DisinfoDocket 11 October

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Highlights:

The attack on Israel & its aftermath shows how difficult it can be to navigate social media during conflicts.

Disinformation and horrific images are everywhere, often weaponized as propaganda. Here’s how to avoid falling prey to and spreading false content🧵 pic.twitter.com/IRgm3ls2ur

— Center for Countering Digital Hate (@CCDHate) October 9, 2023

1. Misinformation about the Israel-Hamas war is flooding social media. Here are the facts (AP News, 10 October)
2. Cyberattacks Targeting Israel Are Rising After Hamas Assault (Bloomberg, 9 October)
3. Vietnam tried to hack U.S. Officials, CNN with posts on X, probe finds (The Washington Post, 9 October)
4. How conspiracy theories became intertwined with prejudice and paranoia across the globe (ABC, 6 October)

For those with conspiracy mentalities, believing in one myth is only the beginning. @julie_renbe talks to Radio NZ about how these beliefs are often based on legitimate grievances, & the ripple effect they have on a society entering a "digital dark age." https://t.co/AW0XBX0T2M

— Institute for Strategic Dialogue (@ISDglobal) October 10, 2023

1. Academia & Research

1. Harmful Conspiracies in Temporal Interaction Networks: Understanding the Dynamics of Digital Wildfires through Phase Transitions (ArXiv, 9 October)
2. The future landscape of large language models in medicine (Nature.com, 10 October)

2. Platforms & Technology

1. German antitrust head warns AI may boost Big Tech's dominance (Reuters, 10 October)
2. WhatsApp says warnings of a cyberattack targeting Jewish people are baseless (NBC, 9 October)
3. Social media platforms foment disinformation about war in Israel (The Record by Recorded Future, 10 October)

X (formerly known as Twitter)

Following the terrorist attacks by Hamas against 🇮🇱, we have indications of X/Twitter being used to disseminate illegal content & disinformation in the EU.

Urgent letter to @elonmusk on #DSA obligations ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/avMm1LHq54

— Thierry Breton (@ThierryBreton) October 10, 2023

WATCH - CNN debunks Israel-Hamas misinfo videos going viral on X (CNN, 10 October)

1. EU warns Elon Musk over ‘disinformation’ on X about Hamas attack (The Guardian, 10 October)
2. As false war information spreads on X, Musk promotes unvetted accounts (The Washington Post, 8 October)
3. Musk’s X allows misinformation about Hamas’ war on Israel to proliferate (Media Matters for America, 9 October)
4. The Israel-Hamas War Is Drowning X in Disinformation (WIRED, 9 October)

Meta

1. How the attacks in Israel are changing Threads (The Verge, 10 October)

TikTok

1. Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban (Politico, 9 October)