Trolls, Islamophobes, sham experts inflame social media as bombs hit Gaza

Immediately after Hamas' blitzkrieg on Israeli settlements and towns and Israeli bombardment on besieged Gaza, a user of X [formerly Twitter] shared a video showing red sky, firecrackers, lights and smoke.

Apparently owned by an Indian user, the X handle @greenysoulin, shared the video as "Israel's response to Hamas" with hashtags #IsraelUnderAttack and #IndiaWithIsrael.

There was just one problem: The low-quality video loaned from TikTok was not from Gaza but from Algeria, where euphoric fans of CRBelouizdad football club were celebrating their team's victory in the Algerian league in 2020.

The video is still on X and has so far garnered more than 1.1 million views.

As the Israel-Palestine conflict escalates to a new dangerous level, trolls, Islamophobes, clickbaiters, and influencers seeking validation and online traffic are having a field day too.

Doctored visuals, unrelated articles, and unconfirmed news are being shared and reproduced at industrial level, with some of the content being picked up and replicated by mainstream news organisations as well.

And it looks like people are accepting it.

'Beheaded babies' unverified news

Suspicion rose after an Israeli TV channel claimed Hamas fighters "beheaded" dozens of babies during their surprise attack last week at the settlement of Kfar Aza kibbutz near Israel's fence with Gaza.

The startling claim made by Tel Aviv-based news channel i24 began to trend, with many jumping to conclusions. Not only was Hamas called "barbaric", calls were also made to ethnically cleanse Palestinians.

Charlie Kirk, founder and CEO of Turning Point USA, for example, shared a report by Fox News on the alleged beheadings.

"They found the bodies of 40 Jewish babies, some with their heads cut off. Pray for Israel," American conservative Kirk said in his tweet.

Kirk later backtracked from his allegation.

"As with all wartime reporting, it's important to remember there are lots of errors and misinformation swirling. But if it's confirmed to be true, it's one of the most atrocious wartime acts you'll ever hear of."

Kirk has been previously accused of causing division between Christians and Muslims, particularly in the US, after airing anti-Islam comments on the PBD Valuetainment podcast two months ago. The episode was focused on finding a middle-ground between the two major religions.

"One of the reasons they [Muslims] tend to be violent is because their prophet [Prophet Muhammad] was a very violent person," Kirk said then.

Turkish Anadolu Agency, which was the first media outlet to debunk the misinformation on "beheading of babies", quoted an Israeli military spokesperson as saying that the Israeli military could not confirm the claims made by i24 that spread like wildfire on social and mainstream media.

Sky News journalist Stuart Ramsay, who interviewed two Israeli military officials at the site, one of them a spokesperson, said: At no point did either he, or the other major I spoke to, ever mention that Hamas had beheaded or killed 40 babies or children. I believe that if it were the case, they would have told me and others there.

"There is no doubt that a horrific attack took place at Kfar Aza, and it needed to be reported, and we did see the bodies of the dead from the community in their houses, in the back of a truck, and on the basketball court.

"But it's important to separate the facts from speculation in a situation like this."

Tel Aviv-based Oren Ziv, who works for independent news outlet 972 mag and visited Kfar Aza kibbutz said, "During the tour, we didn't see any evidence of this, and the army spokesperson or commanders also didn’t mention any such incidents."

The Grayzone, an independent news website, meanwhile claimed to have identified the i24 source as David Ben Zion, a deputy commander of unit 71 of the Israeli army who it said happens to be an "extremist" settler leader who incited violent riots against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank earlier this year.

According to the Grayzone, Ben Zion was seen in a Facebook video hours after the interview with i24 where he was grinning from ear to ear, an odd position for a supposed witness of a massacre.

Ben Zion is a leader of the Shomron Regional Council of 35 illegal West Bank settlements who has called for the Palestinian village of Huwara to be "wiped out."

The "de-confirmation" of the news won’t matter anyway for the Western audience because they will still believe it, tweeted journalist, correspondent and filmmaker Dan Cohen.

"Mission accomplished, propagandists," Cohen said on X.

Scourge of disinformation

Another video shared on social media claims to show Israeli children being held in steel cages by Palestinian fighters.

The footage was, however, filmed several days before the current fight broke out.

"This is a Black-hearted lie," George Galloway, an ex-British Parliament member who is known for his comments in support of Palestine, said in a reference to the footage.

Another false claim that spread on social media showed the body of Shani Louk, a 22-year-old German citizen, being paraded naked by Hamas fighters.

The video was used to incite anti-Palestine hatred and belittle their anti-occupation cause.

Days later, Louk's mother announced she has received evidence confirming her daughter's survival in Gaza hospital, where she is being treated for severe head wounds.

To promote pro-Israel sentiments, some users even shared a scene from a Palestinian short film, "Empty Place", making a false claim that it showed Palestinians using child actors to show Israel killing children in Gaza.

Other false claims on social media include a falsely labelled video purporting to be Hamas fighters with a kidnapped child, and video from a concert by American singer Bruno Mars miscaptioned as footage from an Israeli music festival that was attacked by Hamas, according to Reuters Fact Check.

News and real analysis on the ongoing Israel-Palestine war is fast drowning in a sea of disinformation as social media outlets fail to address the scourge of disinformation, unverified news and amplification of hate against Palestinians.

While disinformation has spread on all major social media platforms, including Facebook and TikTok, X appeared to be the most recent to draw scrutiny from regulators.

On Tuesday, European Union's industry chief Thierry Breton warned Elon Musk to curb disinformation on his messaging platform X, insisting it was being used to disseminate illegal content and false information in the wake of ongoing violence in the Middle East.

Fake and manipulated imagery circulating on X include "repurposed old images of unrelated armed conflicts or military footage that actually originated from video games," said a Tuesday letter to Musk from Breton.

"This appears to be manifestly false or misleading information."

X has said it is treating the crisis with utmost effort, and in the past several days "we’ve seen an increase in daily active users on @X in the conflict area, plus there have been more than 50 million posts globally" focusing on the ongoing conflict.