What is the truth? Certainly, our senses tell us what exists and what doesn't: you know that the device in front of you exists since your sense of sight says so, thus it becomes the truth, but when your own senses fall silent, it becomes imperative to rely on the perception of others. You have no way of determining whether they are telling the truth, so instead, we try to corroborate information from other sources. If multiple sources tell the same story, it must be true, right? Recent events in Israel and Gaza have shown that finding the truth can be a difficult and dangerous task and that our society can be deceived en masse with relative ease.
What in the World is Going On?
Put simply, the conflict in Gaza is the culmination of a long history between two archenemies with short tempers, long memories, and much to fight about. Ever since the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 on Palestinian soil and the expulsion of Palestinians from the territories of the newly founded nation, Israel has fought several wars against neighboring states to maintain control of the region and establish a home for the world's Jews. In a 1967 war, Israel seized control of the Gaza Strip from Egypt and militarily occupied it until 2005, when it withdrew all military forces. A year after, Hamas, a militant group, came to power in the Palestinian territories through an election, defeating the incumbent Fatah. A political struggle between the two ensued, culminating with Hamas expelling Fatah from the Gaza Strip, and splitting the Palestinian government into two.
Even before the conflict, the Gaza Strip was, by all standards, a terrible place to live in. Israel implemented a total blockade on land, sea, and air, limiting supplies that could come into the Gaza Strip and preventing most of the population from leaving, earning the region the nickname of the "World's Largest Open-Air Prison". Much of the population lived in poverty and survived on international aid in refugee camps. Hamas and Israel have fought several wars in the past decade for various reasons, but never to the degree the world is seeing today.
However, things have changed. On October 7, 2023, Hamas fighters launched a massive cross-border incursion into southern Israel, killing over a thousand Israelis, mostly civilians, taking over 200 hostages, including foreigners, and seizing several areas within Israeli territory. In response, Israel has formally declared war, pushing Hamas back into the Gaza Strip before launching a three-week air bombardment operation. On the 27th of October, Israel escalated into a full-scale ground invasion before a temporary ceasefire a month later. Over 14,000 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting and large portions of the Gaza Strip have been reduced to rubble.
Keeping Up With the Conflict
But how do we know all of this? Of course, traditional news platforms have been essential in feeding the world with information from their on-the-ground reporters and broadcasting. Their reliable print and TV coverage of the war has been instrumental in keeping people updated on the events going on in Gaza. However, competing against traditional media is the might of social media, which has truly shown its power as a source of information in obtaining real-time coverage of the conflict.
Social media coverage and discussion of the conflict have been primarily done by individual influencers—ordinary people from all walks of life who took out their phones and decided to record their surroundings. Some are victims of the war in Gaza, a few are Israeli soldiers on the frontline, others are political analysts and experts, and many are concerned citizens from all over the world.
They all share two things in common: the desire to express their emotions, thoughts, opinions, and reactions to the war, and to show the truth about the war to the world. But for their viewers, watching the war through a screen halfway across the globe, are they seeing the "truth", or are they seeing biased and misinformed views on the war?
Social Media "Journalism": The Information War
Receiving information from influencers is fraught with risks, especially when such information discusses decades of geopolitical tension and highly charged conflicts. Individual influencers have their biases and opinions, unregulated by rigorous vetting procedures present in journalistic outlets.
Palestinians living under Israeli rockets would almost surely present a pro-Palestine side to their story, while Israelis grieving for kidnapped relatives would show the opposite sentiment. Observers around the world also possess favor for one side or the other, promoting the virtues and motives of one side over the other, whether they admit it or not.
On an individual level, this is bias. But on a larger scale, this is a new front for the war: the battle for dominance over public opinion, through the weapon of social media. This particular front has two major battles: the battle for emotion, and the battle for truth. Both of these make us question the very existence of our belief in reality, and whether we can say with certainty that we are fully aware of the tragedy on both sides.
Lastly, social media platforms often have their biases too, mainly due to compliance with the policy of their home nation, preferences of founders, or most commonly, whatever will keep the advertisers and the money flowing in. Content that is considered undesirable is scrubbed from existence or buried deep within the algorithm without much forethought while leaving those that align with the virtues and "standards" of the platform. This is why certain platforms often show significant differences in terms of general public opinion among users.
