Modern warfare like the devastating attacks on Israel by the terror group Hamas has an equally modern tool: social media. It has proven to be an especially devastating and effective when it comes to spreading disinformation: for instance, one recent TikTok video purported to show a ruthless Israeli attack on Palestine, but it was soon proven to actually be video game footage. This is bad enough, but now there is concern that social media is also being used to show truly terrifying videos of Israeli hostages begging for their lives.
According to CNN, earlier this week a Tel Aviv school sent a message to the parents asking them to delete apps like Instagram, TikTok, and X (formerly Twitter) from their phones, and it was soon echoed by schools in the U.S. and the U.K. The message said, in part, “We cannot allow our kids to watch this stuff. It is also difficult, furthermore – impossible – to contain all this content on social media. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.”
News Not Noise founder Jessica Yellin also posted an email from an American school on her Instagram account, which says:
Dear Students and Parents, Local psychologists have reached out to us and informed us that the Israeli government is urging parents to tell their children to delete Instagram and Tik Tok immediately. We strongly advise our students to do the same as soon as possible. Terrorists are expected to release distressing videos of hostages begging for their lives. People who follow Jewish or Israeli influencers may stumble upon them. As one Israeli psychologist noted, ‘The videos and testimonies we are currently exposed to are bigger and crueler than our souls can contain.'”
The head of a school in New Jersey wrote: “Together with other Jewish day schools, we are warning parents to disable social media apps such as Instagram, X, and Tiktok from their children’s phones. Graphic and often misleading information is flowing freely, augmenting the fears of our students…Parents should discuss the dangers of these platforms and ask their children on a daily basis about what they are seeing, even if they have deleted the most unfiltered apps from their phones.”
It’s a sad but true fact that the algorithms of our most popular social media apps can be easily exploited by terrorists groups, disinformation groups, and bad actors in general to spread evil in many different forms. Parents, please be vigilant about the content your kids are consuming on their apps. And when it comes to disinformation, we as adults need to condition ourselves to verify that something is true before we share it or engage with it in any way. That is certainly true at all times, but is more important than ever now.
As we pray for peace in the middle east and an end to the fighting, we also need to be aware and alert, and careful not to allow anything that we can’t un-see into our homes.
