WASHINGTON — From fake accounts impersonating journalists to war-themed video games fueling false narratives, tech platforms are struggling to contain a tsunami of misinformation around Palestinian-Israeli hostilities after rolling back content moderation policies
While major world events typically trigger a deluge of falsehoods, researchers say the scale and speed with which misinformation proliferated online following the weekend’s deadly assault on Israel by the Palestinian militant group Hamas was unlike ever before.
Experts fear these moves have increased the risk of misinformation provoking real-world harm, amplifying hate and violence especially in a fast-evolving crisis scenario such as the one unfolding in Israel and Gaza. “And in the case of X, changes to the platform have utterly shattered what was previously one of its greatest strengths — monitoring breaking news and helping users separate fact from fiction.”Social media users are being bombarded with fake combat photos, old videos from Syria repurposed to look like they were taken from Gaza, and conflict-themed video game footage being passed off as a scene from a Hamas attack, misinformation researchers say.
“The sheer amount of doctored, fake, old videos and images of attacks circulating is making it harder to understand what is going on” in Israel and Gaza, said Mr Alessandro Accorsi, a senior analyst at the Crisis Group think tank. “ the flood of grifters spreading lies and hate to garner engagement and followers, combined with algorithms that promote this extreme and disturbing content, is why social media is in fact such a bad place to access reliable information.”Making matters worse, tech platforms appear to be abandoning efforts to elevate quality information.
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