The Dangerous Spread of Misinformation on Israel-Hamas Conflict

Social media companies, particularly X (formerly known as Twitter) and its owner Elon Musk, are facing criticism as misinformation about the Israel-Hamas war spreads rapidly. The European Union has urged X and Meta (owner of Facebook) to remove misleading posts and videos. Examples of misinformation include videos falsely portraying events from a video game as real footage and misrepresenting older incidents as recent. Emerson Brooking, a senior resident fellow at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, highlights the dangers of misinformation and criticizes X for removing the ability to find and verify credible accounts while introducing a for-profit motive that incentivizes the sharing of false content.