“Beheaded Babies” Report Spread Wide And Fast — But Israel Military Won’T Confirm It
“It’s been about four days since this incredible and tragic escalation of violence and the level of misinformation — even disinformation — seems near unprecedented.”
THE ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES could not confirm a horrific claim that Hamas beheaded babies during a weekend assault, a spokesperson for the military told The Intercept on Tuesday. The claim went viral, becoming a headline-grabbing aspect of a massacre that left more than 1,000 Israelis dead.
“Women, children, toddlers, and elderly were brutally butchered in an ISIS way of action and we are we are [sic] aware of the heinous acts Hamas is capable of,” the spokesperson wrote in response to questions from The Intercept about the viral reports. “We cannot confirm it officially, but you can assume it happened and believe the report,” she reiterated in a follow-up phone call.
Despite the IDF’s inability to confirm the report, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesperson Tal Heinrich repeated it on Wednesday — a window into how unverified reports become part of the historical record.
The claim about beheaded babies is the latest in a series of harrowing reports that have emerged over the last few days while Israeli forces regained control of communities attacked by Hamas militants. As Israeli officials responded by pledging vengeance and launching a mass bombing campaign over 2 million Palestinians living in the besieged Gaza Strip, reports of Hamas crimes against civilians fueled rage among the public, elected officials, and policymakers.
On Wednesday, President Joe Biden said, “I never really thought that I would see…have confirmed pictures of terrorists beheading children,” only for the White House to later clarify that the president had not seen such photos and was basing his remarks on Heinrich’s comments and media reports.
Claims that Hamas militants raped several Israeli women have also gone viral, though the allegation has not been thoroughly substantiated, and at least one news outlet has retracted a reference to it. In his remarks on Tuesday, Biden said that women had been “raped, assaulted, paraded as trophies.”
The viral spread of dubious information at the same pace as credible reports has become a staple of modern warfare, exacerbated over the last year by the transformation of Twitter under the ownership of Elon Musk. Once an important source for breaking news, Musk’s changes to the platform’s verification requirements have made it difficult to separate fact from fiction — making it all the more important for journalists and public officials to vet the information before repeating it.
Renée DiResta, research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory, which tracks and studies how nonfactual narratives propagate online, said that viral lies and misconceptions tend to balloon during or in the wake of a war or other emergencies, reflecting a spike in concern and greater appetite for information. “People share content that they find compelling,” she said. “In crisis situations, often the viral content includes a lot of rumors — it’s unverified material right now, and it may turn out to be true.”
As uncorroborated reports are broadcast alongside legitimate, equally horrific ones, the consequences of the rapidly escalating rhetoric are all too real and dangerous.
“It’s been about four days since this incredible and tragic escalation of violence and the level of misinformation — even disinformation — seems near unprecedented,” media critic Sana Saeed told The Intercept. “We have seen journalists, in particular, spread unverified information that is being used to justify Israeli and even American calls and actions to annihilate an entire population.”
“From unsubstantiated accusations of Palestinian fighters raping Israeli women to unsubstantiated accusations of Palestinian fighters beheading babies: These claims have spread like wildfire especially thanks to many journalists who are repeating things without any semblance of critical thinking or journalistic caution.”
“What’s at stake here is literal human life,” Saeed added. “But Palestinian life matters so little, that spreading incendiary information that justifies Israeli war crimes isn’t a concern for those tasked to punch up to power by virtue of being journalists.”
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Who knows who Hamas are anyway. They could be posing as Hamas. Thw world's a stage and it's always in favor of the one who owns the media. Who would that be now...?
https://youtu.be/ZKtTYgfvM9k?feature=shared
It's official.