War between Hamas and Israel broke out October 7th. The misinformation campaign started shortly after.
Fact checking organizations have been busy debunking videos -- like one that faked the BBC logo and falsely claimed Ukraine provided weapons to Hamas.
Media Literacy expert and author, Julie Smith tells KMOX, we need to be critical of things we see on social media, especially images, "anything that causes a really strong emotional reaction, I try to avoid, because I know that it's impossible to be rational and make rational decisions when you're emotionally involved in something. Photos are designed to draw us in and that's why I think we need to be skeptical of them." Smith adds, it's easy to take an image or video from a past event and recycle it to make it appear that it's a current event.
Smith says be suspicious of new social media accounts and accounts that don't provide authors or traceable sources.
She adds that when information comes from officials or legitimate sources, but is later corrected, the correction typically gets far less traction than the original story.
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