Social media platforms face increased scrutiny for content related to Israel-Hamas war
The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has helped malicious or unscrupulous parties spread false or misleading content more easily – and to make it appear more accurate.
File - Workers install lighting on an "X" sign atop the company headquarters, formerly known as Twitter, in San Francisco, on July 28, 2023. Before it transformed into X, Twitter was the place to turn to for live and reliable information about big news events, from wars to natural disasters. But as the Israel-Hamas war has underscored, that is no longer the case. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)
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SAN FRANCISCO: As the conflict between Israel and Hamas plays out on the ground, most of the world is experiencing it through the internet.
It is a medium where false or misleading information can be used as a weapon in its own right, including to shape public opinion.
Social media has become flooded with images, videos and viewpoints since the conflict began.
“The people leveraging the technology as a weapon, (do it because) it gets to our base humanity,” said Mr Karim Hijazi, CEO of Vigilocity, a platform that tracks and monitors cyber adversaries.
“It gets to a primal response to something that we may be seeing. The confluence of video imagery, and really compelling context, is almost impossible for us not to be susceptible to.”
PRESSURE ON TECH FIRMS
The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has helped malicious or unscrupulous parties spread false or misleading content more easily – and to make it appear more accurate.
This has put pressure on big tech companies that own these social media platforms, and the effort they are making to moderate content related to the conflict has come under increasing scrutiny.
Lawmakers in Europe have sent warnings to companies including Meta, TikTok and X, formerly known as Twitter, to comply with European Union laws about removing harmful content.
Failure to do so could result in fines of as much as 6 per cent of global revenue, or a European ban.
All three firms said they have stepped up their efforts in the wake of the violence.
IS X MORE SUSCEPTIBLE?
X has significantly changed its approach to content moderation since billionaire Elon Musk bought the company a year ago.
It slashed its content moderation staff as part of company-wide job cuts and reinstated many previously banned accounts.
X also recently launched a way for users to share revenue with the company for the ads displayed on their posts, creating a financial incentive to create viral content.
Experts said the changes have weakened the platform’s safeguards against misinformation and disinformation.
“The problem with this system in times of conflict is that it incentivises making as many separate posts as possible, even when you have no new information to share,” said Mr Emerson Brooking, resident senior fellow at think tank Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab.
“It also incentivises making the most wild or speculative claims possible because you understand that those will be shared more widely regardless of whether or not they are true.”
MORE SOPHISTICATED FAKE NEWS
The rise of AI has also raised the stakes.
False information previously presented as just a quote or a picture can now be released as a deepfake audio or video recording, which makes it harder to authenticate and easier to believe.
“With AI, a piece of misinformation (for example) can now look like a voice recording of (Israeli) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying something that he has never said. And this becomes much harder to disprove,” explained Mr Rijul Gupta, founder and CEO of Deep Media, an AI company that detects manipulated online content.
“Even if it is later proved to be a fake, it is now much harder for a human being to believe that it is fake.”
Disinformation has long been a weapon of war, even before social media. However, with powerful digital tools more accessible than ever, the lines between fact and fiction are becoming increasingly blurred.
