‘Particularly virulent’: How falsehoods fire up online battle to control narratives of Israel-Hamas war

SINGAPORE – A murky war of disinformation is being waged online by both Israeli and Palestinian supporters attempting to control the narrative in the wake of

a deadly blast at a Gaza City hospital

on Tuesday that killed hundreds of people and sparked protests in the Middle East.

In viral posts since debunked, a Facebook account masquerading as the Israeli military’s Arabic-language page claimed responsibility for the blast.

Separately, a user on X, formerly known as Twitter, falsely claimed to be an Al Jazeera journalist who had a video of a Hamas rocket landing in the hospital.

These are just two instances of the proliferating online misinformation as Israeli and Palestinian officials blame each other for the blast and, more broadly, the war.

A swathe of misleading content online

As the ground battle between Israel and Hamas rages on, social media platforms such as X, Telegram, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok are rife with content attempting to shape narratives of the war.

Experts say that some of this is misinformation, or content that is simply inaccurate, while some is disinformation, defined as content that is intended to mislead. 

Spreading alongside real stories of human suffering are shocking but unverified accounts that have sometimes entered mainstream political discourse before they are deemed factual.

For instance, claims that Hamas had beheaded babies and toddlers, which have not been independently verified, were referenced in remarks by United States President Joe Biden on Oct 11.

A US official later clarified that neither the President nor the administration had seen evidence of this.

People seeking a closer look at the war have found themselves duped into viewing old content masquerading as fresh footage.

This is used in part to “create a sense of outrage”, said Dr Jean-Loup Samaan of the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute.

For example, a widely shared image on X purportedly depicting the Israeli murder of Palestinian children was actually taken in Syria in 2013, said BBC journalist Shayan Sardarizadeh, who covers disinformation.

Several clips from the video game Arma 3 have been cast as footage from the war, including one which has been viewed more than 2.7 million times.

And a viral TikTok video showing children in cages, who some social media users said were Israeli while others said were Palestinian, was uploaded before the war even began, according to Israeli disinformation watchdog FakeReporter.

Speculation that undermines established narratives has also surfaced.

A conspiracy theory alleging that Hamas had help from inside Israel in planning the Oct 7 attack has spread across social media, according to a study by the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab published on Oct 12. 

“The danger of mis/disinformation and propaganda further inflaming an already boiling conflict remains as high as ever,” the study said.

Many voices with a particularly virulent streak

The emergence of false and misleading content on the Israel-Hamas war is to be expected, said experts.

“Like any conflict, like the conflict in Ukraine at the moment, there is always an element of misinformation or disinformation on both sides to make their narrative the most compelling,” Dr Samaan told The Straits Times.

While it is not easy to discern what lies behind this cacophony of voices online, Dr Samaan said that governments and non-state actors have an interest in supporting information campaigns backing their respective agendas.

“Hamas will conduct an information campaign that emphasises the brutality of the Israel Defence Forces’ operation on Gaza, while Israel’s government will report on Hamas’ terrorist tactics to consolidate the legitimacy of its ongoing operation,” he said.

Third parties to the conflict are also looking to shape the narrative to serve their broader interests, including “to portray the American response as part of the problem”, Dr Samaan added.

Associate Professor Marc Owen Jones of the Hamad bin Khalifa University in Qatar said individuals also have a role to play.

“The polarisation of the conflict means that people on both sides are less willing to accept that ‘their side’ may be capable of brutality, so people may share false narratives simply because they agree with them,” the disinformation expert told ST.

The misinformation and disinformation surrounding the Israel-Hamas war, while not necessarily of a larger scale than past conflicts, are “particularly virulent”, said Prof Jones.

One contributing factor is that social media platforms have “backed away from user safety and content moderation, meaning that there is less censorship of fake news and hate speech”, he said.

Another factor is that individuals can also “propagate misinformed views faster and to a broader audience” by paying to become “verified” premium users on X or to use the “promote” function on TikTok, noted Assistant Professor Saifuddin Ahmed from Nanyang Technological University’s Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information.

According to US-based media analysis firm NewsGuard, nearly three-quarters of the most viral posts on X advancing misinformation about the Israel-Hamas war in the first week of the conflict were pushed by “verified” X accounts.

Users of X can pay US$8 (S$11) a month, or US$84 a year, to receive a blue-tick verification on their profiles and have their posts prioritised by X’s algorithm.

It will get worse

The spate of online misinformation and disinformation surrounding the Israel-Hamas war is unlikely to have reached its peak.

“The battle of narratives will probably get tougher and more intense after the Israelis start their ground invasion,” said Dr Samaan.

One danger for the international community is the ability of these narratives to go beyond the Middle East, the experts say.

“The most dangerous narrative,” said Dr Samaan, is one that argues “that this is not just a conflict between Israel and Hamas, but a conflict between a Jewish entity and Muslims”.

Malicious actors on social media and also some international media organisations are guilty of framing the sensitive underlying issues as a religious conflict, said Prof Saifuddin, noting that such narratives are “a concern for any multicultural society, including Singapore”.

“(We) must not take social media information at face value but seek out information from reliable and multiple sources.

“It is crucial to recognise that most misinformation and disinformation operate by exploiting our emotions rather than appealing to our rational thinking,” he said.