Although the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine are distinct, conspiracy theorists are attempting to connect them on social media, according to new study

Social media has been seeing an increase in the spread of false information and conspiracy theories on the conflict as the fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza has been more intense.

Upon analyzing around 12,000 comments made on Telegram channels after Hamas’ October 7 assault on Israel, I discovered at least that. Not unexpectedly, I also discovered that comments regarding the war tended to be more threatening or nasty than those on other subjects.

In addition, a number of comments on Telegram connected the Israel-Hamas conflict to deadly, antisemitic conspiracy theories about the war raging hundreds of kilometers away on another continent, between Russia and Ukraine.

For example, I discovered that these conspiracy theorists characterized the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a legitimate form of resistance against the “Khazarian Mafia” (also known as “fake Jews”), who are purportedly in charge of Ukraine and either behave like Nazis or are similar to them.

Similar descriptions of Hamas’ October 7 attack as an assault on “fake Zionist Ashkenazi Jews” and Nazis were offered by Telegram commenters.

Additionally, both confrontations were described as “new world order” schemes. These theories’ proponents believe that wealthy elites—often described as Jewish—are covertly attempting to impose worldwide tyranny, such as a tyrannical world government.

An argument that “these globalists are evil starting a second psyop [psychological operation] front after Ukraine failed” summed up this point of view in a remark on one of the channels.

Some remarks made a connection between the two situations by labeling Western backers of Ukraine as hypocrites for criticizing Hamas’s activities. “The West’s weapons in Ukraine [were] sent to Hamas for the offensive,” one user said.

Conspiracies and multiple crimes

In and of itself, many of these conspiracies are not new. What makes this case special, however, is the way conspiracy theories have been used to connect two essentially unconnected situations.

Studies have shown that overlapping crises, often known as “polycrises,” may hasten the propagation of conspiracies. This phenomenon may be attributed to the psychological burden that continuously adjusting to rapid changes imposes on individuals.

Conspiracies may also have an increased impact when conflicts coincide, as in the case of wars and worldwide pandemics. For instance, there can be a rise in the amount of bigotry and radicalization seen online. Extreme situations may also lead people to behave according to their convictions.

Even if these theories are just emerging on the periphery of social media, it’s crucial to comprehend how this kind of discourse might change over time and how dangerous it can become if it infiltrates mainstream politics or media.

How I went about doing my study

Several public Australian Telegram channels have been monitored by me as part of a larger investigation looking into the relationship between security and conspiracy theories.

I analyzed 12,000 comments that were submitted to three of these channels between October 8 and October 11 for the most recent iteration of this study, which has not yet undergone peer review.

I used a topic modeling technique in order to analyze so many communications. This statistical approach is able to recognize recurring themes (or subjects) in vast quantities of textual data. Topic modeling is essentially the same as underlining relevant passages in a book.

Topic modeling may be approached in a variety of ways. I made advantage of BERTopic, which creates topics by “clustering” messages that share words, phrases, and other contextual elements. I found 40 different subjects in all in the comments I looked at.

I then divided these subjects into groups based on conflict and non-conflict in order to examine the emotion behind them. In order to achieve this, I utilized Google’s Perspective API algorithm, which rates text for abusive or threatening words on a zero-to-one scale. The findings indicate that communication that was threatening or nasty was more common when it came to conflict subjects.

The antisemitic aspect of the most popular conflict issue grouping—key words: “Israel,” “Jew,” “Hamas,” “Zionist,” and “Palestinian”—is a major contributing factor to this. For example, one sample remark from this group demanded that Israel be abolished as a state.

Additionally, I discovered anti-Islamic sentiments inside this subject category. For instance, several remarks implied that Hamas’ acts represented Islamic principles or illustrated the threat that Muslims in general pose.

The second most popular subject (keywords: “Ukraine,” “Russia,” “Putin,” “war,” “Islam,” “propaganda”) included conversations relating the Hamas assaults to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Messages achieved this by attributing justifications for both wars to common enemies—the purported Nazis and Zionists—or by connecting them to worldwide conspiracies.

And in other subjects, I discovered variants of the worldwide conspiracy idea known as the “new world order.” The fourth most popular subject (keywords: “video”, “clown”, “fake”, “movie”, “staged”), for example, had remarks accusing Israel and other well-known conspiracy theorists of orchestrating the Hamas assaults.

This is in line with my larger project’s themes on the Russia-Ukraine war. One of the most talked-about subjects (keywords: “Putin,” “war,” “Nazi,” “Ukraine,” “Jewish”) presents Ukraine’s defense operations as part of a nefarious plot, often including prominent Jews such as the country’s president.

How to stop conspiracy ideas from spreading

As said, people’s degrees of bias and radicalization may escalate as a result of overlapping “polycrises” and social media’s conspiracy-friendly characteristics.

In light of the present Israel-Hamas conflict, Australian security authorities have previously issued warnings about this possibility. Mike Burgess, the director general of ASIO, issued a warning about “spontaneous violence” brought on by “language that inflames tension[s]”.

Additionally, studies have shown a close link between conspiracies and antisemitism, which clearly puts Jews at danger. between fact, between 2021 and 2022, antisemitism in the US reached previously unheard-of heights, maybe as a result of the several crises that the globe was going through at the same time.

Hence, dispelling internet conspiracies is a crucial yet difficult undertaking. Successful counterstrategies use proactive and reactive tactics to target conspirators’ suppliers and customers.

This entails boosting educational spending, lowering socioeconomic disparity, and thoroughly disproving conspiracies when they surface. Understanding the mechanisms and dissemination of conspiracy theories is an essential first step.