Social Media Surged with “Fake News” Amid The Palestine – Israel “War”(image : eye.on. palestine2)
Social media is a perfect platform for “anything and everything”. As the conflict between Hamas and Israel erupted, fake news and dis-information started flooding the platforms. Several footages and images showing the killing and bombarding the Israeli rockets and civilian areas are widely spreading across the social media platforms, especially through X (formerly twitter). The platform is owned by Elon Musk, who found himself a seating among the richest people in the world.
Even when the fake videos are corrected through the community note – a feature on the X platform that helps the users to add “context” to then posts – the video continue to circulate, garnering “millions of response and hundreds of share”.
X seems to be on the top in spreading out the mis-information and fake news the most. The visible cut in its safety and Trust policies, and the added feature of enabling anyone who pay to receive a verified account, made the platform more vulnerable to the propagation of fake news. Other platforms like Meta and Instagram also “features” the fake news propagations.
Such media platforms agreed that they removed several accounts that the media owners deem to be spreading “hate speech” and disturbing graphical images. However, Meta, who is the owner of the Facebook, Tik-Tok, Instagram and Thread and the owner of X let their silence speak volume for them .The CEO of Centre For Countering The Digital Hate said to Al Jazeera that the social media is actually a bad place for anyone who wanted to get their hands on what is happening around the world. According to him, the “flood of grifters” spreading lies and hatred abut the Hamas attack and the Israel-Palestine “war” along with it’s algorithm, the pathway for the fake news and it’s spread.
Earlier, American film maker and actress, Jamie Lee Curtis, shared a picture on her Instagram page and captioned it as “TERROR FROM THE SKIES”. The picture was of children running in panic and looking at sky, possibly at the rockets flying above them. The US actress shared the picture as the Israeli children looking at Hamas rocket, which in fact, is actually children of Gaza strip from the school which was turned to a refugee camp under the wings of United Nation. Later on, she removed her post upon receiving backlashes.
In another post by an Indian Journalist, Aditya Raj Kaul, Mr. Kaul wrote that Hamas “terrorits” has “dissected” the body of a pregnant Israeli woman in the southern Israel. But later it was found that the incident actullay occured during the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre of the Palestinian people and there were no proof the same has been occured anywhere in the conflicted areas of Israel recently.
A pregnant woman in Southern Israel was found by Hamas terrorists. They dissected her body. Her stomach was cut open and they took the fetus out with the umbilical cord. And let the unborn child die slowly out of his mother’s womb. This is what inhuman savages Hamas do to people.
— Aditya Raj Kaul (@AdityaRajKaul) October 10, 2023
The post speaks in volume about the depth of fake news that is revolving in the social media about the current escalation of the age old “war” between the State of Israel and resistance group from the land of Palestine.
