“Hamas Beheaded 40 Israeli Children” ?— How Misinformation Took Over the Internet
I want to stress this at the outset here, there is evidence that Hamas killed men, women, children, and babies on the weekend of the 7th and 8th of October. 1,200 Israelis were massacred in an act of gross violence. Hamas’ stated sole reason for existing is to “destroy Israel” since its founding in 1987. Babies were killed. If there was a hell, then Hamas would be the type of group you would put there. That said, the story of decapitated babies took the internet by storm and it was seemingly not only exaggerated but false. As a result, the story actually undermined the Israeli cause. Many wrongly claimed that Israel is making acts of terror up in order to excuse violence. Of course, they didn’t need to make up acts of terror; they were evident for everyone to see. Nonetheless, there was immediate backlash and rightfully so. From the way I see it, there are two fundamental problems with the media space right now, concerning Israel and Palestine, which I would like to discuss in this blog post. They are as follows:The history written about this region is not only complex, it tends to favor narrativized and one-sided versions of history. We must acknowledge this and seek a balanced view. Most of our views about the events at hand are coming in real-time from social media and news; in the past week, these platforms have been rampant sharers of misinformation. All of us have been exposed to misinformation if we are on these platforms.I’ll discuss both in turn and follow this with some other misinformation you might have seen online.
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