Misinformation spreading on social media<\/strong><\/p>\nMazza believes that it\u2019s almost impossible for outsiders to understand the conflict through short videos or tweets, given its long history and complexity involving religious, political, and military aspects over decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s a lot of people who gather information just through tweets, posts on Facebook, or messages on WhatsApp,\u201d he noticed. \u201cAnd it’s very problematic.\u201d<\/p>\n
He highlighted that many false narratives have been spreading online since the conflict between Hamas and Israel began.<\/p>\n
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\u201cOne, probably the most common, is about the victims, the numbers. And that’s always been the case when we have wars or conflicts. How many, who are they, did they die, who killed them, and how have they been killed? We see that. A number of stories, we can now go back, circulated for quite a while about the 40 children that had been allegedly beheaded. Now we know it was fake news. There’s also a lot of narratives about the history of Hamas itself, of the conflict,\u201d Mazza said.<\/p>\n
He argues that political agendas make up facts that simply never happen. Another aspect of misinformation is blame or culpability.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho\u2019s responsible for what happened? And again, it often follows the political agenda,\u201d he believes.<\/p>\n
Some false narratives are connected to the nature of the conflict.<\/p>\n
\u201cSenator Lindsey Graham, here in the US, made claims about the religious nature of the war and essentially claimed that this is an attack perpetrated by Islam against Judaism and by proxy against Christianity. The problem is that it resonates,\u201d Mazza argued.<\/p>\n
He also noticed the challenge of differentiating the terrorist organization Hamas from Palestinians overall. While Hamas governs Gaza, most Palestinians do not support its ideology, and demonstrations support Palestinian rights, not Hamas. The conflict experiences of Gazans and West Bank Palestinians differ greatly as well.<\/p>\n
How can anyone differentiate between credible and unreliable information?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s impossible,\u201d Mazza assured.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the average user on Twitter or Facebook, it\u2019s impossible. And it\u2019s even impossible to forget that initial, emotion-provoking story. Many just keep that in the background even after reading that the news was not real,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n
He believes that Western media provides less biased information and more balanced views than the parties directly involved in the conflict. Mazza also suggested following people on social media who rigorously fact-check their claims.<\/p>\n
However, misinformation can now be spread by both media outlets and individuals at large, influencing millions of people with unverified pictures and videos.<\/p>\n
Tech companies face a challenge in policing the spread<\/strong><\/p>\nThe tech companies behind social media platforms also struggle when policing misinformation within free speech constraints.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very hard for companies running platforms like X (Twitter), Facebook, or others to set the limits of what can or cannot be said because this is a fine balance. And I don’t think there’s any feasible solution, to be honest,\u201d Mazza said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can have as many rules as you want, but then who’s policing them, and who’s going to tell us that those rules are actually beneficial to the larger debate? How can we stop anti-Semites and Islamophobic individuals from posting or sharing their ideas and, at the same time, avoid censoring people with critical thinking, legitimate opinions, or questions? It’s like walking a jungle without being equipped or knowing the dangers ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n
And there are many more angles in the conflict. Iran is supporting Hamas militarily, financially, and strategically, although it is not controlling Hamas directly. Many countries, including Iran, Russia, India, and others, participate in cyberattacks and misinformation campaigns with their political agendas.<\/p>\n
Mazza still believes that some form of regulation should limit the spread of misinformation.<\/p>\n
He advises information seekers to follow the source and find out where the information originated.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s a very hard job, a very difficult one. But it’s important,\u201d Mazza said. \u201cA lot of misinformation will survive, but at least you had people taking the time to break it down and say: this is wrong, this never happened, this picture is a lie, this information is not proven. You know, it’s a very important job. It’s important to find these voices on X and Facebook saying this is wrong. It’s a small puzzle, but it’s an important one.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are no simple solutions for peace<\/strong><\/p>\nMazza himself doesn\u2019t have a recipe for peace in this most complex and intractable of conflicts. Many have tried to bring the sides closer to a just resolution, yet peace seems further away than ever.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe largest majority (of Palestinians) do not support Hamas. You know, they’re not interested in an Islamic state in the Gaza Strip. And so that’s one element to take into account when it comes to peace. It’s even more complicated because you have to think about that for the majority of Gaza. And then remember, 51% of Gazans are 15 years old or below. So, the largest majority of Gazans are essentially young kids. They don’t know Israelis. They only know Israelis through what they see, either on news outlets, and they know Israelis through the military presence around the border,\u201d Mazza said.<\/p>\n
According to him, the same applies to many Israelis who also don\u2019t know Gazans and imagine that they\u2019re all Hamas terrorists.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel safe to say that for the Gazans, what\u2019s really important is to stop the war and, you know, find a safe place. Because essentially, they live in an area which is always unsafe because the Israeli military can reach anybody, at any time, wherever they are. The same is true for Hamas. If you start making it clear that you don\u2019t support them, you know, if it’s not the Israelis, then Hamas can be looking for you. And we saw that Hamas many times carried out killings of individuals in Gaza simply because of their opposition to the regime,\u201d he argued.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, getting rid of Hamas would be part of the solution. But it’s not necessarily the solution because Hamas is so rooted, at least as a governing body. You can’t just simply get rid of them unless you have a plan,\u201d he continued. \u201cMore and more people start asking questions like, okay, we go in, we take out Hamas. And then what? And that’s the big question because there are no plans.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are no instructions for peace. He asked rhetorically: Should Israel occupy Gaza? At what cost? Is it going to be beneficial to a future peace process? Is it going to become a second West Bank, occupied, like it used to be? What\u2019s going to change for Gazans?<\/p>\n
\u201cPractically nothing other than maybe a little bit of a rebuild, water, food, and medical supplies available. So there are really no plans, to be honest,\u201d Mazza concluded.<\/p>\n
\u201dRight now t’s almost impossible to find a solution other than, okay, let’s stop the fighting. Let’s get to a truce. Let’s get to a point where, you know, water, food, and medical supplies are once again provided.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fuente:<\/strong> https:\/\/cybernews.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nadie es imparcial, todas las partes participan en alg\u00fan tipo de propaganda y las redes sociales est\u00e1n llenas de informaci\u00f3n err\u00f3nea, advierte el Dr. Roberto… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13393,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13392"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13392"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13395,"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13392\/revisions\/13395"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}