Amid massive protests in Belarus on Sunday, 16 August, a video of a huge ball painted with the portrait of President Lukashenko rolling on a street is viral on social media with the claim that it is from the ongoing protests in the country. However, we found that the video is not real and was made using special effects and computer graphics by a VFX artist based out of Russia.
THE CLAIM
The protests being touted as the largest in Belarus’ history have been sparked by rigged elections and police brutality and torture against detainees.
The aforementioned video is being circulated massively on Twitter and Facebook with the same misleading claim.
WHAT WE FOUND
The viral video has been generated using computer graphics by a VFX artist and isn't real.
A reverse image search led us to one twitter user Janek Lasocki, who had uploaded the video with the caption "By St Petersburg artist Alexander Ivanov."
In a reply to the tweet, the user also indicated that the video had been taken from the artist's Instagram account 'jilrock1.' The Instagram handle can also be seen chalked out on the pavement, in the beginning of the viral video.
The artist Alexander Ivanov had uploaded the video on his Instagram account five days ago, garnering over 164k views.
On 23 August, Ivanov uploaded another video with a breakdown of the VFX work employed in the viral video.
The video was made using a 3D computer graphics software Blender and a visual-effect Adobe software, AfterEffects.
Evidently, the viral video from the Belarus protests isn't real and has been digitally manufactured.
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