The Israel-Hamas War Is Drowning X in Disinformation - eviltoast
People who have turned to X for breaking news about the Israel-Hamas conflict are being hit with old videos, fake photos, and video game footage at a level researchers have never seen.

People who have turned to X for breaking news about the Israel-Hamas conflict are being hit with old videos, fake photos, and video game footage at a level researchers have never seen.

  • Sabre363@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    2011·
    1 year ago

    Maybe it’s not a good idea to use a media platform run by a megalomaniac moron as a primary source of news and information.

    • IninewCrow@lemmy.caEnglish
      54·
      1 year ago

      It’s a great timeline … 99% of the planet relies on megalomaniac morons, mega corporations, billionaires and for profit media corporations for all their information.

      And we wonder why there is so much misinformation, disinformation, non information and covered up information everywhere.

      It’s definitely the information age … expect no one said it would actually keep us informed or have any benefit to humanity.

      • foggy@lemmy.worldEnglish
        134·
        1 year ago

        It’s a great timeline … 99% of the planet relies on megalomaniac morons, mega corporations, billionaires and for profit media corporations for all their information.

        Same as it ever was

      • MotoAsh@lemmy.worldEnglish
        32·
        1 year ago

        Oh no, it’s DEFINITELY the informarion age. The truth is out there.

        There’s just no money to be made with hard work and actual journalism.

    • pastabatman@lemmy.worldEnglish
      14·
      1 year ago

      Fair, but this article is talking about primary information from people who are actually there and small local news outlets being drowned out by misinformation. A lot of primary information in 2023 comes from social media which is then investigated and fact checked by larger and more reputable news outlets before being reported.

      So yes, the average person who just wants to know what’s happening should not be getting that info from social media but reporters often have to. Changes to Twitter since musk took over (specifically paid blue check marks and the removal of titles from links) have made the process of sifting through the misinformation and disinformation exponentially harder, even for people who do it for a living like the researcher in the article.

    • phx@lemmy.caEnglish
      91·
      1 year ago

      It’s not just TwitX, there’s a bunch on Lemmy and Reddit feeds too

      • SCB@lemmy.worldEnglish
        106·
        1 year ago

        At this point Hexbear is essentially co-opted by astroturfing terrorists

          • SCB@lemmy.worldEnglish
            66·
            1 year ago

            Their disgustingly aggressive support of terrorism is because they are idiots who fall for propaganda

            • mycorrhiza they/them@lemmy.mlEnglish
              82·
              1 year ago

              Or because they are aware of the conditions of life imposed in Palestine?

              That 50% of the children in Gaza express no will to live? That 95% of the water is contaminated and Israel strictly controls the water supply? That thousands of civilians have been killed by the Israeli army since 2008? That Gaza functions as an open air concentration camp administrated by an openly racist apartheid state? That Israel helped fund and create Hamas in the 70s and 80s as a counterweight to the largely secular leftist PLO and this whole fucking situation is partially blowback from an effort to divide-and-conquer Palestine? That Hamas fucking chased the PLO out of Gaza, and now Hamas is essentially the only militant force left that can resist the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians?

              Who else is there for Palestinians to root for? What the fuck are they supposed to do? Just sit in their squalid concentration camp and raise their depressed children to be unemployed adults with no future, in a crumbling city with no concrete to rebuild itself, because a rich nation on the other side of the fence deemed it so?

              And in an overseas media environment where no one even fucking talks about any of this shit, and the attack is being treated as this sudden unprovoked thing out of left field, maybe some people are going to overcorrect in the other direction out of sheer frustration?

              • SCB@lemmy.worldEnglish
                26·
                1 year ago

                I’m well aware of conditions of life in Palestine. Perhaps if Hamas allowed elections in the last 20 years, there would be radically different relationships there.

                • mycorrhiza they/them@lemmy.mlEnglish
                  41·
                  1 year ago

                  The elections that determine those conditions are Israeli elections. Israel prevents Palestinians from voting in those.

                  • SCB@lemmy.worldEnglish
                    14·
                    1 year ago

                    That is just completely false. Since seizing power, Hamas has not allowed further elections.

                    I welcome your citation proving otherwise, but ultimately it’s irrelevant because every member of Hamas will ideally be dead soon.

          • SCB@lemmy.worldEnglish
            23·
            1 year ago

            Words have actual meanings

            divert to or use in a role different from the usual or original one.

        • prole@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          42·
          1 year ago

          The 12 year old loser 4channers that thought (probably still think) saying the ‘n’ word is hilarious, turned into 25 year old fascists that think “nihilism” means “make life shitty for everyone else.”

          • mycorrhiza they/them@lemmy.mlEnglish
            32·
            1 year ago

            Who are you talking about right now? Hexbear? Is your basis for who is a fascist just that they are rude to liberals on the internet and have intense feelings about capitalism and imperialism?