Thread: Online misinformation is rampant following the escalation of violence between Israel and Hamas today.
This video of a tower block in Gaza being hit by a missile is from May 2021, not today. It was captured live during a BBC Arabic broadcast at the time.
This video of a house in Gaza being destroyed by a strike is genuine, but it's actually from May of this year, and not from the fresh escalation in hostilities today.
This video of a house being struck by Israel is also from May of this year, not today.
It was filmed in Beit Hanoun, Gaza; as geolocated by @ChrisOsieck at the time.
This video, shared by right-wing influencers Charlie Kirk and Ian Miles Cheong and viewed millions of times, actually shows Israeli police and special forces outside a house, as is easily identifiable by their uniforms, not Hamas militants.
This is another video of a house in Gaza being targeted by an IDF strike in May of this year. It's not from today.
This video ceratinly doesn't show Hamas shooting down two Israeli helicopters, because it's actually from the video game Arma 3.
This is complete and utter nonsense, shared for nothing but engagement. Israel hasn't authorised a nuclear strike on Gaza, and the footage shows a US nuclear test from the 1950s.
This video, viewed 230,000 times, is not footage of a Hamas militant shooting down an Israeli helicopter. It's from the video game Arma 3.
This video, viewed more than 3 million times, does not show a building in Israel.
It shows an Israeli strike on Gaza's Palestine Tower, which houses Hamas radio stations on the rooftop and also holds a cinema, earlier today.
A fake document is being widely shared online claiming to show the authorisation of $8bn in military aid to Israel by President Biden.
It's a doctored version of a 25 July document detailing $400m in aid to Ukraine authorised by President Biden; fact-checked by @Info_Rosalie.
This is a fake Jerusalem Post account falsely reporting that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been taken to hospital, and somehow racking up over 600,000 views.
The post has now got a Community Note attached to it.
If you've come across reports that the Taliban has asked Iran and Iraq for permission to send fighters to Israel, the source for those reports is this viral tweet by what most likely is a fake Taliban PR account with a bluck tick.
I particularly like that hand-drawn arrow.
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THREAD: As India launches strikes against Pakistan tonight, misinformation is rapidly spreading online. I'll fact-check viral falsehoods in this thread.
This video, viewed over 160,000 times, shows Israeli air strikes on Gaza in October 2023. It's unrelated to tonight's strikes.
Be wary of online accounts using tonight's events for engagement farming by posting unrelated yet dramatic images and videos and falsely linking them to Indian strikes.
This video shows the Beirut explosion in 2020. It's unrelated to tensions between India and Pakistan.
This image, viewed over 150,000 times, faslely claims to show an Indian fighter jet shot down by Pakistani air defence.
The image is in fact taken from footage of an Indian MiG-29 fighter jet crashing in Barmer, Rajasthan, due to a technical fault in September 2024.
While Elon Musk recommends sending around X posts so people can "learn the truth", here's a thread of viral misinformation on X about Hurricane Milton.
Alex Jones baselessly claims hurricanes Milton and Helene were deliberately started by the US government as "weather weapons".
This post by one of X's most prominent conspiracy theorists, viewed 4.8 million times, suggests without any evidence that Hurricane Milton is a result of geo-engineering.
Conspiracy theorist Stew Peters claims Hurricane Milton was pre-planned to directly hit Tampa Bay, in a post viewed 4 million times.
Obviously, Hurricane Milton is not pre-planned. No-one can plan to create hurricanes.
A Russia-based disinformation network run by a former Florida cop has published a new fabricated story on a fake news website called "Seattle Tribune".
It baselessly claims Ukrainain President Zelensky has secretly purchased a Mercedes 770 used by Hitler. It's nonsense.
The story refers to this doctored picture of a Mercedes 770 near the presidential office in Kyiv, posted on Telegram.
But that Telegram channel has never posted the pic, and the Mercedes in it has been lifted from the image on the right. Note the same reflections on both cars.
As is often the case with the network of fake news websites posing as local news outlets run by Moscow-based John Mark Dougan, the "Seattle Tribune" website was set up only five days ago, specifically to post this fake story.
There's no record of such a news outlet in Seattle.
Immediately after the Southport attack, baseless rumours began spreading online.
The main source of rumours has been a report by an obscure US "news" website that falsely claims the suspect is an "asylum seeker" named "Ali Al-Shakati", who "arrived in the UK by boat last year".
Merseyside Police has confirmed that the suspect was born in Cardiff, and has yet to identify the 17-year-old.
The report also adds that the suspect was "on MI6 watch list", despite the fact that it is MI5, not MI6, that deals with domestic counter-terrorism cases.
The name "Ali Al-Shakati" has since been widely shared online in misleading posts viewed by millions.
Some other outlets, including Russia's RT news channel, have also reported this name, citing the US-based website.