Facebook ‘Fact-Checker’ Suggests Israelis Were Unharmed during Hamas Terror Attack at Music Festival
One of Facebook’s corporate media “fact checkers” has falsely suggested that no Israeli civilians were harmed when Hamas launched a terror attack at a music festival earlier this month.
On October 7, Hamas terrorists used paragliders to fly into a music festival in Israel, slaughtering hundreds of innocent concertgoers, mostly young people and families.
The terrorist also raped, injured, and kidnapped many more, as Slay News reported.
Eyewitnesses recalled horrific scenes of terrorists murdering innocent people as they ran for their lives, in some cases, pulling them from their vehicles as they fled and shooting them at point-blank range.
The festival, which was held to promote peace, was in the desert near Kibbutz Re’im, close to the Gaza Strip.
However, a Facebook “fact-check” by corporate media outlet Reuters of an online video suggests Israeli concertgoers were unharmed by Hamas’s terrorist attack.
Reuters’ “fact-check” is even prompting Hamas sympathizers to argue that the attack didn’t happen at all.
Reuters fact-checked an online video taken from an Israeli concert but not the music festival Hamas infiltrated last weekend.
The outlet used the video to debunk the claim that Israelis were “running for their lives.”
The video Reuters used for the “fact-check” was filmed on October 4 at a different concert and didn’t show people running for their lives.
It simply shows people running through the gates of a concert.
However, Reuters makes no mention of the fact that hundreds of Israelis were slaughtered at a concert three days later, suggesting to some that the attacks never even happened.
The social media giant’s parent company Meta employs Reuters as a “fact-checking partner” in six countries, including the United States and Israel, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
Inside Meta, Israeli employees have voiced alarm that one of the company’s major partners is whitewashing terror and spreading confusion about the facts on the ground.
“We saw today a massive campaign on our platform denying what has happened in Israel this week and saying Israel faked it,” one Israeli employee wrote in an internal email reviewed by the Free Beacon.
They argue that the tendentious “fact-checks” are “putting not only our reputation globally and in Israel at major risk but it also puts our employees at risk as they are being blamed for this and harassed by people online and on the street.”
The Reuters fact check examines an October 7 tweet that purports to show Israelis “running for their lives” after Hamas terrorists infiltrated a music festival in southern Israel.
But the video shows concertgoers running through the entrance of an October 4 concert in Tel Aviv.
However, the Reuters video does not include footage from the actual Supernova Music Festival in southern Israel, where hundreds of Israelis were slaughtered by Hamas terrorists.
It only vaguely mentions the “desert attack.”
Facebook reached an agreement with Reuters in 2020 to “fact-check content posted on the social media platform and its photo-sharing app Instagram.”
The company went on to rebrand as Meta, the social media conglomerate that also owns and operates Instagram and WhatsApp.
In response to Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel, which killed at least 1,300 people, Meta expanded its violence and incitement policy to remove “disturbing” content showing Israeli hostages taken by Hamas, “even if it is being done to condemn or raise awareness of their situation,” Reuters reported.
Reuters itself has downplayed photos of Hamas atrocities, portraying them not as evidence of the terror group’s barbarism but as examples of an “apparent effort” by Israel’s government to “stoke global anger against the Gaza militants.”
In that story—headlined, “Israel releases images of slain children to rally support after Hamas attack”—Reuters includes a quote from deputy Hamas chief Saleh Al-Arouri claiming the terror group did not plan to target Israeli civilians.
The Reuters fact check provides a window into how some media efforts to combat “misinformation” stemming from Hamas’s slaughtering of Israelis has instead inspired false claims.
One commenter used the Reuters video to argue that “no attack happened, Palestine will be free.”
Another thanked Reuters for “being the voice of the voiceless,” adding the hashtag, “free Palestine.”
Others cited the video as proof that Israel “doesn’t speak the truth” and is “always playing the victim card.”
“Gaza IS under attack with no food no electricity no water!!!!!” one comment reads.
“Please go through all the other debunked fake atrocity propaganda, the burning woman, the fake rapes and assault reports, and the so-called beheadings,” another says.
“It’s so important everyone understands it’s fake news!”
Had Reuters decided to include footage of the actual Hamas massacre on the Israeli music festival, it would have had plenty of harrowing clips to choose from.
In one video, Hamas terrorists are seen kidnapping a distraught Israeli woman.
In another, Hamas terrorists filmed themselves shooting into portable toilets festival attendees used to hide.
Videos from the festival also showed attendees running from Hamas terrorists.
Later, dead Israelis gunned down by the terrorists were filmed lying on the ground.
READ MORE: Biden Admin Gave Hamas $75 Million While Knowing Terror Attack Was Imminent
