Israel-Hamas war: How the crisis is unfolding online

A secret social media influence campaign that attempted to lobby US lawmakers to support Israel’s war on Gaza was organized and funded by the Israeli government, The New York Times reports.

According to the Times, Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs earmarked around $2 million for the campaign, which used hundreds of fake accounts impersonating made up people to target US lawmakers. The accounts posed as Americans and posted pro-Israel messages, calling on members of congress to fund Israeli military operations. The campaigns used OpenAI’s ChatGPT to produce the posts and targeted several Black Democrats, like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

Meta says it cracked down on propaganda campaigns on its platforms, including one that used AI to influence political discourse and create the illusion of wider support for certain viewpoints, according to its quarterly threat report published today. Some campaigns pushed political narratives about current events, including campaigns coming from Israel and Iran that posted in support of the Israeli government.

The networks used Facebook and Instagram accounts to try to influence political agendas around the world. The campaigns — some of which also originated in Bangladesh, China, and Croatia — used fake accounts to post in support of political movements, promote fake news outlets, or comment on the posts of legitimate news organizations.

Every Met Gala has some sort of controversy, whether it’s about the dress code and theme, the guest list, or a now-infamous brawl in an elevator at an afterparty. Because this is 2024, it’s only fitting that the outrage began this year because of a TikTok audio track.

In a now-deleted video, an influencer named Haley Kalil shows off her elaborate floral dress and headpiece as she prepares to host a pre-Met Gala red carpet event. Her misstep was using an audio snippet in the background taken from the 2006 film Marie Antoinette, in which the titular character smirks and delivers one of the most famous (and spurious) one-liners of history: “Let them eat cake.” The sound has been circulating on TikTok for months, mostly used in makeup tutorials, fashion videos, and things of that nature.

By the end of January, more than 25,000 Palestinians had been reported killed as a result of Israel’s military assault on Gaza. Just a handful of doctors remained at the largest medical facility in the Gaza Strip, where every day, 10 children lost one or both of their legs amid the Israeli military’s siege. A weeklong communications blackout — the longest since October 7th — cut off civilians from their families and journalists from the rest of the world. 

A. wanted to help. With a small group of friends, they set up a GoFundMe campaign with a modest goal of $300. They hoped to donate that money to organizers sending eSIMs, a digital version of a SIM card connecting devices to mobile networks, to Gaza. In the months since October 7th, when Hamas launched an attack on Israel, eSIMs have become an essential — though patchwork — method of keeping Gaza online. 

Some blue check “Premium” subscribers on X, formerly Twitter, who are spreading misinformation may be eligible for X’s ads revenue sharing program. That’s the conclusion reached by NewsGuard, a for-profit misinformation watchdog organization, in its report that followed ads appearing on 30 posts from November 13th to the 22nd. The posts made conspiratorial claims about the Israel-Hamas war that reached a collective 92 million views.

Each of the 10 accounts NewsGuard referenced had over 100,000 followers — one of the metrics it uses to classify them as “misinformation super-spreader” posters.

TikTok is taking action against content promoting the manifesto Osama bin Laden wrote discussing his supposed motivations for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In a statement on X (formerly Twitter), TikTok says it’s “proactively and aggressively removing this content and investigating how it got onto our platform.”

Dozens of videos about the manifesto, titled “Letter to America,” have surfaced on TikTok over the past several days, with CNN reporting the topic amassed “at least” 14 million views by Thursday. Originally published in 2002, the manifesto criticizes the US government’s presence in the Middle East and support of Israel. However, some creators are now trying to apply that criticism to the US government’s response to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

Social messaging platform Telegram has blocked channels used by Hamas, but only on Android phones due to violations of Google’s app store guidelines. According to CNBC, two channels — hamas_com and al-Qassam brigades — were cut off for Android users, though other channels the group uses, like Gaza Now, are still accessible.

Telegram blamed the blocks on Google’s app store guidelines, according to reporting in The Jerusalem Post. Users reportedly see an error saying the channels can’t be viewed on “Telegram apps downloaded from the Google Play Store,” implying that the ban doesn’t extend to the app when it’s downloaded from elsewhere or used on another operating system.

The vast majority of viral misinformation about the Israel-Hamas war being posted on X (formerly Twitter) is being pushed by verified users, according to a recent study by NewsGuard — a for-profit organization that rates the trustworthiness of news sites. After analyzing the 250 most-engaged X posts between October 7th and October 14th that promoted incorrect or unverified information relating to the war, researchers at NewsGuard found that verified X accounts were behind 74 percent of it.

