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☆ False claims dead Palestinian baby was 'a doll' go viral on social media in the Israel-Hamas disinformation war
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-03 | by ( Rebecca Rommen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

False claims that the body of a five-month-old Palestinian baby, was "a doll" went viral. The Jerusalem Post, a leading Israeli news outlet, removed and retracted its article about the "doll." Photojournalist Ali Jadallah posted an Instagram story, writing: "I shared the name of this baby, and still Israeli media are claiming he is a doll. In a statement on X, The Jerusalem Post said: "The article in question did not meet our editorial standards and was thus removed. AdvertisementUpdate: Jerusalem Post has now fully deleted the article off of their website and all associated social media posts.

Persons: —, Ali Jadallah, Muhammad Hani Al, Attia, Attia Abu Amra, Deir, Muhammad, Ben Goggin, Shayan, Sardarizadeh Organizations: Service, Getty, Hospital, Reuters, NBC's, Jerusalem Post, BBC Locations: Jerusalem, Israel, Gaza, Aqsa, Deir Al, Balah

☆ X and TikTok are both under fire from the EU over hate speech and Israel-Hamas disinformation
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-08 | by ( Pete Syme | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

TikTok's CEO and an X executive met with the European Commission's Věra Jourová on Tuesday. She said they both need to "step up" their efforts to counter hate speech. AdvertisementAdvertisementTikTok and X, formerly Twitter, need to "step up" their efforts countering hate speech, a European Commission vice president said. In posts on X, Jourová said the meetings were constructive but pointed out several areas of improvement, adding that X needs to do more to comply with the Digital Services Act. AdvertisementAdvertisementAs well as illegal hate speech, Jourová raised concerns about the platforms hosting pro-Hamas content in the wake of its attacks on Israel in October.

Persons: Jourová, —, Věra Jourová, Shou Zi Chew, Nick Pickles, X's, X, Elon Musk, TikTok Organizations: Service, European Commission, Digital Services, EU, Hamas, Elon Locations: Israel, Gaza, EU, Brussels

☆ Elon Musk's vision for X risks turning free speech into a pay-to-play game
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-21 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Elon Musk's X relies on free speech to work. But free speech is slowly tilting to paid speech on the platform. After all, "free speech" isn't very free if you're asked to cough up a regular fee. But the billionaire seems to have a grand plan for X, which involves taking the "free" out of "free speech." But by starting to charge users for access to X, Musk enters dangerous territory: a platform vital for documenting and sharing current affairs through free speech in real-time risks turning into a pay-to-play game.

Persons: Elon, —, Elon Musk, Musk Organizations: Service, Al, Reuters Locations: New Zealand, Philippines, Israel, Gaza, Al Jazeera, Syria

☆ Google cut 40 jobs in its news division the same week its CEO promised to focus on content moderation: report
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-19 | by ( Sawdah Bhaimiya | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Google cut an estimated 40 to 45 jobs in its Google News division this week, according to CNBC. Google CEO Sundar Pichai said on Tuesday that content moderation is a "critical focus" for the company right now. The tech giant laid off an estimated 40 to 45 workers at Google News, according to the Alphabet Workers Union, per CNBC. Google and the Alphabet Workers Union did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment. We will continue to tackle disinformation, hate speech, graphic content and terrorist content."

Persons: Sundar Pichai, —, Benjamin Netanyahu, Shayan, Michael Bennet Organizations: Google, Google News, CNBC, Service, Alphabet Workers Union, Hamas, BBC, Twitter Locations: Israel, Gaza

☆ The Israel-Hamas war shows how social media has given up on facts
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-18 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

The Israel-Hamas war shows how social media platforms no longer want to deal with the news. AdvertisementAdvertisementNot too long ago, social media was the future of news. To accompany this flow of verified information, Facebook, Twitter and other social media companies built large content moderation teams and partnerships. Reading these, it's easy to see how social media can divide people during difficult times. The social media account posed as a BBC journalist to share this misinformation for engagement.

Persons: —, Jack Dorsey, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk's, Adam Mosseri, Karan Singhal, Singhal, there's, Cristiano Ronaldo, Marcus Hutchins, Mosseri, we're, Andy Stone, Zuckerberg, Alex Stamos, TikTok Organizations: Service, Facebook, Twitter, Elon Musk's Twitter, CNBC, BBC, Palestinian, Meta Locations: Israel, Moroccan, Israeli, Syria, Meta, France, Germany, Canada

☆ The difficult task of verifying truth in a war zone, especially now
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-16 | by ( Claire Atkinson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

A report of "40 beheaded babies" in Israel made the rounds last week as journalists worked to verify it. AdvertisementAdvertisementLast week, I was watching CNN and heard a someone describing the Hamas attacks on a kibbutz referencing 40 beheaded babies. The i24news' online story references "40 babies and young children" taken out on gurneys from the town of Kfar Aza. "I just wanted to clarify that I did not tweet 40 babies had been beheaded. Clearly fed up with the mess, BBC's Sardarizadeh, wrote on X, "War is not a game for retweets and likes on social media."

