Misinformation takes root on social media amid Israel-Hamas war

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As the conflict between Israel and Hamas continues, another battle is being fought against disinformation on social media platforms. Demand for an up-close view of the war has created ample openings for disinformation peddlers, conspiracy theorists and propaganda artists. Regulators and researchers warn the malign influences threaten to poison public debates about the war.

WHAT’S HAPPENING

• Experts say everyone from US foreign adversaries to domestic extremists to internet trolls and “engagement farmers” has been exploiting the Israel-Hamas war on social media for their own personal or political gain.
• One recent TikTok video, seen by more than 300,000 users and reviewed by CNN, promoted conspiracy theories about the origins of the Hamas attacks, including false claims that they were orchestrated by the media.
• One post on X, formerly Twitter, was viewed more than 20,000 times and flagged as misleading by London-based social media watchdog Reset for purporting to show Israelis staging civilian deaths for cameras.
• X owner Elon Musk himself added to the information chaos last week by recommending X users follow the Israel-Hamas conflict by following an account known for spreading misinformation. (Musk’s post was later deleted, and the videos were labeled using X’s “community notes” feature.)
• European Union officials sent warnings to X, TikTok, YouTube and Facebook and Instagram-parent Meta highlighting reports of misleading or illegal content about the war on their platforms and reminding the social media companies they could face billions of dollars in fines if an investigation later determines they violated EU content moderation laws.
• ?US lawmakers have also called on those platforms to ensure they are enforcing their rules against hateful and illegal content.

WHAT ARE SOCIAL MEDIA COMPANIES DOING ABOUT IT

• X says that its safety teams “have actioned tens of thousands of posts for sharing graphic media, violent speech, and hateful conduct” (X did not respond to CNN’s request to define what “actioned” means specifically). The company says it’s also monitoring for antisemitic speech.?
• TikTok is launching a command center to coordinate the work of its "safety professionals" around the world, improving the software it uses to automatically detect and remove graphic and violent content, and hiring more Arabic and Hebrew speakers to moderate content. The Chinese firm says it has already removed more than 500,000 videos and shut down 8,000 livestream videos from the "impacted region" since the Hamas attack.
• A spokesperson for Meta, which owns Facebook as well as Instagram, says the company has established “a special operations center staffed with experts, including fluent Hebrew and Arabic speakers, to closely monitor and respond to this rapidly evolving situation.”
• ?YouTube says its teams have removed thousands of videos since the conflict began. The platform is also surfacing almost entirely videos from mainstream news organizations in searches related to the war.
• Companies’ efforts to combat this most recent wave of disinformation may be hamstrung by cuts to their ethics and safety teams , which have been folded into widespread layoffs seen across the tech industry over the last year or so.

THE BIGGER PICTURE?

• Experts say individual stories and combat footage conveyed through social media often lack the broader perspective and context that journalists, research organizations and even social media moderation teams apply to a situation to help achieve a fuller understanding of it.?
• “Getting information from social media is likely to lead to you being severely disinformed ,” CEO of Center for Countering Digital Hate, Imran Ahmed, tells CNN.? Ahmed says his group has tracked a spike in efforts to pollute the information ecosystem surrounding the conflict.?
• Graham Brookie, with Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, tells CNN he's seen "upticks in specific and general Islamophobic and antisemitic narratives."
• Brookie says much of the most extreme content has been circulating on Telegram, a messaging app with few content moderation controls. Content shared on Telegram and other more fringe sites can easily find a pipeline onto mainstream social media or draw in curious users from major sites.?
• Telegram didn’t respond to a request for comment, but last week its founder, Russian-born entrepreneur Pavel Durov, justified keeping content others have banned by arguing his platform is "a unique source of first-hand information for researchers, journalists and fact-checkers." Hamas is barred from most social media platforms, but its Telegram following has surged since its October 7 terror attack on Israel.

BE CAUTIOUS ABOUT SHARING

• Even well-intentioned users can unwittingly share misleading information or highly emotional content created with the intention of collecting views or monetizing highly engaging content, experts say.
• “Sharing stuff that you’re not sure about is not helping people, it’s actually really harming them and it contributes to an overall sense that no one can trust what they’re seeing,” Center for Countering Digital Hate’s Imran Ahmed says?
• Some Jewish schools in the US are asking parents not to share related videos or photos that may surface, and to prevent children – and themselves – from watching them. The schools are also advising community members to delete their social media apps during this time.

How much do you rely on social media to get the news? Has suspicious content related to the Mideast conflict shown up on any of your feeds? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Here are some other stories we're following today:

War’s deadly ripple effects? Near Chicago, the six-year-old Palestinian-American boy allegedly stabbed by his landlord was laid to rest today. Authorities say the 71-year-old landlord stabbed the boy and his mother, who's expected to survive, because they are Muslim, citing the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. The landlord was in court today to face murder and hate crime charges. The Justice Department is also investigating the stabbing as a hate crime. US Attorney General Merrick Garland says the child's killing will "raise the fears of Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian communities in our country.”

Keep an eye on the House: US Representative Jim Jordan has convinced several important fellow Republicans to back his bid to be the next House speaker . The GOP-led chamber has been frozen without a leader for two weeks since a faction of hard-liners within the party took the gavel away from Kevin McCarthy. Jordan can likely only afford to lose support of four members of Republicans' super-slim majority, but he says the House will vote on his nomination at noon ET tomorrow whether he has the votes or not.

Ford exec says spare the strike: Bill Ford of Ford Motor Company calls for the United Auto Workers to stop striking, warning that it's helping non-union Tesla and foreign automakers. "They will win and all of us will lose," the company’s executive chairman says in his first public comments since negotiations with the union started. Ford also cautions that the supply chain is "very fragile and will start collapsing" if the UAW expands its strike further. UAW President Shawn Fain says the union is prepared to expand the scope of its strike "at any time." UAW is also striking against General Motors and Stellantis.

Court-ordered silence: A federal judge is limiting what former President Donald Trump can say about special counsel Jack Smith's case concerning Trump's alleged attempt to subvert the 2020 presidential election. The limited gag order restricts Trump's ability to publicly target court personnel, potential witnesses, or the special counsel and his staff. The judge says any violation could result in sanctions. Trump says he'll appeal the order. Earlier this month, a different judge overseeing the ongoing civil fraud trial against Trump in New York also issued a limited gag order after Trump attacked his clerk in a social media post.

Olympics add popular team sports: Five new sports are being added to the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The International Olympic Committee approved baseball/softball, cricket, flag football, lacrosse and squash for the 2028 Games. It's the first time flag football and squash will be at the Olympics, and the first time cricket and lacrosse will be included in more than a century.

A new kind of record: The “Taylor Swift: Movie Star” era is officially here after the singer’s concert film dominated the box office this past weekend, raking in about $96M in US and Canada. That makes it the highest-grossing concert film ever domestically for an opening weekend. Read more about how that may play into the broader health of box offices.

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