From a fake nurse to a phony list of hostage guards, Israel’s disinformation efforts are becoming increasingly wild just as they lose control of the Gaza war narrative.
Israel’s official Arabic account affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted a selfie video of a Palestinian nurse condemning Hamas for taking over al-Shifa hospital in the Gaza Strip on Nov. 11.
But some things about the video didn’t add up.
Everything about it smacked of high school theater—from the botched accent that sounded like it was straight out of an Israeli soap opera to the perfectly scripted IDF talking points rolling off her tongue.
Hamas were stealing the fuel. Check.
Hamas were taking morphine. Check.
Then there was the pristine white lab coat looking like it had just come back from the dry cleaner, the audio track of bombs falling that sounded like samples from a late-’80s Casio keyboard, and the contrived stethoscope-waving you‘d expect from an extra on Grey’s Anatomy.
Hamas hadn’t stolen her makeup though, which was immaculate.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health logo slapped strategically in the background but visible over her shoulder looked like an OSINT honeytrap.
“This video must be authentic right, I can see the Health Ministry logo”—at least that’s what whoever made it would hope the burgeoning army of sketchy anonymous OSINT (open source intelligence) researchers might say.
The only thing missing was a degree hanging in the background saying Tel Aviv Upstairs Medical College.
Oh, and perhaps I should have mentioned this first, no one at al-Shifa had ever seen the nurse before.
Soon, the volume of ridicule directed at those sharing it reached such a pitch that the Israel Arabic account deleted their tweet. I guess they didn’t know the source either.
Forget Nurse Ratched, this was more like Nurse Hatchet-job.
read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/israels-comically-bad-disinfo-proves-theyre-losing-pr-war
Misinformation is a numbers game. For every 10 people that see the misinfo, only maybe 1 or 2 will ever see the followup proving whatever the misinformation was was in fact misinformation. And out of those 2, half will assume the followup is itself misinformation and have their belief in the propaganda reinforced. Out of the 8 who will never see the correction, maybe two will reject it, four won't really know what to think (itself a useful propaganda outcome), and maybe two will accept it.
Concerted efforts to combat misinformation can help, maybe nowadays the number of people who see the followup is closer to 3 or 4, but it's the same basic dynamics behind the Gish Gallop, but on an industrial scale. Making up bullshit is easy, analyzing and explaining why it's bullshit on average takes longer than spewing out some new piece of bullshit.
Preach.