UK calls for urgent meeting with social media companies to tackle Gaza-Israel fake news

The EU has also asked X owner Elon Musk to tackle misinformation

Elon Musk has been told by the EU to tackle the spread of disinformation on his X messaging platform. Reuters

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The UK has called on social media companies for swift action to remove violent content influenced by the Palestinian group Hamas's attacks on Israel.

Cabinet Minister Michelle Donelan asked for an urgent meeting with the companies, which comes as the EU has urged Elon Musk to tackle disinformation on his platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

Since Hamas launched attacks on Israel from Gaza at the weekend, videos and photos purporting to show the conflict and its fallout have flooded social media.

Among the fabrications, users have shared false claims that a top Israeli commander had been kidnapped, circulated a doctored White House memo purporting to show President Joe Biden announcing billions in aid for Israel, and pushed old and unrelated videos of Russian President Vladimir Putin with inaccurate English captions.

Ms Donelan, Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, announced her request for a meeting on X.

“I’ve called an urgent meeting with social media companies to ensure action is taken to swiftly remove any violent content fuelled by Hamas’ acts of terrorism in Israel from their platforms,” she wrote.

“We are taking action to stand in solidarity with Israel and our Jewish community.”

Meanwhile EU industry chief Thierry Breton urged X to comply with new EU online content rules, saying there were indications that the platform was being used to disseminate illegal content and disinformation in the bloc.

The online content rules known as the Digital Services Act (DSA) require X and other large online platforms to remove illegal content and to take measures to tackle the risks to public security and civic discourse.

Failure to comply with the DSA can result in EU fines of as much as 6 per cent of a company's global turnover.

“I therefore invite you to urgently ensure that your systems are effective and report on the crisis measures taken to my team,” Mr Breton said in a letter to Mr Musk, although he did not give details on the disinformation he was referring to.

“Given the urgency, I also expect you to be in contact with the relevant law enforcement authorities and Europol and ensure that you respond promptly to their requests.”

The pair then began discussing the issue on X after Mr Musk said his company's policy was that everything is open source and transparent.

“Please list the violations you allude to on X, so that the public can see them,” he said on post on the social media platform.

In response, Mr Breton told the X owner that he is “well aware of your users' – and authorities'– reports on fake content and glorification of violence” added it was up to him to “demonstrate that you walk the talk”.

He said his team would also follow up with Mr Musk on a number of other immediate issues related to DSA compliance.

“I urge you to ensure a prompt, accurate and complete response to this request within the next 24 hours,” Breton said.

Shayan Sardarizadeh, from BBC Verify, the broadcaster's fact-checking and anti-disinformation unit, said there had been a “deluge” of false posts on X since the Hamas's latest attacks on Israel.

These included from an account pretending to be a BBC reporter and many false posts came from verified accounts, which pay for a blue tick, had been boosted across the platform.

He said X’s crowdsourced fact-checking function, community notes, could not cope with the number of false posts.

“I’ve been fact-checking on Twitter for years, and there’s always plenty of misinformation during major events,” he said in a threat post on the platform.

“But the deluge of false posts in the last two days, many boosted via Twitter Blue [now X Premium], is something else. Neither factcheckers nor Community Notes can keep up with this.”