Ukrainian TikTok star accused of faking videos because she's not on the front line

The information war has been a crucial part of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and now a Ukrainian TikTok star has revealed she’s been accused of faking videos because she's 'not on the front line'.

As the conflict continues into its fourth week, Kristina Korban has been using her platform to post videos about daily life during the invasion and raise awareness around fundraising.

Over recent times she’s posted videos about daily life in Kyiv, shared updates on her and her young family, posted links to charities taking donations and sold merchandise to raise funds to support displaced Ukrainians.

Speaking to Insider, however, she revealed that people have commented on her videos claiming that her videos are fake because she's not "with a gun in the front lines."

Sign up to our new free Indy100 weekly newsletter

"It doesn't happen that much anymore, but some people think I'm a scammer and that I'm not in Ukraine," she said.

"Some people would be like, 'Oh this is fake. There's no war or, you're just taking footage from Covid,' or this and that. And they're expecting that if I'm not in the front lines, then I'm not in Ukraine. And that to me is already such a misinformed mindset. It's a very unrealistic mindset that some people have," she added.

Korban is one content creator doing important work in Ukraine, but the spreading of misinformation online has been one of the biggest talking points of the conflict over recent weeks.

The Russian invasion has fuelled some serious misinformation surrounding the crisis, including fake TikTok live streams to out-of-context images, realistic gameplay and dated clips.

One example saw a viral video spread across social media. It was depicted as a "Ukrainian girl" confronting a "Russian soldier." When in reality, it showed Ahed Tamimi, a Palestinian girl who heroically took on an Israeli soldier (in Arabic) in 2012.

Another viral video seen millions of times claiming to be depicting ‘destroyed Russian military aircraft and tanks’ also turned out to be from the popular video game Arma 3.

"We continue to closely monitor the situation, with increased resources to respond to emerging trends and remove violative content, including harmful misinformation and promotion of violence," a TikTok spokesperson previously said about the spreading of misinformation.

"We also partner with independent fact-checking organizations to further aid our efforts to help TikTok remain a safe and authentic place."

One particularly troubling case saw Russia claim that a pregnant woman injured in the bombing of Mariupol is actually a beauty blogger with "realistic make-up" in a series of abhorrent, now-removed Twitter posts.

The Independent has a proud history of campaigning for the rights of the most vulnerable, and we first ran our Refugees Welcome campaign during the war in Syria in 2015. Now, as we renew our campaign and launch this petition in the wake of the unfolding Ukrainian crisis, we are calling on the government to go further and faster to ensure help is delivered.

• To find out more about our Refugees Welcome campaign, click here.
• To sign the petition click here.
• If you would like to donate then please click here for our GoFundMe page.

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.