Israel-Gaza misinformation is flooding social media. The European Union is demanding Big Tech 'walk the talk' and fix it

Following the militant group Hamas's attack on Israel and Israel's retaliatory strikes in the Palestinian enclave Gaza, social media firms have seen a surge in misinformation related to the conflict, including doctored images and mislabelled videos, alongside images of graphic violence. Key points: Social media platforms are seeing more misinformation and disinformation during the Israel-Gaza conflict The EU has told platforms to remove this content, or face severe penalties Experts say Elon Musk's X is seeing the largest volume of misinformation The European Union has told technology companies to remove illegal content, misinformation and disinformation from their social media platforms, or risk facing severe penalties. X CEO Linda Yaccarino said the social media platform had removed hundreds of Hamas-affiliated accounts and taken action to remove or label tens of thousands of pieces of content since the militant group's attack on Israel Mr Musk responded by touting X's approach using crowdsourced fact-checking labels. "We wish to reiterate that we welcome further engagement with you and your team, including a meeting, to address any specific questions and look forward to receiving further specifics to which we can respond" she said in the letter to Mr Breton, posted on X. X has responded to more than 80 take-down requests received in the EU within required the timeline and has not received any notices from Europol regarding illegal content on the platform, the letter states. Britain's Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan summoned the UK bosses of X, TikTok, Snapchat, Google and Meta for a meeting on Wednesday to discuss "the proliferation of anti-Semitism and extremely violent content" following the Hamas attack.