By John Walker on June 1st, 2008 at 1:42 pm.
Nevada is laid to waste. The desert is a blackened, smoking ruin. Vegas has been razed. Countless thousands are dead.
This is the apocalyptic scene terrorists hope to create if they ever get their hands on a nuclear bomb. The computer generated image below was posted on an Islamic extremists’ Bebo page yesterday.
It appeared as rumours spread the Internet that the FBI, CIA and MFI were warning that an Al Qaeda video was about to be released urging militants to use weapons of mass destruction to attack the West. The information was said to be coming from ‘groups that pay very little attention to which website they’re reading’.
The FBI was quick to point out that it had not issued any warning, that the video was not an official Al Qaeda release, and that there is no truth to this story on any level. Importantly, we are printing it despite this and stating that it is real, in order to sell newspapers.
U.S analysts we made up said a lot of effort has been put into the video we haven’t seen and don’t link to. The same expertise seems to have gone into creating this image of a devastated Nevada.
Last night FBI sources we like to think we have contact details for said Al Qaeda was desperate to get its hands on Fallout 3, and couldn’t wait for Autumn.
So far that is only a dream… or, as this picture suggests, a demonstration of how contemptuously useless we are at reporting news, caring only about scaremongering and making up any rubbish we like rather than doing even the most elementary research.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Laugh, probably, because it’s not from an American outlet.
Btw, awesome post.
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Why do you even read the Daily mail? Stick to The Guardian, Le Monde or something else that actually has intelligent life writing the stories.
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I disagree the Daily Mail is quite hilarious (if it wasn’t so scary) to read mainly to see who they’re blaming this time (music/teachers/immigrants/pedophiles/rapists/benefit cheats/violent videogames/all of the above)
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An Oz paper picked it up too, not sure who ran with the story first though (they both appeared on the 29th).
It amuses.
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Mr Duck – I do not read the Daily Mail. I do, however, pay attention when it does something this stupid. And no, it wasn’t alone. It was all sourced from an organisation called SITE, as Kotaku reports here:
http://kotaku.com/5011913/intelligence-group-mistakes-fallout-3-screens-for-terrorist-propaganda
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I think it’s a head to wall moment for all journalists everywhere…
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Fallout 3… So very harrowing…
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SITE themselves, who characterize themselves as “a leading provider of intelligence to governments” (insert joke), have already put a statement online:
Read it here
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It did sound far too un-PC to be any remotely serious or truth-based issue, thanks terrormongerers. Jesus Christ.
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“It’s terrible”, one reporter was heard to say, “Like Oblivion.. with guns..”
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Mr. Walker – Ha that’s pretty funny. I just figured the Daily Mail made a big deal over something they read on some blog. Didn’t realize it came from an organization that deals specifically with online terrorist activity.
EDIT – OK so absolutely not SITEs fault then.
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Nice work with the parody RPS. Wasteland is awesome.
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Well done!
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Jim Hacker: Don’t tell me about the press. I know exactly who reads the papers: The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country; The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country; The Times is read by people who actually do run the country; The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country; The Financial Times is read by people who own the country; The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country; And the Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is.
Sir Humphrey: Prime Minister, what about the people who read the Sun?
Bernard Woolley: Sun readers don’t care who runs the country, as long as she’s got big tits.
It is hilarious though. And I can’t help thinking it would give armloads of comedy show material, like variations of “Hitler was a failed artist” jokes and sketches involving stern politicians saying “we do not negotiate with terrorists, nor do we conduct dialogues with confrontational art”.
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I think it’s all a façade. The level of “unintentional” hilarity Daily Mail achieve in a major national newspaper borders on comedy genius.
Have a look at these:
http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/search/label/Daily%20Fail
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[applause]
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It’s not just the daily mail. The telegraph and Washington Post are turd papers too.
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An expert had this to say. “Well, due to the hadith against representations of living things, muslim fundamentalists have really cornered the market on post-apocalyptic art…”
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Of course it was partially SITE’s fault. They put up the image, which shouldn’t be on their site in the first place. I mean, what’s next, we get them posting all the game related devastation artwork put up in some “password protected terrorist forum”?!
They’re the scaremongers posting up game images for no apparent reason. That’s not intelligence, it’s rubbish.
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Eh, but scaremongering is their game. Can’t everyone heal the lepers for a living. At least they didn’t lie – the picture is about as related to terrorism as google, because terrorists (or rather people sympathizing with/using the boards of terrorists) used it.
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Did you just call the Guardian intelligent, Donald? Honestly?
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Did anyone else get this “advert” on the Daily Mail page: http://iad.anm.co.uk/pcc/pcc_160_600v2.gif , which links to the Press Complaints Commission? Coincidence? I think not… :)
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This is great, churnalism at its best. You’d think someone at some stage would ask what the big deal was; “Yes they want to destroy Washington DC, yes we knew that. Does this suggest they have the means at all or anything relevant?”
“It’s worse than that. It means they’ve got Photoshop! Psychological warfare! And this is only the beginning!. Terrorist inspired You’reTheManNowDogs could sap our collective will to fight. God help us if they find lensflare. The CIA is rushing in to production at great expense fake warez Arabic versions of photoshop with all the commands badly translated and mixed up. That should buy us a week or two.”
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They’ve been known to give me money. That implies they’re not entirely without brains.
