Not long after another bloody armed conflict between Israel and the Palestinians began on Saturday, October 7, misleading videos, photos, and information began to spread on social media.

The way platform X conveys information about the conflict between Israel and Hamas is under scrutiny after a veritable deluge of fake posts and Elon Musks recommendation to users to get information about the war from accounts that have already made false claims or anti-Semitic comments.

"For real-time war monitoring, @WarMonitors and @sentdefender are good," Musk, who has over 150 million followers on the X platform, posted.

That post was viewed 11 million times in three hours before Musk deleted it.

Accounts promoted by Musk are known for spreading fake news and regularly publish incorrect and unverified information, with just one earlier example being the fake news that there had been an explosion near the Pentagon.

Musk also left his replies on the posts of the accounts he promoted, each with more than 600,000 followers, thus increasing their visibility. 

^{AP Photo/Susan Walsh}

He also blamed the mainstream media, recommending that users trust Platform X instead of traditional media.

However, Musk was forced to delete a tweet recommending the anti-Semitic account after facing backlash from his 159 million followers, who quickly pointed out that the @WarMonitors account repeatedly used the word Jew in the wrong context.

"He was and remains anti-Semitic for a long time," some users commented.

Theres plenty of evidence that Platform X didnt pass the test.

It doesnt take much time and scrolling for user X, if he searches Israel or Gaza on the platform, to find suspicious, hard-to-prove, or already disproved information.

X, like other sources of information, is subject to rumors, false claims, and propaganda during significant conflicts, natural disasters, or calamities.

Researchers, however, estimate that X has become less reliable since Musk took over nearly a year ago.

Musk removed verification tags for verified accounts, stopped marking some accounts as government, and began rewarding views over accuracy, sending money to the accounts of those accounts that attract high engagement.

This is supported by a recent study published by the European Commission, which concludes that Russian propaganda about the war in Ukraine reached more people on platform X this year than last.

Last week, Musk announced that he would change how articles are shared by removing headlines and promoting only images, which experts say will reduce traffic on news sites.

Some non-governmental organizations also state that the number of anti-Semitic posts on the X platform has increased since Musk bought it.

A flood of misinformation

A video of an Israeli airstrike purporting to show retaliation for Saturdays surprise attack by the Palestinian group Hamas has quickly gone viral.

"VIDEO: Israeli Air Force Strikes Terrorist Targets in Gaza," read the misleading headline of a post shared on Facebook and X after news of the standoff broke online.

However, a video showing an Israeli airstrike on the Gaza Strip was recorded on May 13 in a town near the northern border of Gaza and was already posted on YouTube then.

Another video has misled many social media users.

Footage of trucks on a highway in southern Israel carrying two jets has been mistakenly shown as an evacuation of air bases in Israel after the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel.

Some users claimed it showed Israel Defense Forces evacuating air bases near Gaza, while some said Hamas forces were taking Israeli planes away.

That video, however, was published last month on YouTube, while the repeated version has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times.

An account impersonating the Jerusalem Post published the fake news that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been taken to hospital, a post that received more than 700,000 views.

Several accounts promoted a fake document that claimed the White House had approved eight billion dollars in aid to Israel.

Others posted videos of buildings collapsing in Syria in the past and said they were in Gaza.

^{AP/BETA/Fatima Shbair}

Many of the misleadingly labeled videos were shared by verified users on X.

Meanwhile, both warring sides have turned to social media and technology platforms for information warfare.

In dozens of posts on X, TikTok, and Instagram, Israels official social media accounts condemned Hamas and repeatedly declared, "We are at war."

In one video posted on Instagram and X, Israel compared Hamas to ISIS.

"Same ideology, different names," reads the text posted over the video of the alleged kidnapping.

Many social networks, including the less heavily moderated X, have banned Hamas-linked accounts and politicians.

Hamas then turned primarily to the messaging platform Telegram to distribute its content, which led to a massive growth in followers of those accounts.

Hamas has released promotional videos, as well as footage from the field, showing unscrupulous violence.

Among the footage circulating on Saturday were videos of Israeli civilian hostages being taken to Gaza.

Others reportedly show Hamas opening fire on Israeli music festival attendees.

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