A mere two weeks before the Oct. 7 massacre, the State Department published an illuminating report as to why social media is a threat to the US and its allies.
"Beijing has invested billions of dollars in building an ecosystem where messages and disinformation from the People's Republic of China gain prominence and dominance," the report stated.
Essentially, the US claims that various countries and parties have leveraged the algorithms of Facebook and other social networks into a powerful weapon, as part of the ongoing power struggle between leading nations on the world stage.
Social networks thrive on polarizing content, which due to its very nature yields higher exposure. As such, countries pay to set up an army of fake bots and profiles, which wields psychological warfare tactics and influences susceptible audiences.
As we mark 20 years since the founding of Facebook, now is an opportune time for self-reflection on social media influence, not only in the US but also in Israel. In the span of two decades, Israel has discovered that its enemies use social media – and Facebook in particular – to very effectively the Jewish state's security and reputation.
Scrolling through Facebook with critical eyes may reveal who runs the bot accounts and how their messages are dividing the nation. These accounts are usually profiles that are barely a few months old and are unusually active, posting several times a day. Their language is often telling, as it is usually a mistranslation from Google Translate interspersed with vulgarities.
At the beginning of 2023, the Shabak - Israel Security Agency for domestic affairs, revealed that foreign actors set up fake profiles on social networks and promoted polarizing content and conspiracy theories to the Israeli public. At the same time, we learned that Iran was behind Facebook groups such as "The Hunters," "Bringing Them Home Now," "Gush Katif Returning Home" and more.
On Oct. 7, the stakes were raised even higher, when it was apparent that foreign countries and actors prepared in advance to carry out an online propaganda campaign against Israel. The speed and efficiency with which anti-Israel messaging flooded social networks immediately in the aftermath of that day is a testament to the fact that they were ready to unleash this onslaught once the violence on the ground took place.
The campaign was a great success. While Hamas did use social media to document its atrocities, ironically, the terrorist group also managed to convince a significant segment of the international community that there was no massacre and that their own videos were fake.
Hamas was able to do so because logic and reality are not needed to be popular on social media. In fact, social influencers often thrive on the opposite. Meanwhile, these social media platforms absolve themselves of any responsibility for the content they publish. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, passed in the US in 1996, shields social media companies from lawsuits over content posted by their users – exacerbating the absurd reality we find ourselves in today.
This is why the solution to this challenge lies in imposing regulations and limitations on social networks. Bad faith actors should not be allowed to spread lies with impunity. Israel must work with US officials who are calling for regulatory measures like allowing researchers access to their platform, disclosing data and surveillance mechanisms that will enable them to identify bots and remove them in real-time.
However, Israel does not need to wait for the US to act. It can, and must, move forward independently with legislation that would make Facebook and other social media platforms responsible for the content they publish. This is an issue vexing many countries, and pending Israeli legislation may force Facebook executives to finally do something about this issue after ignoring it for 20 years. Facebook's fear of other countries following Israel's lead may finally compel the company to take proactive measures.
Before Oct. 7, this kind of legislation would have been viewed as limiting free speech. Hopefully, elected officials are now seeing this problem in a new light and understand that with the security of the country at stake, something must be done.
Barak Gonen is a professor of cyber at the Jerusalem College of Technology and the author of several books.
