Images of Palestinians in Gaza fleeing Israeli airstrikes, digging in the ashes of collapsed buildings for loved ones and surveying the ruins of their cities have flooded the social media feeds of Americans for nearly two years.
But in recent months, as an increasing number of Gazans grapple with starvation, more videos posted on TikTok, Instagram and X have shown emaciated children begging for food and hunting for clean water, giving people a close-up view of the war’s grinding toll.
The change in online content has unfolded alongside Americans’ shifting views on Israel. In a poll from The New York Times and Siena University this week, more Americans sided with Palestinians over Israelis for the first time since The Times began asking voters their sympathies in 1998.
The rising disapproval of the war was driven by a sharp decline in support from Democratic voters, the poll found. While Republican voters largely continued supporting Israel, the poll also showed a modest drop in their support.
Many factors account for the shift, but social media has played a role as the Israel-Gaza war has been widely discussed in online communities, internet experts said.
“Israel’s public position — a nation forced into a defensive war and making every effort to minimize civilian casualties — is eroded by more documentary evidence each day” online, said Emerson Brooking, the director of strategy at the Digital Forensic Research Lab of the Atlantic Council, which studies online communities.
Modern wars are increasingly playing out on social media. From Ukraine to Myanmar to Sudan, people have documented and uploaded footage from conflict zones to the internet. In Gaza, the videos and photographs have played out over a longer period amid bursts of violence over the years.
That has prompted Israelis and Palestinians to use social media as a battleground for public opinion. Their efforts escalated after Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas militants launched cross-border attacks into Israel from Gaza that left more than 1,200 Israelis dead and at least 250 kidnapped, leading to the war.
Online, Israel began campaigns focused on swaying Black and Democratic lawmakers to its side by using fake social media accounts to argue pro-Israeli positions. Hamas militants also released footage of the Oct. 7 attacks, and hijacked the social media accounts of some Israelis they held hostage to spread terror.
In the initial months after the Oct. 7 attacks, Times polls showed that U.S. public opinion was broadly favorable to Israel, with 47 percent siding with Israelis and 20 percent with Palestinians.
Since then, many Palestinians have used Instagram and TikTok to tell their own stories of the war. Photojournalists in Gaza also posted photos and videos showing the aftermath of Israeli airstrikes.
Firsthand accounts from Gaza have become more difficult to document and verify as dozens of journalists have been killed in the conflict and Palestinians have been displaced. But a network of Palestinian photographers and photojournalists still publish images daily to their social media accounts.
Among them are Wissam Nassar, a Gaza-based photographer, and Motaz Azaiza, a photographer who fled Gaza last year but frequently posts images from family members and friends in the coastal enclave. Each has a large Instagram following.
On Tuesday, Mr. Nassar and Mr. Azaiza posted tributes on Instagram to Yahya Barzak, a Palestinian photographer known for his pictures of newborn babies. Their posts said Mr. Bazak had been killed in an Israeli airstrike on a cafe in Gaza.
Mr. Nassar and Mr. Azaiza did not respond to requests for comment.
Instagram and TikTok are highly popular among young Americans, who were the most likely to oppose additional economic or military aid to Israel, according to this week’s poll from The Times and Siena University. Some Israeli and U.S. lawmakers have accused TikTok of intentionally promoting pro-Palestinian content. The video app has denied those claims, saying it is neutral with policies against antisemitic content.
In contrast, Israel’s attempts at reaching online audiences have faltered, said Mr. Brooking of the Atlantic Council. The Israeli government appeared to be “de-emphasizing persuasion altogether,” he said, in favor of trying to shut down Palestinian social media posts by targeting cellphone and internet towers in Gaza.
How people form views on the Israel-Gaza war has been complicated by influence campaigns, as well as artificial intelligence-generated images and bots that may be pushing one-sided content.
“There’s a direct link between the rise of polarization on issues like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the ways in which this has been repeatedly reinforced by zero-sum thinking and conspiracy theories on social media,” said Amy Spitalnick, the chief executive of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, a coalition of advocacy groups.
Last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel talked of the power of social media in the war. In a meeting with American influencers at Israel’s Consulate General in New York, he called social media platforms “the most important weapon” that his country had “to secure our base of support the U.S.,” according to a video published by Debra Lea, an influencer who attended the event.
Mr. Netanyahu also accused nongovernment agencies and other groups of intentionally spreading anti-Israeli and antisemitic messages to Americans through social media. TikTok was the most important platform for swaying people’s opinions, with X a close second, he added.
Mr. Netanyahu’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
According to the Times and Siena University poll, 34 percent of Americans now express broader sympathy for Israelis and 35 percent for Palestinians; 31 percent said they were unsure or backed both equally.
A majority of American voters now also oppose sending additional economic and military aid to Israel, in a major reversal since the Oct. 7 attacks. Among voters under 30, nearly seven in 10 opposed such aid, regardless of party affiliation, the poll found.
Sheera Frenkel is a reporter based in the San Francisco Bay Area, covering the ways technology impacts everyday lives with a focus on social media companies, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, Telegram and WhatsApp.
Steven Lee Myers covers misinformation and disinformation from San Francisco. Since joining The Times in 1989, he has reported from around the world, including Moscow, Baghdad, Beijing and Seoul.
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