27-02-2025
Media misinformation greater in Middle East since Gaza war: Researchers
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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Middle East has been experiencing the highest levels of misinformation and disinformation, particularly after the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, panelists said on Thursday during Erbil Forum 2025.
'Starting from October 7, 2023, I can say that we have seen an all-time rise in misinformation and disinformation across the region and about the region in all parts of the world,' Dina Sadek a Resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab), said during a panel in the second day of the Erbil Forum 2025.
Sadek said that misinformation and disinformation in the Middle East's media outlets are mostly caused by 'democratic backsliding,' with less focus on press freedom, and that it can have 'deadly consequences.'
Bayan Tal, a media literacy and communication consultant, also highlighted that the war in Gaza has drastically increased misinformation..
'We have two issues to deal with, one is the increase of disinformation and misinformation and how Western mainstream media assisted and justified the war in Gaza,' she said, and 'the second is how it has impacted the freedom of expression in the West and how people are in the West.'
Around 200 journalists have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war, making it the deadliest conflict for journalists in history, Tal stressed.
Mohammed Abu Rumman, former Jordanian minister of culture and youth and founder of the Politics and Society Institute, said that data obtained from media depicts a majority support for Israel since October 7.
"The Gaza war was the final goodbye for professional media. It was more propaganda tools instead of professional media," Rumman lamented, adding that Arab countries in particular did not know how to utilize social media.
Rumman highlighted how social media, now intertwined with propaganda, has turned opinion management into a policy, exposing citizens to widespread misinformation.
Palestinian Hamas militants launched a large-scale incursion into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing more than 1,170 people, according to Israeli figures. Israel responded with a massive ongoing offensive in Gaza, killing more than 46,000 people, mostly civilians, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