Persons: Claire Atkinson, —, Cooper, Nic Robertson, Robertson, Rashida, Kfar Aza, Marc Owen Jones, JK, Bel, Anna Botting, hadn't, Justin Peden, Sardarizadeh, Elon, Elon Musk, Thierry Breton, Musk, BBC's Sardarizadeh, Rupert Murdoch, She's, Atkinson Organizations: Media, Service, CNN, Fox, Fox News, The Independent, Sky News, Comcast, Times, The Media Locations: Israel, Kfar, Gaza

☆ X has been slower to act on the misinformation that's swamped the platform after Elon Musk cut hundreds of trust and safety workers
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-11 | by ( Jyoti Mann | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

False and misleading posts remain on the site, and many don't have Community Notes attached. It comes after Elon Musk cut its trust and safety team from around 230 to 20 full-time employees. "Neither fact-checkers nor Community Notes can keep up with this." "Only 8% had community notes, 26% had unpublished notes, and 66% had neither," he wrote. It added that Community Notes "appear within minutes" of content being shared and are a "critical tool" to help it combat misinformation.

Persons: Elon Musk, —, Shayan Sardarizadeh, Sardarizadeh, Ben Goggin, Insider's Kali Hays, Kali Hays, Linda Yaccarino, X, Linda, didn't Organizations: Service, Hamas, Hamas Terrorists, Twitter, Sunday, NBC News, Tech Locations: Israel, Gaza, paragliders, Egypt, Algeria

☆ Here's how Telegram videos that circulate on X make separating fact from fiction a nightmare for Elon Musk
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-11 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Elon Musk's X has struggled to contain false information about the Israel-Gaza conflict. Part of the issue is the spread of unverified videos and content that were first posted on Telegram. The fighting between Israel and Hamas isn't, of course, the first instance of a conflict to be followed via Telegram. Videos and details about an ongoing conflict often make their way to a platform like X from Telegram — and do so without their source being identified or verified. X users will share Telegram videos, often without context, to fit their narrative or suit some other ulterior motive.

Persons: Elon Musk's X, —, Elon, that's, it's, Pavel Durov, Zuckerberg, Durov, Eliot Higgins, Higgins, — Eliot Higgins, Elon Musk Organizations: Service, Elon Musk's, Israel Defense Forces, Hamas, Here's Locations: Israel, Gaza, Russian, Russia, Ukraine

As a platform subject to Europe’s Digital Services Act (DSA), X could face billions in fines if regulators conclude that violations have occurred. Much of the problematic content appears to stem from platform changes made under Musk’s supervision, Breton suggested in the letter, which he shared on X. “We have, from qualified sources, reports about potentially illegal content circulating on your service despite flags from relevant authorities,” Breton wrote. The EU letter comes as misinformation about the conflict continues to spread widely across X. On Tuesday, the investigative journalism group Bellingcat said a fake video designed to look like a BBC News report was circulating on social media.

Persons: Elon Musk, Thierry Breton, X didn’t, Breton, X, ” Breton, Porte, Gonzalo Fuentes, ”, Bellingcat, Elliot Higgins, Shayan, “, Musk Organizations: CNN, Europe’s Digital Services, White, DSA, SpaceX, Tesla, Viva Technology, Porte de, Reuters, BBC, BBC News, Pentagon Locations: Israel, Paris, France, EU, Ukraine

☆ Social media has never felt more dangerous
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-09 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Social media should, by now, be a more reliable place to follow world events. AdvertisementAdvertisementOver the course of the last two days, millions have witnessed the Middle East's most sensitive conflict take its latest violent turn through social media. It's actually footage from the Syrian War posted online in 2020, per Sardarizadeh and a Community Notes response to the post. Thread: Online misinformation about the conflict between Hamas and Israel - day threeThis video doesn't show a salvo of rockets fired by Hamas towards Israel. X is almost 20 years old, older than some of the media outlets covering the conflict right now.

Persons: Elon Musk, —, Shayan, Mario Nawfal, It's, — David Aaronovitch, Elon Organizations: Service, Hamas, BBC, Twitter, Elon Locations: Israel, Gaza, Chicago

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