Amid the ongoing violence in West Asia, a new battlefield has emerged on social media platforms, where false and deceptive information, as well as misleading images and videos, are being widely disseminated. However, an Israel based company is actively pursuing to debunk these false claims.

Cyabra, a social media threat intelligence company based in Israel, is actively assisting Israeli security teams in combating the dissemination of misinformation.

Rafi Mendelsohn, the Vice President of Cyabra, revealed in an interview with CNBC-TV18 that they have identified and exposed thousands of fake accounts supporting Hamas since the onset of the conflict in Israel. This conflict was triggered by a surprise attack launched by Hamas from the Gaza border on Saturday, October 7.

"Since the Israel war began, we tracked around two million different types of content, posts etc. and hundreds and thousands of profiles, and what we have been able to find are tens and thousands of fake accounts that have been created in order to spread fake narratives in support of Hamas. Roughly around 25% of the posts of the profiles that are engaged in the conversation are in fact fake and have been created ahead of time with a lot of planning involved in order to be able to spread different types of narratives aimed at different audiences," Mendelsohn said.

It's noteworthy that Cyabra previously collaborated with Elon Musk to uncover and address bots on X (Twitter earlier) platform. Currently, the company is also engaged in monitoring and addressing disinformation related to the US elections.

Mendelsohn further disclosed that these dormant fake accounts, which had remained inactive for many months, have suddenly become active, posting content over 600 times in just the past few days.

"There were accounts that were created a year and half ago and have been lying dormant for a situation like this and over the last 2-3 days we have seen these same accounts posting over 600 times. So, there is a level of planning that has gone into this," Mendelsohn stated.

Watch the accompanying video for more.

(Edited by : Sangam Singh)

First Published:Oct 10, 2023 10:49 PM IST