Thousands of people around the world thought they were being clever and illegally streaming the World Cup from Qatar, but it was all just a scam. Some clever person streamed pixelated footage recorded from popular video game FIFA 23.
The video-game streamer used deceptive headlines like "Live Germany- Japan on 23/11 Group E World Cup 2022" mixed with low quality images that made it difficult to determine that it was a video game and not the actual game.
A high quality image like this one from the video game, might have just given it away:
The streams had commentary in Vietnamese, which apparently added to the illusion that the game's feed had been hijacked by someone in Vietnam and was being broadcast illegally.
According to Vietnamese authorities, this is common during World Cup matches, and it earns the pirate pages hundreds of dollars.
Luckily for the viewers, the illegal streamers ended the above game with Japan winning just like the real deal, so the viewers wouldn't be utterly humiliated when they talked about the game with coworkers at the water cooler the following day.
On the other hand, that would have been way more funny.
