Shrouded in uncertainty

As journalists and researchers continue to investigate the devastating Gaza hospital blast, evidence and the coverage are both shrouded in ambiguity of information and little information about those responsible. Gaza officials say it was an Israeli airstrike, while Israel denies it was responsible, saying it was a Palestinian barrage that caused the blast.

Further complicating the process of inquiry is a deluge of both authentic and counterfeit accounts circulating on social media platforms, where old and edited videos of the ongoing conflict – and also from other conflicts in the region – are shared alongside new and unedited content. 
Many traditional media outlets are introducing robust factchecking techniques that flag fake news quickly and offers journalists techniques and tools to investigate and verify information, but are they working?

For example, BBC Verify, which is a new fact-checking tech tool introduced by the organisation in May this year. BBC Verify was designed to address the exponential growth of manipulated and distorted videos that have emerged from Ukraine and Russia since February 2022 when Russia invaded its neighbour. On the other hand, journalists and researchers are also turning to image and video recognition tools by big tech companies, such as Amazon Rekognition. Image and video recognition tools are also gaining popularity among researchers and analysts using open-source intelligence as a method to collect and fact-check information from conflict zones.

Interestingly, in fact surprisingly, there is little to no evidence of the use of AI or deepfakes in the Israeli-Hamas conflict so far. But that might soon change, as was witnessed in the early weeks of the Russia-Ukraine war, where AI-generated images not only manipulated facts, but also fueled disinformation about the war and those affected by it. 

The uncontrollable surge of mis- and disinformation is not only fueling the Israel-Hamas conflict, but also gravely impacting the process of humanitarian and peace journalism, which focuses on covering both the victim and the perpetrator. Amidst these misleading narratives – one more dangerous than the other – what is most concerning is the threat posed by the manipulation and weaponisation of information to transnational solidarity with the victims of these atrocities.

Ayesha Jehangir, CMT Postdoctoral Fellow