Israel-Hamas war: Social media is the biggest devil. How to tackle fake news?

New-age wars are not confined to tanks and fighter jets. There are other mass tools of disruption, which can shape narratives and influence millions of people across the world. These tools act as catalysts for significant geopolitical developments.

During World War I and World War II, the world for the first time witnessed the battlefield use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The wars have now evolved, they are now different from the contemporary conflicts.

British academic Mary Kaldor came up with the term "new wars" to characterise conflicts in the post-Cold War era. She attempted to differentiate "old" and "new" wars to help analyse today's conflicts more efficiently.

The new wars are characterised by violence between varying combinations of state and non-state networks, which are mostly fighting in the name of identity politics as opposed to ideology.

The wars these days, such as the Russia-Ukraine war or Israel-Hamas war, are based on the use of stand–off warfare: precision-guided weapons, drones, and more.

A simultaneous war takes place online, where people from different parts of the world find an easy theatre: social media and message platforms like X, Facebook and Telegram, to participate and share their point of view, sometimes news, and sometimes fake news.

Geopolitics and fake news

During wars, geopolitics and fake news are a potent combination. Fake news and dis/misinformation can be strategically used to shape narratives, sway alliances, influence political decisions, and manipulate public sentiment, significantly impacting the geopolitical landscape, which we can commonly witness during the Israel-Hamas war. Fake news can also hinder efforts to achieve resolution or peace.

Social media can amplify the impact of fake news especially during wars, as it spreads information rapidly and influences public opinion on a global scale.

The ongoing Israel-Hamas war has seen a proliferation of fake news, which has exacerbated tensions and often created a distorted perception of events.

Hamas, the Palestine-based militant group designated as a terrorist organisation by many countries including the US and the UK, launched a surprise attack on Oct7. As per Israeli authorities, more than 1,400 people - mostly civilians- were killed and more than 200 were taken back into the Gaza Strip as hostages.

In return, Israel waged a war, calling it a retaliatory action, and ever since, misinformation has spread online as the two sides continued to battle.

Many social media users share misleading or baseless claims, including miscaptioned imagery or altered documents, during major events which have the potential to impact geopolitics. They shape public perception.

Asked how social media is making this war different from the previous ones Israel was involved in, Ian Bremmer, the founder and president of Eurasia Group, a political risk research and consulting firm, told WION it is "a horrible challenge and getting much worse".

"Information generated on social media becomes a tool for manipulation and spreading predefined geopolitical narratives to specific audience and population," Gene Yoo, the CEO of Resecurity, an American cybersecurity company with a focus on next-generation endpoint protection and intelligence-driven solutions, told WION.

"Such activity also took place in period of election campaigns and important social events such as pandemics and disasters, when the bad actors can also buy or steal specific data and use it for further targeting to accomplish own goals."

Yoo said the tactics of bad actors involved in misinformation have become more advanced. "Based on our assessment, the bad actors may leverage a wide range of tools and resources to target desktop and mobile-based channels to spread misinformation. Typically, one of the main goals of such activity is to generate chaos and influence specific narratives using digital media channels".

The flow of fake news

But what if verified or government handles post misleading information? For example, Iran's state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) shared a video on Oct13, claiming to show Lebanese youth at the Palestinian border trying to help the Palestinians and climb over fences in Gaza.

But the video was called out as old and was later deleted by IRNA.

Since it was posted by an official handle, it was shared by many till the time it remained online, and consumed by millions who saw it on their feed.

When Hamas launched the Oct 7 attack, militants backed by rocket fire flew into Israel on paragliders. But thousands of people on social media wound up watching unrelated footage of Egyptian paratroopers skydiving over the Egyptian Military Academy in Cairo. News agency Reuters fact-checked this and found it to be unrelated to the developments in Israel.

A lot of decontextualized videos continue to circulate on Twitter to glorify Hamas terror attacks on Israel.

Here, the video shows Egyptian paratroopers near the military academy in Cairo and has nothing to do with recent events in Israel. pic.twitter.com/0mzkzYWwiX — Roman Adamczyk (@RomanAdamczyk5) October 8, 2023

One of the Hamas gunmen's first targets after breaching the Gaza border fence was a music festival attended by hundreds in the Israeli kibbutz of Reim.

A video recorded three days earlier, showing fans of US artist Bruno Mars storming into a Tel Aviv concert site to see him perform, was widely circulated on social media as showing the moment the festival was attacked.

Our heart sinks when we see children suffering, and dying during the wars, but it appears those in the fake news business are using small kids to promote misleading narratives to escalate tensions. A case in point: A photo montage posted online showing three different men carrying the same child.

It's claimed that the girl was injured during Israeli airstrikes. Three photographs showed her being carried away following an airstrike in Syria in 2016, but they have resurfaced online in Oct2023, miscaptioned to falsely claim that she is a crisis actor who allegedly survived three attacks by Israel in one day.

An Oct24 post on X with over 332,000 views reads: "Somebody call Guinness World Records. We have found the most lucky (or unlucky?) girl in the world. She has miraculously survived Israel ruthless attacks on 3 separate occasions times on the same day. Wow!"

It later emerged that all three images were taken by news agency AFP's photographer Ameer Alhalbi on Aug 27, 2016, in the Maadi district of eastern Aleppo following an airstrike.

What's the way forward?

It's a distant dream to hope for an ideal world of peace with no room for wars and armed conflicts.

Wars will continue to happen and so will the spread of propaganda online.

Hence, there's no way out but to seek information from reputable sources to avoid being misled.

It's necessary to cross-check the videos and images to foster a more accurate understanding of the complex situation.

While reporting or writing about the Israel-Hamas war, or any other war... it becomes crucial to gather information from official sources, and news agencies for data and quotes.

Bremmer said, "Social media companies need to have responsibility for not promoting fake news algorithmically."

"All accounts should be verified as actual people" and "AI-generated images and videos must be verifiably watermarked".

Yoo, the Resecurity CEO, shared his thoughts on how we can tackle widely shared misinformation and baseless claims. "Detection of misinformation remains one of the biggest challenges. Successful tackling of such activity should include comprehensive screening, analysis and fact-checking."

"Data science and Artificial Intelligence could be helpful in the analysis of big volumes of data coming from social media and alternative digital channels," he said.

He also suggested that in addition to technology, it is critical to have domain experts and industry professionals who will be able to independently validate the content.

He added that collaboration is also an important component of collecting required feedback and disseminating it between the key parties involved.

Yoo explained with an example. During the Israel-Hamas war, he said, several misinformation campaigns were detected, targeting Saudi Arabia, UAE, Thailand, India and other countries. "Collected feedback from the partners and correlation with other available details allowed to detect misinformation campaign at the early stage and notify the key stakeholders," he said.

Disclaimer: WION takes utmost care to accurately and responsibly report ongoing developments on the Israel-Palestine conflict after the Hamas attacks. However, we cannot independently verify the authenticity of all statements, photos and videos.