Elon Musk’s Twitter is making the Israel - Hamas conflict worse
There Are No Girls on the Internet
iHeartPodcasts
4.4 • 820 Ratings
🗓️ 13 October 2023
⏱️ 31 minutes
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Summary
The changes Elon Musk has made to Twitter are making it impossible to sort out what’s happening in the Israel / Hamas conflict. From gutting the Trust & Safety team to making verification meaningless and paying for engagement, Elon Musk has systematically removed the few safeguards we had that were able to keep disinformation on the platform (somewhat) in check. Today, while the world is watching in terror as the Israeli-Hamas conflict unfolds and intensifies, Twitter is more awash in fake claims and fake news than ever before.
What is Hamas, and what’s happening in Israel and Gaza? A really simple guide: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67039975
Inside X’s Community Notes, fact-checks on known misinformation are delayed for days: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/misinformation/elon-musk-x-fact-check-israel-misinformation-rcna119658
Unverified reports of ‘40 babies beheaded’ in Israel-Hamas war inflame social media: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/unverified-allegations-beheaded-babies-israel-hamas-war-inflame-social-rcna119902
Tensions had been building in Jerusalem for months, especially around the Al-Aqsa Mosque: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/4/israeli-settlers-storm-al-aqsa-mosque-complex-on-fifth-day-of-sukkot
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | There are No Girls on the Internet as a production of IHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative. |
| 0:11.9 | I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. |
| 0:17.5 | By now you know that on October 7th, the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched an attack on Israel. |
| 0:23.3 | Hamas fighters entered communities near the Gaza Strip, where a music festival is happening, |
| 0:27.9 | killing hundreds of people and taking dozens of hostages. |
| 0:31.0 | BBC published a really helpful breakdown of what's going on and how we got here that we'll put in the show notes. |
| 0:37.0 | BBC writes that although the attack was, quote, |
| 0:39.3 | unexpected, it came at a time of soaring Israeli-Palestinian tensions. |
| 0:43.3 | This year has been the deadliest on-record for Palestinians |
| 0:46.3 | who live in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, |
| 0:49.3 | which could have motivated Hamas to strike Israel with a spectacular attack. |
| 0:53.3 | Now, this whole situation |
| 0:55.9 | is truly heartbreaking. It is heartbreaking to hear about the loss of life in Israel, |
| 1:01.3 | and it's heartbreaking to hear about what's happening to the Palestinian people. According to |
| 1:05.5 | Axios, more than 1,530 Palestinians and 1,200 Israelis have been killed. |
| 1:12.5 | Thousands more have been injured since the latest fighting between Israel and Hamas began. |
| 1:16.6 | Hamas is believed to be holding about 150 hostages in Gaza. |
| 1:20.3 | The UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs said on Friday the number of Palestinians |
| 1:25.1 | displaced in Gaza has risen to over 423,000 amid the |
| 1:29.6 | intensified fighting. And things seem to be getting worse quickly, according to Axios. The Israeli |
| 1:35.8 | Ministry of Defense and the IDF notified the UN to evacuate its staff and to notify Palestinians |
| 1:41.8 | living in northern Gaza that they should evacuate the southern part of the Gaza Strip in the next 24 hours, which is really not something they could do. |
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