As the Israel-Hamas conflict has widened into a broader crisis Middle East crisis during 2024, the information environment surrounding these events has become even more complex. This report investigates the spread and impact of mis- and disinformation, hate speech, and extremist narratives related to the Israel-Hamas conflict in the UK, France and Germany. Employing innovative methodologies developed alongside CASM Technology, ISD analysed extensive multilingual datasets from mainstream and fringe platforms. These datasets comprise of social media posts from actors based in (or focused on) the UK, France or Germany, who are known to routinely spread extremist and hateful content, disinformation and/or conspiracy theories. As such, this study identifies the key themes and moments of online escalation around the Israel-Hamas conflict.
The findings of these investigations reveal the centrality of hateful narratives targeting Jewish and Muslim communities in online conversation about the conflict, as well as opportunistic use of its developments by extremist groups, and the amplification of disinformation by hostile state-affiliated actors. This research emphasises the hybridised and evolving nature of online misinformation, hateful and extremist narratives, and the importance of adaptive countermeasures to address these threats. To mitigate these online threats and their impact on communities effectively, platforms must ensure the comprehensive enforcement of existing policies, as well as the development of specific crisis-response mechanisms that account for the sensitivities of escalating conflict.
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