assist in recognising and mitigating any security breaches.
Risk Assessment: Regular penetration testing and vulnerability assessments are required to uncover possible flaws and vulnerabilities in AIIMS Delhi’s systems and infrastructure. Security professionals can detect vulnerabilities and offer remedial solutions by carrying out controlled simulated assaults. This proactive strategy assists in identifying and addressing any security flaws before attackers exploit them.
Educating and training Healthcare Professionals: Education and training have a crucial role in enhancing cybersecurity practices in healthcare facilities. Healthcare workers, including physicians, nurses, administrators, and support staff, must be well-informed about the importance of cybersecurity and trained in risk-mitigation best practices. This will empower healthcare professionals to actively contribute to protecting the patient’s data and maintaining the trust and confidence of patients.
Learnings from Incidents
AIIMS Delhi should embrace cyber-attacks as learning opportunities to strengthen its security posture. Following each event, a detailed post-incident study should be performed to identify areas for improvement, update security policies and procedures, and improve employee training programs. This iterative strategy contributes to the institution’s overall resilience and preparation for future cyber-attacks. AIIMS Delhi can effectively respond to cyber incidents, minimise the impact on operations, and protect patient data by establishing an effective incident response and recovery plan, implementing data backup and recovery mechanisms, conducting forensic analysis, and promoting open communication. Proactive measures, constant review, and regular revisions to incident response plans are critical for staying ahead of developing cyber threats and ensuring the institution’s resilience in the face of potential future assaults.
Conclusion
To summarise, developing robust healthcare systems in the digital era is a key challenge that healthcare organisations must prioritise. Healthcare organisations can secure patient data, assure the continuation of key services, and maintain patients’ trust and confidence by adopting comprehensive cybersecurity measures, building incident response plans, training healthcare personnel, and cultivating a security culture. Adopting a proactive and holistic strategy for cybersecurity is critical to developing a healthcare system capable of withstanding and successfully responding to digital-age problems.
