Friend,

Last week, you heard from Nora about the horrifying uptick in disinformation that we’ve seen in response to the Israel/Gaza crisis. The abject failure of social-media platforms — especially Elon Musk’s decaying Twitter/X — to maintain adequate content moderation is leading to hatred, violence and the parroting of lies in some mainstream media outlets.

What’s happening online right now is its own crisis on top of the devastating crisis unfolding on the ground in Gaza, Israel and the West Bank. Much of the dangerous online rhetoric is even having disastrous impacts here at home, with antisemitism and Islamophobia rising around the United States, permeating much of our media coverage and local communities. Free Press is a leader in the fight to combat online hate and deceit, and we’re not slowing down now.

As we face these dark forces of media and tech failures, we want to elevate community members’ voices. The stories of people like you can motivate real change when we raise our voices together. How has disinformation affected you or your loved ones? If you’re comfortable sharing, we’d appreciate hearing from you today.

Thank you so much,

Dutch and all of us at Free Press

P.S. If you want to help change things for the better but are feeling stuck, let us know in our survey and we’ll send you relevant resources to explore taking action.

Friend,

Twitter’s mishandling of the platform in the aftermath of Hamas’ attack in October and Israel’s subsequent military response marks a new low. We at Free Press have covered this trainwreck of a platform since Elon Musk took over nearly a year ago: to say that he has failed in such a pivotal and sensitive moment is a colossal understatement.

The platform’s algorithms have boosted violent and disturbing images — some real, some faked — and disinformation about the conflict has spread rapidly. Failure to moderate content inevitably leads to migration of platform lies to mainstream media. Already, news outlets like CNN, The Los Angeles Times¹ and others are retracting poorly vetted coverage of stories that originated and went viral on social media. Our social and traditional media systems are failing us all.

That Twitter is now so inundated with graphic content and lies about the Middle East conflict is a natural result of Musk’s decision to lay off most of the company’s Trust and Safety team and gut the platform’s content-moderation rules. With few left at the company to vet questionable and violent content, posts are often left unchecked to spread like wildfire.

The Community Notes feature that allows platform users to provide context to controversial posts has been completely overwhelmed since Hamas’ attack. It’s gotten so bad that former Twitter insiders who watchdog the feature told Wired² that Community Notes itself has become a vehicle for spreading lies about the conflict.

According to Free Press’ own analysis,³ “there is no sign that Twitter has implemented any content-moderation rules to specifically cope with this crisis nor brought back critical content moderators to mitigate the deluge of harmful posts.”

And while it’s not just Twitter — Meta⁴ and YouTube⁵ have also failed to adequately and swiftly remove disinformation about the conflict — Twitter continues to exemplify the disastrous human implications that come from abandoned platform-integrity commitments. The company’s downward spiral should serve as a wake-up call for other platforms.

Disinformation about the Israel-Hamas conflict is a horrific example of why we so desperately need better moderation and tech executives who put platform integrity — and saving lives — over their hunger for profits. The current conflict is a case in point and the reason Free Press and our allies have been calling for stronger vetting by platforms year round.

Whether it’s in times of crisis or calm, people should be able to rely on the social-media platforms they use to find accurate and even lifesaving information. Musk may not care enough to fix things, but it’s not too late for other tech platforms to do more to protect their users and promote peace.

Thanks for reading and staying informed,

Nora Benavidez
Senior Counsel and Director of Digital Justice and Civil Rights
Free Press
freepress.net

P.S. Free Press has been working for years to make Twitter a safer place — and Musk’s failures in times of crisis only strengthen our resolve. We will continue to hold Twitter and other social-media platforms accountable for the proliferation of disinformation and hate. Support from people like you makes it easier for us to sustain our organizing.

1. “Misinformation and Mayhem: The Hamas Invasion as Seen on Social Media,” The Los Angeles Times, Oct. 11, 2023

2. “Elon Musk’s Main Tool for Fighting Disinformation on X Is Making the Problem Worse, Insiders Claim,” WIRED, Oct. 17, 2023

3. “Social Media Platform Integrity Matters in Times of War,” Just Security, Oct. 13, 2023

4. “Fact Check: Video Shows Israel Striking Gaza Tower in 2021, Not 2023,” Reuters, Oct. 11, 2023

5. “Hamas Seeds Violent Videos on Sites With Little Moderation,” The New York Times, Oct. 10, 2023