During any war or horrific event, many people — including politicians and members of the media — are quick to try to figure out what happened on social media.
The problem is, what's posted isn't always what it seems to be. During the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year, livestreamers reposted old videos to TikTok, claiming they showed the latest from the front lines, in order to get views and trick people into donating to fake fundraisers. Particularly on poorly moderated platforms like X (formerly known as Twitter), it's hard to really tell what's true and what's not.
The Israel-Hamas war is happening right at a moment when the nature of misinformation is changing. Yesterday, an X account claimed that the Department of State evacuated its embassy in Beirut — but it's not true.
I spoke with tech reporter A.W. Ohlheiser — who has covered misinformation through dozens of news events — to walk us through how to think about claims online.
The lowdown: In war, it takes time, sometimes a long time, to verify eyewitness accounts. A lot of that has to do with the effects of what's known as the fog of war, where people's situational awareness can be affected by incredible fear, shock, and the need to survive. That's not to say people on the ground aren't telling the truth, but rather that it's difficult to parse.
There's a checklist we can all do the moment we see or hear something, says A.W.:
- Understand the platform you're on. Loads of platforms are prioritizing profit and engagement over reliability. Right now, for instance, TikTok users are using an ad feature to promote videos of the Israel-Hamas war, regardless of veracity — just for $7.
- SIFT! Stop. Investigate the source. Find better coverage. Trace claims. People get engagement on questionable or untrue posts during breaking news by tugging on emotions and beliefs. If you're immediately feeling anger or another strong emotion in response to a post, take a moment to slow down.
- Check in with yourself. You don't have to view horribly graphic videos or photos to process what's going on, even though it may feel like you want to know what's happening as soon as it happens.
The stakes: The churn of good and bad information is supercharged in high-stakes situations, A.W. wrote. This week, there was a huge debate on social media on whether or not babies were beheaded by Hamas. While reporters were confirming details, a narrative began that perhaps the beheadings hadn't happened because they hadn't yet been verified by news organizations. (It's starting to look like they did, according to the Jerusalem Post.) "Unconfirmed," crucially, doesn't mean "not true."
"My sense of how this developed was that the initial story came from IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) soldiers, as reported by Israeli media," A.W. explains. "Some journalists, rightly, pointed out that these stories weren't enough to confirm the horrific claims that were made, and urged caution. But the story went viral, and the conversation then quickly devolved into some people wrongly framing it as 'misinformation' ('unconfirmed' would be more accurate) and others were kind of using it as a litmus test. Meanwhile, journalists on the ground and reporting from afar were doing the work to verify, which is ongoing."
There's something to be said about not wanting to jump through hoops as a media consumer to know whether something is true — it can feel dehumanizing. But as the war goes on, and as social media platforms change, it'll remain important to be patient for verification — that is, the painstaking process of cross-checking sources or digging deep into the origins of a photo or video. It defies human nature, yes. We want to know, and we want to know now, but the harm of sharing false information often outweighs the satisfaction of our knee-jerk reactions.
Read A.W.'s full guide here.
