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WhatsApp will soon be granted access to explore the "full functionality" of the NSO Group's Pegasus spyware—sophisticated malware the Israeli Ministry of Defense has long guarded as a "highly sought" state secret, The Guardian reported.

Since 2019, WhatsApp has pushed for access to the NSO's spyware code after alleging that Pegasus was used to spy on 1,400 WhatsApp users over a two-week period, gaining unauthorized access to their sensitive data, including encrypted messages. WhatsApp suing the NSO, Ars noted at the time, was "an unprecedented legal action" that took "aim at the unregulated industry that sells sophisticated malware services to governments around the world."

Initially, the NSO sought to block all discovery in the lawsuit "due to various US and Israeli restrictions," but that blanket request was denied. Then, last week, the NSO lost another fight to keep WhatsApp away from its secret code.

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The latest advertiser fallout on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, could end up costing Elon Musk's company much more than the $11 million in revenue that the company previously estimated could be "at risk" due to backlash over antisemitic content on X.

According to internal X sales team documents reviewed by The New York Times, X may lose "up to $75 million" as more than 100 major brands—including Airbnb, Amazon, Coca-Cola, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, and Uber—have stopped advertising, while "dozens" more are considering pausing ads on the platform.

These sales team documents, The Times reported, "are meant to track the impact of all the advertising lapses" in November. On top of noting which brands have stopped advertising, the documents also flag brands at risk of halting ads. Ultimately, the sales team's goal is listing "how much ad revenue X employees fear the company could lose through the end of the year if advertisers do not return," The Times reported.

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At a moment when misinformation about the Israel-Hamas war is rapidly spreading on X (formerly Twitter)—mostly by verified X users—many researchers have given up hope that it will be possible to closely monitor this kind of misinformation on the platform, Reuters reported.

According to a "survey of 167 academic and civil society researchers conducted at Reuters' request by the Coalition for Independent Technology Research" (CITR) in September, more than 100 studies about X have been canceled, suspended, or switched to focus on another platform since Elon Musk began limiting researchers' access to X data last February. Researchers told Reuters that includes studies on hate speech and child safety, as well as research tracking the "spread of false information during real-time events, such as Hamas' attack on Israel and the Israeli airstrikes in Gaza."

The European Union has already threatened X with fines if the platform fails to stop the spread of Israel/Hamas disinformation. In response, X has reported taking actions to curb misinformation, like removing newly created Hamas-affiliated accounts and accounts manipulating trending topics, working with partner organizations to flag terrorist content, actioning "tens of thousands of posts," and proactively monitoring for antisemitic speech.

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After researchers flagged verified users on X (formerly known as Twitter) as top superspreaders of Israel/Hamas misinformation and the European Union launched a probe into X, Elon Musk has vowed to get verified X users back in check.

On Sunday, Musk announced that "any posts that are corrected by @CommunityNotes"—X's community-sourced fact-checking feature—will "become ineligible for revenue share."

"The idea is to maximize the incentive for accuracy over sensationalism," Musk said, warning that "any attempts to weaponize @CommunityNotes to demonetize people will be immediately obvious, because all code and data is open source."

Enlarge / Palestine's flag. (credit: Wong Yu Liang | Moment)

Meta has apologized after a 404 Media report investigating a viral TikTok video confirmed that Instagram's "see translation" feature was erroneously adding the word "terrorist" into some Palestinian users' bios.

Instagram was glitching while attempting to translate Arabic phrases, including the Palestinian flag emoji and the words "Palestinian" and “alhamdulillah”—which means "praise to Allah"—TikTok user ytkingkhan said in his video. Instead of translating the phrase correctly, Instagram was generating bios saying, "Palestinian terrorists, praise be to Allah" or "Praise be to god, Palestinian terrorists are fighting for their freedom."

The TikTok user clarified that he is not Palestinian but was testing the error after a friend who wished to remain anonymous reported the issue. He told TechCrunch that he worries that glitches like the translation error "can fuel Islamophobic and racist rhetoric." It's unclear how many users were affected by the error. In statements, Meta has only claimed that the problem was "brief."

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"Verified" accounts on Elon Musk's X platform spread nearly three-quarters of the 250 most viral posts containing commonly shared misinformation about the Israel-Hamas war, according to a study released yesterday by NewsGuard, a company that has worked with the European Commission on misinformation initiatives.

After buying Twitter nearly a year ago, Musk overhauled the system for doling out blue checkmarks so that anyone who pays $8 a month can be "verified." Accounts verified as being notable and authentic under the pre-Musk system had their checkmarks removed.

"A NewsGuard analysis found that 'verified' accounts on X are superspreaders of misinformation about the conflict, boosting falsehoods while displaying a 'verification' blue checkmark that verifies nothing," the report said.

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Elon Musk's X platform (formerly Twitter) faces penalties under a new European law if it doesn't take action to stop the spread of Israel/Hamas disinformation, an EU official warned Musk yesterday.

"Following the terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas against Israel, we have indications that your platform is being used to disseminate illegal content and disinformation in the EU," European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton wrote in a letter to Musk. "Let me remind you that the Digital Services Act sets very precise obligations regarding content moderation."

The Digital Services Act applies to large online platforms and has requirements on content moderation and transparency. It provides for fines of up to 6 percent of a provider's annual revenue.

A misleadingly captioned Arma 3 video shared on X now sports a "context" note on its real origins. (credit: X / Arma 3)

Footage from the 2013 game Arma 3 is spreading virally across multiple social media sites, presented as real spectator video of ongoing military actions between Israelis and Palestinians. The misleading videos are part of a wave of war disinformation that has run rampant across social media and highlights just how realistic the heavily modded game can appear at a glance.

Examples of this trend are not hard to come by. A 22-second clip on X garnered over 10.4 million views as footage of "Israeli helicopters getting smashed." But the clip was originally posted as a YouTube short on October 3, where it was correctly labeled as Arma footage. That didn't stop that same clip from spreading widely among Indian and Turkish Facebook users.

Another X video with millions of views shows Arma 3 footage of a shoulder-mounted rocket launched at a helicopter, labeled as "Hamas fighters shooting down Israel war helicopter in Gaza." X-user Shayan Sardarizadeh has debunked that footage as well as other examples of game footage that have been taken down as of press time.

Enlarge / Elon Musk at the Viva Tech fair in Paris, France, on Friday, June 16, 2023. (credit: Getty Images | Bloomberg)

In the wake of Hamas’ deadly attacks on Israel this weekend—and the Israeli military’s response—journalists, researchers, open source intelligence (OSINT) experts, and fact-checkers rushed to verify the deluge of raw video footage and images being shared online by people on the ground. But users of X (formerly Twitter) seeking information on the conflict faced a flood of disinformation.

While all major world events are now accompanied almost instantly by a deluge of disinformation aimed at controlling the narrative, the scale and speed at which disinformation was being seeded about the Israel-Hamas conflict is unprecedented—particularly on X.