Israel-Hamas war: how social media companies are handling the response

The war in Israel presents content moderation challenges for the most popular social media sites.

Following the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, social media companies are facing increased pressure to crack down on violent content, hate speech, and disinformation.

Some social platforms are already sharing details of their response: Meta is tightening security measures amidst an increase in content violating its rules, while TikTok has also committed to stepping up its moderation in the wake of the attacks.

Despite this, both Meta and TikTok are facing scrutiny from the European Commission over whether their response complies with the Digital Services Act, a set of rules that hold large social media companies accountable for preventing illegal content from being posted to their platforms.

The European Commission is looking into the way X (formerly Twitter) is handling the Israel-Hamas war as well and also sent a letter to YouTube to remind the company of its responsibility to keep illegal content and disinformation off its platform.

Here are all the updates on what social platforms are doing in response to the Israel-Hamas war.