As conflict rages on between Israeli militants and Hamas, the dominant political party and militant group in Palestine, researchers say the disinformation proliferating on social media is at a degree they’ve never seen before.

“For many reasons, this is the hardest time I’ve ever had covering a crisis on here,” said Justin Peden, known on X as IntelCrab, a rising researcher most notable for his reliable fact checking and social media coverage of the war in Ukraine.

As information swelled and exploded across social media as Israel launched counter-strikes over Hamas and civilian buildings in the Gaza strip, one of the most densely populated areas in the world, and Hamas took hostages of Israeli civilians, disinformation ran rampant on social media sites, most particularly X, formally known as Twitter.

After Elon Musk’s infamous takeover of the social media, X has been lambasted for its lack of content moderation, allowing disinformation to multiply exponentially across the site.

Just one example caught on IntelCrab’s current page is ‘news’ that a US nuclear-capable B-52 bomber had landed in Israel – a claim IntelCrab made clear was false.

🫨engage🫨with🫨my🫨tweet🫨

(no, it did not) https://t.co/OOmUkLON9g

— The Intel Crab (@IntelCrab) October 9, 2023

Images and videos which are either doctored or from other instances have been shared, claiming to be from the conflict.

A viral photo of what appeared to be Gaza aflame in red was actually a photo of Algeria taken earlier this summer.

Documents claiming that the US had authorised $8bn in military aid for Israel also circulated on X before other users showed it was a doctored document which originally sanctioned $400m in aid to Ukraine.

A fake document is being widely shared online claiming to show the authorisation of $8bn in military aid to Israel by President Biden.

It's a doctored version of a 25 July document detailing $400m in aid to Ukraine authorised by President Biden; fact-checked by @Info_Rosalie. pic.twitter.com/jYZDDrlRwF

— Shayan Sardarizadeh (@Shayan86) October 8, 2023

A video of gunfire was also circulated on X, with 2,654 views, but was actually a shootout which took place in Mexico in 2017.

Another video, this time of a “lost girl” with a man speaking Arabic falsely claimed to be a Hamas militant kidnapping a child, but the video was actually dated to nearly a month before the October attacks.

“Credible links are now photos. On the ground news outlets struggle to reach audiences without an expensive blue checkmark. Xenophobic goons are boosted by the platform’s CEO,” IntelCrab’s post on X read, encapsulating the issues surrounding misinformation on the social media.

For many reasons, this is the hardest time I've ever had covering a crisis on here.

Credible links are now photos. On the ground news outlets struggle to reach audiences without an expensive blue checkmark. Xenophobic goons are boosted by the platform's CEO.

End times, folks.

— The Intel Crab (@IntelCrab) October 8, 2023

During major conflicts, disinformation continually spreads, but why is this conflict fuelling such a flood of falsehoods?

Recommended reading

• Hacktivist Groups Pounce As Israel-Palestine Conflict Escalates
• EU to Big Tech: Crack Down on Disinformation, Or We’ll Crack Down On You
• Tech Giants Agree to EU Disinformation Code of Practice

The nature of the conflict, perhaps one of the world’s most contentious, makes the issue of disinformation all the more pertinent. The targeting of civilians by both sides has confounded support and brought on a flurry of either new found or intensified fear for civilians in the region.

The misalignment and misunderstanding of what it means to be Jewish vs what it means to be Zionist, what it means to live in Israel vs what it means to support the Israeli government and occupation, what it means to be Palestinian vs what it means to be with Hamas, has lead to the conflation of supporters of Palestine with antisemites, the conflation of sympathisers of Israeli civilians with supporters of their government, and disallowed nuanced understandings of the conflict.

This has mainly prevented governments of allied nations on each side of the conflict from fostering a peaceful solution to the people that live in the region, and also leads to the proliferation of online hate, propaganda, and misinformation to align with people’s preconceptions around the conflict.

On X in particular, antisemitic views have run rampant since Musk’s takeover, and posts denying the Holocaust failed to be removed by their content moderation protocols. Musk himself in a post on X urged people to “stay as close to the truth as possible”, essentially forfeiting his responsibility as executive of one of the largest social media platforms in the world.

As always, please try stay as close to the truth as possible, even for stuff you don’t like.

This platform aspires to maximize signal/noise of the human collective.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 8, 2023

X also left the EU’s code of practice for disinformation, but is also legally required to comply with the Digital Services Act, which mandates that it removed disinformation from its site.

The main issue remains however, that however people may already feel about the devastating situation, they must remain critical of online information if big tech companies continue to fail at their basic and legal duty to dispel disinformation across their platforms.