Tech firms struggle as Israel-Gaza falsehoods explode
WASHINGTON, United States — From fake accounts impersonating journalists to war-themed video games fueling false narratives, tech platforms are struggling to contain a tsunami of misinformation around Palestinian-Israeli hostilities after rolling back content moderation policies.
While major world events typically trigger a deluge of falsehoods, researchers say the scale and speed with which misinformation proliferated online following the weekend's deadly assault on Israel by the Palestinian militant group Hamas was unlike ever before.
The conflict, experts say, offers a grim case study of the diminished ability of prominent platforms such as Meta-owned Facebook and X, formerly known as Twitter, to combat false information in a climate of layoffs and cost-cutting that have gutted trust and safety teams.
Aggravating the problem on the Elon Musk-owned X, in particular, are a slew of contentious measures such as the restoration of accounts pushing bogus conspiracies and an ad revenue sharing program with content creators that researchers say incentivizes engagement instead of accuracy.
Experts fear these moves have increased the risk of misinformation provoking real-world harm, amplifying hate and violence especially in a fast-evolving crisis scenario such as the one unfolding in Israel and Gaza.
"Social media platforms are struggling to keep up with the constant churn of misinformation and incitements to violence," Andy Carvin, from the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab), told AFP.
"It's a trend that's been building for some time now, and it's only gotten worse with layoffs impacting trust and safety teams, hampering their ability to keep up with the chaos.
"And in the case of X, changes to the platform have utterly shattered what was previously one of its greatest strengths -- monitoring breaking news and helping users separate fact from fiction."
Social media users are being bombarded with fake combat photos, old videos from Syria repurposed to look like they were taken from Gaza, and conflict-themed video game footage being passed off as a scene from a Hamas attack, misinformation researchers say.
An image circulating online purported to
