Social Media in a conflict

The atrocities in the Middle East over the last few weeks have shocked the world. But what role do social media platforms have to play? And how is disinformation shaping our understanding of modern conflicts?

Firstly I want to acknowledge that writing about social media right now seems trite and unimportant. The news, stories, videos, and testimonials of what has taken place over the last few weeks and the deaths in both Israel and Palestine are heartbreaking.

The oppressive nature of life in Gaza is now in full view and the world is trying to make sense of what seems a senseless situation. The suffering and trauma for everyone affected is hard for the rest of us to even comprehend or process.

I wanted to write, briefly about how the current state of social media and the disinformation crisis we find ourselves in, is having a real-life impact on the way we understand, interpret and respond to conflict.

Disinformation world

We’ve seen evidence of how disinformation can impact a conflict in the ongoing war in Ukraine. We are now seeing the importance of reliable online information both to support those fighting and impacted by the conflict and on the global narrative and understanding of events on the ground. But what the war in Ukraine and recent atrocities in Israel and Palestine have shown us, is that we are living in a world of disinformation. A world in which our understanding of global issues, politics, and times of conflict and war are being shaped and rewritten by the information we are fed online. 

We now all have access to an array of platforms that in their own way can guide and even polarise our view of world events. These views can then be reinforced and algorithmically amplified to enrage us and stir a response.

Jean-Claude Goldenstein, CEO of CREOpoint who analyse disinformation, said his research had found a “100x explosion” in the number of viral claims about the Israel-Hamas conflict that fact-checkers found to be false over the last few weeks.

“Online lies are skyrocketing, leading to intense emotions across multiple time zones, with huge global and social implications. The size and spread is without precedent.” 

Not only that but we are all having to deal with the rise in AI-powered conflict disinformation as deepfake and doctored content help drive often opposing narratives about what might be taking place on the ground. Content is being misused and re-posted out of context to help drive a wider media narrative leading all of us to question what we are seeing and being told all the while finding it harder to gain credible factual information.

The power of instant information

With the near-total black-out of communication for citizens in Gaza those who have been able to share information and videos have done so through social media. Social platforms have since their early inception performed a role to aid citizen reporting, especially in instances where news outlets are not on the ground themselves. 

Though it was flawed we used to use Twitter as a place to gather real-time information on events taking place around the world. The app gave us a utopian sense that we could open it up and get a pretty good snapshot of major events taking place on any particular day.

That no longer exists as X has become more radicalised in the topics and individuals who are promoted on the platform in the year since Elon Musk took over and vowed to end restrictions on free speech. What that has led to is a flood of mis and disinformation from verified users who are paying for the privilege to spread mistruths. According to an analysis by NewsGuard, it was verified users shared and amplified 74% of the most viral false claims related to the Israel-Hamas conflict in recent weeks. 

It’s no wonder then that many journalists and news organisations have moved to Threads, Instagram, TikTok or BlueSky as alternatives. But these platforms have a huge responsibility to monitor and moderate content in a way that doesn’t harm both those who are trying to make sense of the conflict and people on the ground or directly affected by events.

As a recent piece by Article19 eloquently puts it “Platforms must diligently combat content that risks people’s safety, unjustifiably restricting access to vital information is equally dangerous. Labelling legitimate content as ‘fake news’ only serves to silence historically oppressed groups and embolden their aggressors.”