A YouTube channel and a Facebook (FB) page uploaded a video of a drone firing missiles and claimed it was manufactured in the Philippines. This is not true. A company based in the United Kingdom designed the aerial vehicle in the video.
Uploaded on YouTube on April 25 and reposted on FB on May 23, the video bore the headline:
“PILIPINAS ATTCK (sic) DRONE SINUBUKAN NA (PHILIPPINES ATTACK DRONE HAS BEEN TESTED)! PHILIPPINE VINES BREAKING NEWS VIRAL.”
Tagged “breaking news,” the video’s thumbnail featured the drone with a digitally added Philippine flag. It also carried a text with a similar claim.
The clips show a drone hovering and launching missiles. The text in the video further claims that the aircraft “currently being developed” “can be used by the Philippines to defend its territory.”
This is false. Reverse image search revealed that the drone in the video is the Royal Air Force’s (RAF) Jackal drone, designed and developed by Flyby Technology based in Yorkshire.
Jackal, a Vertical Take Off and Landing aircraft, fired Thales Lightweight Multirole Missiles during the six-week testing exercise sponsored by RAF’s Rapid Capabilities Office in October 2022. Details of the trial were publicly revealed last April.
Thales released footage of the test and uploaded by The Sun’s YouTube channel on April 19. The Times also posted similar clips on Twitter two days earlier. These clips were mirrored in the false video.
The erroneous video was first circulated during the April 11 to 28 Balikatan exercise between the Philippines and United States forces.
YouTube channel Ella Vloggs’s (created on Feb. 15, 2019) post has 35,609 views as of writing. FB page Jaffar 1.7as (Feb. 16, 2023) uploaded a cropped version of the video garnering 1,100 reactions, 76 comments, 65 shares and 21,000 views.
This is not the first time that VERA Files Fact Check flagged this YouTube channel for spreading military-related disinformation. (Read The submarine in the video is NOT ‘Pinoy-made’)
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(Editor’s Note: VERA Files has partnered with Facebook to fight the spread of disinformation. Find out more about this partnership and our methodology.)