To date, this video has been viewed tens of millions of times. The internet is hooked. Why can’t you?
The short clip shows a group of Chinese dogs allegedly captured for food escape and make the long journey home as a band of merry misfits, including a golden retriever, an injured German shepherd and a brave corgi leading the way.
Problem: That’s not reality. The original footage was genuine, showing seven dogs wandering on the side of a highway in northeastern Jilin province, but Chinese state media later debunked the story of how the dogs escaped and returned home.
Still, the imaginary story has taken on a life of its own. Social media users likened it to the 1993 Disney film Homeward Bound. AI-generated spin-offs have sprung up. A movie poster of the seven dogs, a trailer for the film depicting their thrilling escapades, and even images of them being reunited with their overjoyed owners have surfaced.
This phenomenon shows how misinformation can proliferate after a viral moment, spreading seemingly innocuous stories that are difficult to verify in the age of AI. In this case, part of the false storyline involved racist stereotypes.
Amid gloomy news coverage, viewers are hungry for wholesome, feel-good content like animal videos.
TJ Thomson, associate professor of digital media at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, said they offer an escape, but their popularity also encourages social media creators to invent and embellish content for clicks.
“People are trying to capitalize on existing viral content and trends,” he says. “Attention is money online and on social media, so the more attention you get, the more engagement you get.”
The video of the seven dogs was first filmed by a man driving in a remote area of Jilin province on March 15, according to a Chinese government-backed cover story.
He posted it online and speculated that the group may have escaped from the dog transport vehicle, but later clarified that he had not seen any such escape.
The video exploded on Chinese social media, becoming a top trending topic and reaching over 90 million views on two major platforms, Douyin and Weibo, and the video quickly spawned countless memes and discussions in group chats. It then went global, appearing on TikTok, X, Instagram, and multiple international media outlets.
A theory spread that the dog had been stolen. Social media users pointed out how several dogs walked near the German shepherd, constantly turning to look at it, and claimed this was evidence of the pack protecting the injured member.
Others fell in love with the little corgi who walked at the front of the group, sometimes going behind like a brave leader to make sure no one was left behind.
The truth is not so romantic.
All the dogs belonged to villagers who lived several kilometers from the highway where the photos were taken, according to the Chinese state-run newspaper City Evening News, which tracked the owners. The owners said the German shepherd was in heat, which attracted other dogs.
Cover News reported that most of the village’s dogs roamed freely and would often go missing for a day or two during heat season. The seven dogs in question have since been returned home, with the German shepherd being kept on a leash until the end of her heat cycle.
Thomson said there are likely several reasons why the video went viral. Animal videos tap into our “childlike nature” and our desire to care for small creatures. He added that animals provide a neutral canvas to express universal themes such as community, belonging and loneliness. And this kind of wholesome content provides a respite from the constant headlines of war and disaster.
Just look at how well Thailand’s baby pygmy hippopotamus Moo Deng or Japan’s zoo monkey Punch have been received on the internet. Both actually attracted a large number of visitors after going viral.
Punch and Mu Deng are not made up stories. But even true events can give rise to inaccurate narratives. For example, despite overwhelming concerns online that Punch was being bullied by other monkeys, zookeepers tried to explain that such interactions were normal in the Japanese macaque world and that Punch was simply learning a new group hierarchy.
And even when the original clip of a viral moment is authentic, it is increasingly being used as a launching pad for embellished narratives and AI content to build a loyal audience.
In a recent example, a bus driver in Australia rescued a koala from an outdoor power pole and placed it on his bus before calling a koala rescue charity. Although the incident occurred at night and no one was on the bus, the original video sparked a wave of fake content.
Some showed AI-generated clips of koalas wandering around inside cars among commuters, but none of them were real.
The motivations behind fake content vary, but for many content creators, the most appealing one is the clicks and traffic that can ultimately be monetized on social media.
“This kind of content can be incredibly popular and spread quickly, which means it can be a very effective way to grow the number of accounts very quickly,” said Tama Lieber, a professor of internet studies at Curtin University in Perth, Australia.
For some people, it may not matter whether that cute animal video is real or not. But it becomes a problem when viewers accept what they see without question, especially when it comes to more serious topics.
For example, Lieber said there is a “huge amount” of fake footage of the Iran war that some people may accept as real.
“If we lower our expectations and admit that we might not care in some areas, that probably means our critical skills are not as sharp in other areas,” he said.
The events of these seven dogs may seem trivial or innocuous. However, there are still dangers here. For example, false reports that dogs were being shipped to meat factories perpetuate negative stereotypes of Chinese people eating dogs and have historically fueled racism against Chinese people overseas.
Thomson said such videos could further influence how outsiders view China, even as Chinese people in the West face rising xenophobia in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
And as more AI permeates the internet, misinformation is likely to continue to spread, challenging our perceptions of truth and trust.
Even with such light-hearted content, Thomson said, “there is a risk of poisoning or successfully muddying the information…When you don’t really know what to believe or who to believe, can you trust your eyes?”
“Then you’re going to be in a horrible situation.”
