I was working on a new post the previous weekend until the sudden news broke: Hamas attacked Israel.
Out of nowhere and apparently without warning, Hamas had sent rockets from the Gaza Strip throughout Israel, taken hostages, breached security barriers, and raided towns bordering Gaza, killing civilians and soldiers. Israeli media reported 250 people had been killed, while 232 people were killed in Gaza.
Stunned, I set aside the post I was working on and tried to process what was happening and also what could happen to the Middle East, United States, and other parts of the world, if not the whole world.
By this past weekend, I still was upset, shaken, and nervous about what each tomorrow would look like. Hamas is a ruthless organization intending the wipe Israel off the map, and they got started. There are many theories going around on what could happen next as each day provides a new domino effect in this war that could impact the world in ways we won’t know until it happens. What will become of the Palestinian people as they’re forced to move from one end of Gaza to another? What will the neighboring Arab countries do with both Israel and the Palestinian territories? The United States? Iran? Other places?
Questions, questions, questions. Too many questions. And the need for answers to see if there’s any hope out there.
And down the rabbit hole many of us go…
No really, misinformation and disinformation on social media have exploded, for lack of a better word. Although social media is a bastion for those two, it has seen an extreme increase in those two false information, leading many people misinformed and misled. And given these tense times, false information can lead to disaster.
We’ve seen this before, particularly last year when the War in Ukraine broke out and misinformation, misunderstandings, and downright lies went around social media and were also reported by the news media. I wrote about three noted stories from Ukraine that were widely told but turned out to be untrue. It’s almost seeing deja vu here, except the war between Israel and Hamas is far more intense and a more sensitive issue.
And that is why misinformation is running wild. Platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and the platform formerly known as Twitter (RIP) are seeing widely viewed, shared, and liked posts that have false information or even images that have nothing to do with this war at all.
Take for example a video taken at night in an urban area with tall buildings around. Reddish smoke is in the air and there’s bursts of fire here and there. This video was seen and reposted repeatedly on X/Twitter with the caption saying it was a clip of Israeli airstrikes in Gaza. It received 2.9 million likes on TikTok.
Except it is not. Dozens of fact-checkers worldwide confirmed that the video is actually from Algeria back in early August and it is Algerians celebrating a football/soccer match with fireworks. Clearly, it is not related to what’s happening now in Israel and Gaza. Unfortunately, the video is still going around with the inaccurate caption, thus continuing the confusion.
Then there are the videos of video games. No really! Images from video games that have warfare footage are being used to spread misinformation. One of them, the PC game from Arma 3, which came out in 2013, has probably been used the most. Even the video game creator, Bohemia Interactive from the Czech Republic, has publicly said its images are being used on social media to illustrate war conflicts (it even happened with the war in Ukraine).
One image from that video game was reportedly shared 3 million times, according to Axios. It is labeled as showing Hamas shooting down an Israeli helicopter, which it isn’t at all. One post on Twit (can I call it that?) reads “Any time a conflict erupts in any part of the world now there’s a contest to see who can go viral for posting ARMA 3 footage first”.
Here’s a video from SkyNews that talks more about the mislabeled or video game footage being used to spread misinformation and mislead people worldwide, whether intentionally or unintentionally, about the war in Israel.
Why are these videos being shared so widely and accepted so easily despite the fact so many social media users are aware that these platforms often have false information and fake videos? And with a war going on, bots and fake accounts will spring up to push for the lies and falsities even more. By the way, Iran has been known to play the fake account and bot game, and they support Hamas, so…
Note that since Elon Musk took over Twit, he reduced the barriers Twitter had to prevent misinformation as much as possible, leaving the platform vulnerable to more misinformation floating around the platform. Furthermore, he reinstated many accounts that were originally banned for hate speech. Weighing in on where you get your information from is your best weapon.
Well, it’s all about emotions. Times of conflict, be it war, social unrest, political unrest or even the COVID-19 pandemic, stir up people’s emotions and make those emotions - fear, anxiety, panic, anger, despair - fill to the brim and then spill over. There’s just too much going on and too much at stake to think clearly, even though we must do our best to take a breath and think rationally. So when we see a video of war action, terrible destruction, and people in trouble, we think with our hearts rather than our heads, and share that post. If only controlling our emotions were easier.
But sometimes it just cannot be done. I take it a lot of you have heard the reports of the Israeli babies who were killed and even decapitated. It is one of the things that you just don’t want to hear and may even refuse to believe it is true, even though it was reported live on-air by Nicole Zedek, a reporter for i24News, a privately owned Israeli news station, who claimed the soldiers told her what they saw. The Israeli government claims it is true and now that report is spreading around social media very quickly. Why wouldn’t it? How can anyone do something so barbaric, so evil?
But with that report comes the accusation that the report isn’t true, mainly because no images have been made public. But who would really want to see those anyway? And besides, maybe some want to accuse the report of being a lie because it is far too horrific.
According to NBC News, Marc Owen Jones, an associate professor at Qatar’s Hamad Bin Khalifa University who studies misinformation, explains how stories of babies being harmed can trigger intense emotions for many.
“Baby stories are very emotive. Historically, they’re stories that can be used to rationalize a very brutal response…It’s such a volatile information environment that such claims will inevitably be taken out of context, both deliberately and accidentally.”
I have to admit, this baby story reminds me of when Kuwaitis made up of the tale of Iraqi soldiers taking babies out of their incubators during their invasion of Kuwait back in the early 1990s. That story was used to convince the United States and other countries to go to war with Iraq. But that story was completely false and was only used to start a war. But I still dread that this baby story would be true.
Anyway, there are people taking advantage of this war to spread lies and conspiracy theories. Even religious fanaticism. How many of us heard one or two people this past week declaring that Armageddon is upon us?
Better yet, how many of us heard one or two people tell us to prepare World War III because it is about the breakout?
I’m sure many of us are afraid of what will this war lead to. But if we’re panicking that the third World War is about to start, it might be best to step away from the news and social media, and breathe. There’s no word of any countries getting together to declare war on another group of countries. Not yet, anyway. Yes, Hamas surprised us all but with the way things are now, there can’t be room for any surprises. I mean, there shouldn’t be. Right?
Anyway, emotions are running rampant now and it is best to try to think carefully, even if you have to turn off the TV or podcast, and put down your phone and its apps (oh yeah, sure!). Sometimes a break from the painful realities out there is a good idea. Take care of yourself and your loved ones first. No, I’m not telling you not to care about what is happening in Israel and Gaza. I’m just suggesting you remember to self care during this time.
This war is stirring up intense emotions because it is a highly sensitive subject. The death toll and brutality aren’t helping either. And those videos on social media are practically baiting us, and they probably are given the nearly 3,000 fake accounts found on Twit alone that are helping to spread the confusion and lies.
Anyway, misinformation is running wild now just like our emotions are. Do what you can to think clearly and contain yourselves. There’s too much fear and suffering going on now. Don’t lose control so you don’t make things worse. Sharing one social media post with footage of war that isn’t real can lead to harm, and we don’t need any more of that now.