The Social-Media War

For most onlookers, Hamas’s atrocities and Israel’s responses exist primarily as they appear online. What effect will that have on each side—and on the platforms themselves?

By Arieh Kovler

When the sirens rang out on the morning of Simchat Torah, October 7, many Israelis turned on their televisions and radios to find out what had happened; some checked the major news websites on their phones. They saw reports of a massive Hamas rocket barrage from Gaza, alongside rumors of possible Hamas infiltration across the border.

Others, though, checked the popular messaging app Telegram, where large channels share breaking news every few minutes. Despite official-sounding names like Latest News Israel or Voice of the News Telegram, these groups are often run anonymously and share legitimate news stories alongside unverified rumors and videos from members of the public. For much of the day, these groups were ahead of the official news, unburdened by Israel’s strict military censorship laws. The people following the Telegram channels knew the disaster was much worse than was being reported.

By the afternoon, videos of the attacks began to appear in Hamas-affiliated Telegram channels too, recorded by the terrorists themselves as they burst into kibbutzim, villages, and the Nova music festival, killing and kidnapping.