Israels’ Cyber Warfare Department Reports 800% Increase In Incitement To Terror

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — The spiraling wave of terror faced by Israel has been accompanied in the last few weeks with a similar rise in online incitement to terror. Israel’s cyber warfare department has been working with security officials in an effort to remove and block all publications which contain incitement to violence or terror or praise of acts of terror. These type of posts increase exponentially in the wake of terror attacks and security officials are concerned that these could lead to an escalation in terror acts and encourage copycat terror and nationalistic terrorism.

The cyber warfare department, a division of the State Prosecution, is working around the clock to prevent the dissemination of terrorist content. The department receives requests from security officials, checks them and reports to media networks including Facebook, Tiktok, Twitter, Youtube and Telegram in order that they remove the posts and publications which violate social media regulations.

Since March 22 when the terror wave started the department received 5,815 requests from security officials. 3,900 of these involved published posts which contained illegal content which could endanger the public and violated the conditions of the social media platform it was on.

2,950 posts have been removed from the internet and 491 others await the decisions of the various platformes. Most of these requests (3300) referred to Facebook, which has removed 87% of the offensive materials. 770 others referred to Tiktok which has removed 84%. Instagram removed 85% of 620 requests and Twitter has only removed 30% of the 980 requests it received. Youtube removed 90% of the 109 clips requested by the cyber department.

The director of the department, Attorney Chaim Wissmonsky, said that the incitement had risen by 800% in the last three weeks as opposed to regular amounts. “We estimate based on tragic experience that pro-terror content which is spread virally can cause more attacks by users of such content and therefore we expect that as soon as such content is spotted and reported to online platforms, they should remove it as soon as possible” Wissmonsky added.