State-run network Rossia has aired a doctored version of a U.S. advert on one of its prime-time television programs, in a bid to demonstrate the "erosion of morals" in the West.
In the original version of the video, a boy is surprised by his family after they stuck a monster truck decal to his bedroom wall for his 11th birthday.
But in a version of the video shown during prime-time political talk show Special Correspondent, the boy is shown to be looking at something entirely different: Drawings of naked men in suggestive poses.
Rossia-1 used the doctored video to demonstrate the supposed enforcement of sexual content and LGBT lifestyles on children in Europe and the U.S.
"Is this really what a child's room is supposed to look like?" a Russian television narrator says off-screen as a camera shows the images of the naked men.
The narrator also decries the "erosion of morals, the dissolution of the institute of marriage" in the West, adding that "Europe was meekly following the example of the U.S."
Fathead, the manufacturers of the decal, said it was considering legal action against Rossia, RFE/RL reported.
"We will not tolerate the reconstruction of one of our family friendly TV spots into a hateful, bigoted, and outrageous attack on the gay community as well as children," the company was quoted as saying in a statement.
Fathead said last month via its YouTube channel that it had found the original video — made by the parents of the boy, Drake, on his birthday — and liked it so much that it "decided it should be a Fathead commercial."
"Reactions like this are why we at Fathead do what we do," the company in a note on its YouTube account. "Big thanks to Drake and his family for letting us use the video."
Following the Rossia program, Fathead said it "would vigorously pursue those who created this abhorrent depiction of our content, as well as those [who] host it online, to facilitate their prosecution to the full extent of the law," RFE/RL reported.
Russia's state-run television networks have turned up their anti-Western proclamations in recent months amid criticism of Moscow's annexation of Crimea and its policy in eastern Ukraine.
Russia, which denies Western accusations that it is supplying weapons and fighters to pro-Moscow rebels, has also relied on fake footage to illustrate its newscasts about Ukraine.
In one incident this spring, Rossia used footage from its own 2012 report about a gun battle in the North Caucasus to illustrate the supposed atrocities by Ukrainian government forces against civilians.
When the footage was exposed as fake, Dmitry Kiselyov — the head of the All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, which includes Rossia television — attributed the switch to an "accidental error."?
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