The Battle for Emotion: The Human Side to the Story
A single picture can convey a thousand words. By extension, a single video conveys an entire novel. The power of social media has allowed individuals to upload their stories of experiencing or observing the conflict and become overnight celebrities for their coverage of the war. Ordinary people from Israel and Gaza have documented the suffering and reality of life on the ground, showing the plight of the wounded and dead and reaching millions of people across the globe.
Yet this publishing of information can carry an ulterior purpose and effect, whether intentional or not. Images are particularly polarizing emotion-wise, much more than traditional print news. Photos of Israel's destruction in Gaza are particularly striking: photos of mothers holding the bodies of their children and videos showing the remnants of city districts. This spread of images and videos is heavily in favor of the Palestinian cause, given the Palestinian people are the victims of the war. This sympathy often translates into broader support not just for the people of Gaza, but for the Palestinian cause as a whole and condemnation for Israel's actions.
This may help explain why the Palestinian cause has gained much more traction among third parties than it has in the past. Public polls show that support for Palestine has risen following the beginning of the war, especially in the United States, Israel's most devoted ally. Social media has become a powerful tool for emotions to be manipulated towards one side or the other, especially as images and videos are believed to be more truthful than mere words.
Lies that Become the Truth: Propaganda and Narratives
When it comes to the war, nothing can be taken at face value. We have shown how people show their biases online and how images and videos can shape emotions and public opinion. The effects of these are often subconscious and unintended and cannot truly be blamed on the individual posting such content. Disinformation, however, has no excuse. The deliberate creation of false content for the malicious promotion of one narrative over the other is simply unjustifiable, yet both sides engage in such forgery as a means of deceiving the masses to agree with them.
This issue, while concerning already, becomes amplified through the power of social media, and it ties the previous two issues together, Through the rise of artificial intelligence and advanced image editing software, disinformation can become a reality of its own, personified within strikingly emotional, yet false or manipulated images, and spread throughout the Internet by individuals who wittingly or unwittingly indulge in the power of confirmation bias.
Not only that but algorithms on social media also fuel the fire. Social media algorithms have long been shown to be a cause behind political polarization, but the ongoing war has taken it to a new level. It's entirely plausible that many people's feeds are filled with content solely for or against a side, with the inevitable result that disinformation circulates through the casual nature of social media.
Disinformation is dangerous because it pushes narratives in a way that gives the reader a false idea of what is going on. It shoves an agenda down the reader's throat, but capitalizes on their lack of awareness, critical thinking, emotion, or something else entirely to get the reader to internalize the disinformation, and perhaps even share it. In the context of the war, this is especially dangerous given that real people are suffering as a result of the lies and falsehoods being spread online.
What Can Be Done About It?
Unfortunately, on an institutional level, there is no real solution that can demarcate the line between fact, fiction, and somewhere in between. The spread of biased, manipulative, and malicious content is a byproduct of the spread of political content online, and we cannot do anything about that.
What we can do about it occurs on an individual level. We can learn to become more politically aware, and media literate, and alert citizens who can think critically on content we see online, especially concerning sensitive political topics. It goes beyond just the war between Israel and Hamas, by training ourselves to be able to notice the red flags of untruthful content, we become more informed, able, and participatory citizens in our country.
At the end of the day, the war between Israel and Hamas has exposed real, critical weaknesses within our societies. The line between truths and lies has become so blurred under the innocent facade of social media. However, it is also important to remember that behind every view on the viral videos promoting distorted truths and blatant falsehoods lies a real human being, deceived by the unforgiving environment of the online world.
Shall we give up on what is right and join the deceived masses in their war on truth? If we are the sole voices standing up for the oppressed and the real victims of war, the people, then we must fight for what we hold to be true against all odds. It is the irony of social media, the ultimate weapon against censorship and authoritarianism, yet also the master of propagating deception on a scale unimaginable in the past. As the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels reportedly said, "Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth." We must do everything in our power to fight the distortion and revisionism present all around us and stand up for truth in the little corners of our world.
Disclaimer: The views presented in this article are those of the author alone and do not necessarily represent the views of Candle Pen, Makati Hope Christian School, nor of any other organization the author is a member of.
Story by Jerome Tan
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