Watching this play out on Twitter has been fascinating. For days after the attack, there was almost unanimous support for Israel. Then the Harvard letter came out saying that the blame was entirely on Israel, infuriating most of Twitter. But then over the next few days, a steady stream of posts have been bubbling up which all carry the theme of making the reader question whether Israel is justified in its reaction.

It’s hard to say whether deepfakes are to blame. Certainly it’s a factor. But the underlying reason seems to be that people are willing to believe that Israel is overreacting.

Before deepfakes, there was good old fashioned propaganda. Both are lies, and it’s hard to tell what to believe. What’s changed is that information travels far faster now, and more widely.

One thing’s for certain: traditional media seems hopelessly outclassed by social media when it comes to influencing peoples’ opinions. The news blitz leading up to the Iraq invasion ("weapons of mass destruction…" rhetoric) might be the last time that such tricks will work for getting wide-scale public support for governmental actions. If 9/11 had happened today, one can’t help but to imagine what a Taliban social media presence would look like, or whether there would be a large scale surge of support in their favor.

Apropos nothing, pg highlighted one of the more interesting takes on the whole situation: https://x.com/paulg/status/1712097145770156458?s=61&t=jQbmCk...