The 250 posts analyzed within the study promoted one of 10 false or unsubstantiated war narratives identified by NewsGuard, including claims that CNN had staged footage of its news crew under attack in Israel, and videos claiming to show Israeli or Palestinian children in cages. In one week, the 250 posts collectively received 1,349,979 engagements (including likes, reposts, replies, and bookmarks) and were viewed over 100 million times globally. 186 of these top 250 posts were posted by verified blue-checked X accounts.

I have been paying close attention to Brookings’ political podcast database over the past week and a half to see how discussion of the war is taking shape. This is a highly underrated tool and an essential one if you care about the state of political podcasting. It looks at the top political podcasts on the left and right on Apple Podcasts (i.e., no Rogan) and catalogs what they’re talking about. One feature breaks out the most-discussed topics on each side, and the language used is telling about how conservative podcasters are approaching the topic versus liberal ones.

Immediately after the terrorist attacks on October 7th, conservative podcasters cornered the conversation. While “Israel” was the number one topic for conservative shows, it didn’t crack the top 10 on liberal shows. That has changed as the conflict has escalated into war, with “Israel” being the number one topic for both sides in the past week, but you can still see the difference in language and approach. 

The European Commission is formally requesting information from Meta and TikTok on how they’re handling illegal content and disinformation related to the war in Israel. The inquiry comes as part of the European Union’s newly enacted Digital Services Act (DSA), which holds large online platforms legally accountable for the content posted to them.

Both platforms have until October 25th to respond to the Commission’s request. From there, the Commission will evaluate their responses and “assess next steps.”

European Commissioner Thierry Breton sent a letter to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai reminding him of the company’s obligations under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) as a large online platform to keep illegal content and disinformation from being shared on YouTube surrounding Israel’s war with Hamas.

“Following the terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas against Israel, we are seeing a surge of illegal content and disinformation being disseminated in the EU via certain platforms,” Breton wrote. He added that YouTube has an obligation to protect children and teens in the EU from violent content on the platform, must promptly take action in response to notices from the EU, and have “proportionate and effective mitigation measures in place” to tackle risks from disinformation.

In the three days following the terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas against Israel on October 7th, Meta says it removed “seven times as many pieces of content on a daily basis” for violating its Dangerous Organizations and Individuals policy in Hebrew and Arabic versus the two months prior. The disclosure came as part of a blog post in which the social media company outlined its moderation efforts during the ongoing war in Israel.

Although it doesn’t mention the EU or its Digital Services Act, Meta’s blog post was published days after European Commissioner Thierry Breton wrote an open letter to Meta reminding the company of its obligations to limit disinformation and illegal content on its platforms. Breton wrote that the Commission is “seeing a surge of illegal content and disinformation being disseminated in the EU via certain platforms” and “urgently” asked Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to “ensure that your systems are effective.” The commissioner has also written similar letters to X, the company formerly known as Twitter, as well as TikTok. 

The European Union (EU) has formally opened an investigation into X, the platform previously known as Twitter, to ensure it’s complying with the Digital Services Act (DSA) following Hamas’ attack on Israel in early October and subsequent Israeli air assault on Gaza. According to the request, this comes after “indications received by the Commission services of the alleged spreading of illegal content and disinformation, in particular the spreading of terrorist and violent content and hate speech.”

Earlier this week, EU Commissioner Thierry Breton sent a letter to X owner Elon Musk alleging that the platform is “being used to disseminate illegal content and disinformation in the EU.”

X CEO Linda Yaccarino says the social media platform formerly known as Twitter has identified and removed “hundreds” of Hamas-affiliated accounts and has “taken action to remove or label tens of thousands of pieces of content” in the wake of terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas against Israel. Yaccarino’s letter comes in response to concerns raised by EU Commissioner Thierry Breton that X is being used to “disseminate illegal content and disinformation” in possible violation of the EU’s tough new Digital Services Act (DSA).

The back-and-forth between X and the European Union comes as the EU implements the DSA, which imposes obligations on large online platforms to remove illegal content and mitigate risks to public security more generally. In addition to X, Breton has also written to Meta to remind it of its obligations under the DSA.

European Commissioner Thierry Breton warned Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg Wednesday that failing to remove pro-Hamas content across his platforms could put the company in violation of new EU moderation regulations. 

In a letter to Zuckerberg Wednesday, Breton urged Meta “to be very vigilant” in removing illegal terrorist content and hate speech amid the ongoing war in Israel. Breton said that the European Commission had seen “a surge of illegal content and disinformation being disseminated in the EU,” potentially putting social media platforms in violation of its Digital Services Act, or DSA.