"U.S. lawmaker seeks answers from Meta, X, Google, TikTok over Israel-Hamas false content", 17 October 2023

U.S. Senator Michael Bennet... sought information on how tech giants Meta (META.O), X, TikTok and Google (GOOGL.O) were trying to stop the spread of false and misleading content about the Israel-Hamas conflict on their platforms.

"Deceptive content has ricocheted across social media sites since the conflict began, sometimes receiving millions of views," Bennet, a Democrat, said in the letter addressed to the company chiefs.

Visuals from older conflicts, video game footage, and altered documents are among misleading content that has flooded social media platforms since Hamas militants attacked Israeli civilians on Oct. 7.

"In many cases, your platforms’ algorithms have amplified this content, contributing to a dangerous cycle of outrage, engagement, and redistribution,” Bennet said.

The Senator's comments come after European Union industry chief Thierry Breton blasted the companies, demanding they take stricter steps to battle disinformation amid the escalating conflict.

In his letter, Bennet has posed a series of questions to the companies seeking details on their content moderation practices and sought answers by Oct. 31.

The social media firms have outlined some steps they've taken in recent days in response to the conflict. The short video app TikTok said it had hired more Arabic and Hebrew-speaking content moderators. Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, said it had removed or marked as disturbing more than 795,000 pieces of content in Hebrew or Arabic in the first three days since the Hamas attack. X and Google-owned YouTube both said they had also taken down harmful content.

But Bennet said those actions were not enough.

Bennet also slammed the four companies for having laid off staff from their trust and safety teams in the past year that were in charge of monitoring for false and misleading content.