In January it snowed exceptionally heavily on the Russian Kamchatka Peninsula. That is undisputed. Amounts of snow fell within just a few weeks that would otherwise be spread over several months. Streets are blocked, ground floors are covered in snow, vehicles are barely visible. At least two people have already died due to the snow. A real, dramatic weather event. And that is exactly where the breeding ground for something else lies: fake images and videos that show the snow masses even more extreme and higher in order to make the situation appear even more stark and surreal.
Anyone who enters “Kamchatka” on Instagram or Tiktok these days ends up in a parallel world of meter-high snow walls, high-rise buildings that disappear in the snow up to the twentieth floor, and people who seem to be playfully sledding through apocalyptic snow mass landscapes. Many of these images going viral are proven to be AI-generated and exaggerated. And they work surprisingly well.
They work because they emotionalize. As soon as that happens, you don’t ask yourself whether they are real, but rather you are happy about the people jumping through the snow, laughing, about the orderly paths, pulling the sleighs through the chaos – as if they were there with serenity and arrange creativity. The pictures work because we have a deep need for order in a state of emergency. According to the idea that clear tracks can be created even in a storm.
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There is also a second effect: There are only a few visual stories from Russia that show people in everyday life – and even fewer that convey lightness, play or community. The AI fakes fill this void perfectly. They show a Russia that appears extreme and peaceful at the same time. People trudge through the snow, go shopping, go sledding. The pictures show what we want.
Justifiable doubts about authenticity
Auch Fake-News-Watchdog sites such as the German Mimikama or the Polish demagogue raise legitimate doubts about these images. They don’t want to downplay the situation and report: Yes, there is an extraordinary amount of snow there. But official measurements speak of around 170 centimeters of snow depth, locally more due to drifts – but not 30, 40 or 50 meters. Reuters documents meter-high snow masses, snow-covered ground floors and blocked entrances. What’s missing are cities that are buried in snow right up to the roof edge, as the AI images would have you believe.
Technically, many of the viral images can be debunked, for example because they contain too smooth, cinematic tracking shots, missing textures, jumping details or illogical architecture. AI detectors such as “Hive Moderation” or “AI or Not” most likely classify the images as artificially generated. Reverse searches lead to no reputable source or even to nowhere.
The fake snowstorm works like a real one: it provides orientation. Once you accept that everything there is drowning in snow, then even the most unbelievable things seem plausible. Confirmatory logic replaces skepticism. And so the clean paths in the AI snow become deceptive: They look like peace and order, but they are created in an artificial storm.