The Middle East powder keg has exploded again and everything points to a war between Israel and Hamas with unfathomable consequences for the region and by extension the entire planet. The world is ready to go to sleep… if it weren’t for the hundreds of dead and wounded piling up on both sides of the border that shock every human heart. Civilian casualties, who – the vast majority – are always the biggest losers in any conflict.

Without going into the political issues that do not concern our environment, we wanted to reiterate some derivative issues that arise in all of these cases. Modern wars are not limited to physical terrain, and we have already seen how important cyberspace has been in another of the conflicts plaguing the world: Ukraine. We’ve seen it here too, with groups of “hacktivists” from both sides in the service of governments or parallel.

Israel vs. Hamas and disinformation

Winning what they call “the story” is also key. And social media is fertile ground for information… and misinformation. Microblogging site X (formerly Twitter) is in the eye of the storm.

Start of lesson. The European Commission has given Elon Musk 24 hours to explain the measures he is subject to remove “terrorist content” and “illegal” which is circulating on the social network around Israel’s conflict against Hamas, after its brutal terrorist attack and the response of the former in that open prison called Gaza, whose humanitarian situation borders on disaster.

The request to Musk came from EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton open letter in which he assures “have reports from qualified sources of potentially illegal content circulating on their services”.

Following the terrorist attacks by Hamas against 🇮🇱, we have indications that X/Twitter is being used to spread illegal content and disinformation in the EU.

Urgent letter to @elonmusk on #DSA duties ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/avMm1LHq54

— Thierry Breton (@ThierryBreton) October 10, 2023

“After the terrorist attacks by Hamas against Israel, this is indicative its platform is used to spread illegal content and disinformation in the EU«says the commissioner in relation to fake and manipulated images of armed conflicts unrelated to the Israel-Hamas war and military images “which actually originated in video games”.

Breton reminds Musk that the new law on digital services, which is already in force in the EU, forces large platforms to eliminate illegal content. “particularly relevant when it comes to violent and terrorist content”points out.

Musk answers

Boss X asked the European Union to list the violations referred to in the letter for the public to see. “Our policy is that everything is open source and transparent, which is an approach that I know the EU supports.”was most notable about Musk’s response, while reality prevails and misinformation (in support of both sides) continues to spread across the social network.