How to deal with visual misinformation circulating in the Israel-Hamas war and other conflicts

Trevor Thompson, University of Greenwich and Sofia Stathi, University of Greenwich
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In the three weeks since war began between Israel and Hamas, social media has been taken over with images and stories of attacks, many of which proved false. For example, within hours of Hamas' surprise attack on Oct. 7, 2023, screen grabs from a popular video game were shared by thousands of social media users as if depicting real scenes of violence against Israeli troops in Gaza. Over the past decade, international commissions and tribunals working to mediate conflicts in Syria, Myanmar, Ukraine and elsewhere have struggled to verify the large amount of digital evidence.