On Sunday (22nd October), the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which is very well known for spreading disinformation, published a video sharing basic facts about how to spot disinformation on social media. The video said that after the terrorist organisation Hamas from Palestine attacked the Jewish state, several videos could be seen on social media that attempted to spread disinformation regarding the attack.
“The conflict between Israel and Gaza has been full of claims and counterclaims from both sides about what is happening on the ground. Those claims have been turbocharged by social media, which has been flooded with pictures and videos. There’s lots of misleading and false information, and conspiracy theories too,” said Marianna Spring who claims to be the disinformation and social media correspondent at BBC.
Israel-Gaza war: How to spot disinformation on social media https://t.co/KJ1FeQk3KI
— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) October 21, 2023
Interestingly, the BBC has been notorious for sharing fake information and fake news. In the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, BBC had spread misinformation by claiming that Israeli airstrike was responsible for the rocket attack at the Gaza hospital in which the initial reports claimed that around 500 people had died.
The BBC later admitted that one of its live air correspondents incorrectly suspected that the rocket attack on a Gaza hospital was the result of an Israeli airstrike.
“We accept that even in this fast-moving situation it was wrong to speculate in this way, although he did not at any point report that it was an Israeli strike,” the corporation wrote on its page amid the Israel-Hamas conflict.
During early live reporting from Israel on what was reported to be a deadly explosion, BBC correspondent Jon Donnison speculated that Israel’s forces were to blame. He reported, “It’s hard to see what else this could be really, given the size of the explosion, other than an Israeli airstrike or several airstrikes.”
An independent evaluation has since established that a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket misfired and struck the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza.
On 17th October, a rocket fell on a hospital in Gaza, resulting in immediate worldwide outrage. Hamas claimed an Israeli rocket fell on the hospital, killing 500 Palestinians. However, officials from the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) were quick to point out that this was not an Israeli airstrike but rather a misfired rocket from within Gaza. They revealed that Hamas was aware of the misfire, which occurred at around 6:59 PM local time on the same day as the attack on the Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital in Gaza. Despite this knowledge, Hamas still launched a media campaign blaming Israel for the incident.
The IDF presented aerial photographs as evidence during a press briefing, showing that the damage was primarily concentrated outside the hospital, specifically in the parking lot. They also showcased pictures of the hospital’s scorched parking lot and explained that this damage was caused by the rocket’s impact and the large amount of rocket fuel present in the projectile when it fell short of its intended target.
The BBC has already been under fire for refusing to name Hamas as a terrorist organisation, despite the fact that it is marked as such by the UK, the US, the EU, and Israel. Earlier, the BBC had defended its stand on not calling Hamas a terrorist organisation saying that calling someone a terrorist would mean taking sides.
Since Hamas terrorists unleashed a wave of strikes along Israel’s border with Gaza on 7th October, thousands have been killed in Israel. Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the BBC in London on October 16th evening, demanding that the corporation name Hamas as terrorists.