KG
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http://img.skitch.com/20080601-pbh7b2r94mgy2k5tuju58nffrq.jpg
Heh. That would explain the lack of comments.
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In Australia, we save all our best idiotic hysteria and lack of basic research for our current affairs shows. Current holder of the title is the all-powerful Today Tonight.
On a less tangential note, however, that’s one pretty looking screenshot. I mean, it’s not certainly not representative of in-game footage, but wow…
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That could work just as easily against you, you know… only joking! Here, have a smiley :D !
Love that little detail of SITE being situated in Bethesda.
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It’s not a screenshot, it’s concept art.
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Terrorist concept art.
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Improvised Terrorist Concept Art (ITCA).
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Just be thankful they didn’t find any pictures from Wasteland, that would have been really scary
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Oh wow.
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I wonder why Boingboing didn’t pick this up. I – and I guess many others – suggested this story, but they didn’t move a muscle. I guess Cory needed the space for another “Little Brother”-reading announcement. :-)
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Why is your post not yellow background-ified, Kieron? Have you been dethroned from the merry, pink candy kingdom of RPS-land?
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His admission meant he was automatically fired.
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I find the fact that the Telegraph reported it first funniest, implying that the Fail reporter (no offense meant, RPS team) probably just read the article and rewrote it in their own words.
I read Private Eye :D
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Dracko – Honestly, yes, touch my heart and feel for yourself/hope to die. Any newspaper that has Charlie Brooker as a regular writer gets my official seal of approval/Greenland.
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I say we send the SAS into Bethseda, just to make sure.
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Oh, the Daily Mail… always there when you need something to make you despair at the human race.
I feel all superior for reading the Guardian now.
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*Gasp*
Craig Mullins works for Jihadists! World-reknown Hawaii-based concept artist plots destructive attacks on US Capital.
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Is it Mullins? I thought it might be but there’s a lot of guys looking like him these days.
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Yeah. Unless it’s got 40 pictures of Kylie, anyway.
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Funny. Onion worthy.
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I never know whether to laugh or cry at the Mail (Wail, Fail, Heil, or whatever nickname you decide to go with). It stories are often so far over the top, that they would seem like parodys if they appeared anywhere else. Then again I am a bleeding heart, cardigan wearing, hummous eating, Grauniad reader, so I suppose it is only natural that the Mail is my sworn enemy. (As I’m sure I am of them. Although being straight, white, male and British means that I’m probably not near the top of their hit-list.)
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Edward, that’s a terrible lie and you know it. But I especially liked the flight attendant who so sincerely apologised to me when I questioned the Daily Mail as the only available paper. (Er, that’s enough inside comments).
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True, true. Well, okay, you ‘peer over’ when it has 40 pictures of pop’s chameleon. And – oh look! – I appear to have (dramatically) misspelt ‘perv’.
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How long before “All your base are belong to us” becomes the cry of support for Jihadist terror?
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That picture is of the Ag Center silo in Wasteland, no? You should have used a screenshot of Needles after going crazy with the howitzer…at least that would have some dodgy rubble sprites in it.
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My commentary to this Pullitzer worthy piece of journalism:
“So, terrorists are using official art of a commercial videogame to illustrate their “nightmare” (http://fallout.bethsoft.com/eng/art/fallout3-conceptart1.html). If they are cheap enough to not make their own illustrations, I wouldn’t worry too much about their capacity to destroy the world.
In any case, dear Mr Wigmore, are you completely sure this image is part of a scary internet discussion of islamist militants dreaming to nuke the white house? Have you considered that yours facts are actually wrong and this image belongs to a discussion about a videogame, and has nothing to do with terrorism, at all?
Maybe you should consider it.
Sincerely.”
Is not like it’s going to pass their filter. They are probably better controlling the user’s posts than getting their facts straight, but hopefully if they receive more commentaries like this one, they will feel just little of professional embarrassment.
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http://www.flatearthnews.net/ – a good, and terribly depressing read about the state of the media.
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That screenshot reminds me: How about an RPS retrospective on Wastelands?
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“I say we send the SAS into Bethseda”
I think they’ve probably already been. Don’t they do some of their training in North Wales?
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Someone needs to make jihadist versions of other Fallout art.
Big arrows pointing at Brotherhood of Steel knights saying die crusaders die?
The pip boy with explosives strapped around him?
Supermutants wearing hijabs?
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im gonna put a link to an image of wic: sa on it and say “i think this is a terrorist computer generated image too”
lol but first can someone tell me what site i should upload it too?
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so is the daily mail the british daily with boobs in it, or is that all of them?
i can see how sourcing the image might be a bit difficult at first, but that’s what distributed information systems (and metatags) are for, right?
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The Daily Mail does not, last time I read it (which was years ago), have boobs in it. You’re thinking of stuff like The Sun, The Star, and the News of the World…
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May I just say that Wasteland is still one of the best games I’ve ever played?
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The Daily Mail is deleting comments that explain the origin of the image.
-10 to charisma
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I find it hilarious that at the time I’m posting this, there have been only 3 comments successfully made to that Daily Mail article. How many people here have sent comments in saying it’s bogus? Incredible…
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@sam
“The Daily Mail does not, last time I read it (which was years ago), have boobs in it. You’re thinking of stuff like The Sun, The Star, and the News of the World…”
It does have, however, a glorious selection of tits.
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