How to tell fact from fiction in reports from Gaza
Posted December 12, 2023 5:18 am.
In today’s Big Story Podcast, if you’ve been fooled by a viral photo or video out of Gaza in the past two months, you’re far from alone. In fact you’re in the company of journalists and media outlets as well, that’s how rife with misinformation and disinformation this conflict has become. And because the debunking of the information didn’t travel nearly as far and wide as the initial report, you may not even know you were fooled.
Dr. Valerie Wirtschafter is a fellow at the Brookings Institution in Foreign Policy, and the Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology Initiative. She says the situation in Gaza is ripe for exploitation by bad actors.
“The supply of credible information is low, the demand for it is extremely high, so in that space misinformation — potentially disinformation — can circulate quite a bit,” says Wirtschafter.
Why is Israel’s invasion of Gaza more difficult to parse than even the recent invasion of Ukraine by Russia? Why is it so hard to get on-the-ground reporting from inside the region? And what can you do to protect yourself from bad information?
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