Don’t Sleep On The Power of Fake News — Percepto International
Sometimes, diametrically opposed actors find common ground and engage in similar messaging as part of an information strategy. Recently, we detected an unexpected convergence between Trump supporters, former Israeli PM Netanyahu supporters, Iran and Hamas. Though the perception that each one of these groups tries to propagate varies, they all utilized the same piece of “fake news” — that President Joe Biden dozed off during his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.
With the contentious withdrawal from Afghanistan the spotlight on President Joe Biden has been especially bright. Despite the unfolding drama in Afghanistan, President Biden hosted Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who is facing stiff opposition domestically. At one point during the public part of the meeting, PM Bennett addresses President Biden, who averts his gaze.
Soon after, edited videos began appearing on social media, supposedly showing that President Biden, in fact, fell asleep while PM Bennett was addressing him.
Initial analysis of these videos and the accounts which posted the videos, reveal that there are two main propagators: @IOMerreighn and @GalitDistel. @IOMerreighn is a new account, opened in July 2021, which has already tweeted over 1,200 times. Its posts are mainly against the COVID vaccines, against the Biden administration, and in favor of President Donald Trump. Additionally, it shares content from known conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Though the Twitter account is very new, it runs less -active accounts on other social media platforms. @GalitDistel is a Member of Knesset (Israel parliament) for the opposition Likud party.
The video posted by @IOMerreighn is especially easy to identify, as it is a video playing on a screen captured by a cell phone or camera. Posted at 1:51 GMT+3 on August 28th, copies of it began appearing on other accounts as well, and as of September 2, it has been viewed at least 1.3 million times.
On Twitter, the video was shared by Hamas-affiliated Quds News Network, The Post Millennial (a conservative Canadian news outlet), Hamas-affiliated Shehab Agency. Additionally, it was shared by Iran’s Fars News Agency on Instagram.
@GalitDistel’s video was posted at 23:13 GMT+3 on August 28th, and was quickly picked up by Republican politicians and right-wing political commentators in the United States, such as Rep. Lauren Boebert, Florida Rep. Blaise Ingoglia, Brigitte Gabriel, as well as different media outlets and blogs such as The Daily Express, Israel Hayom, The Post Millennial. In turn, these articles highlighting President Biden’s “nap” were shared over social media. Just @GalitDistel’s version of the video has been viewed over 6 million times. This piece of fake news received so much traction, with tens of millions exposed to the story across platforms, that it was fact checked by USA Today, Reuters, and others.
Interestingly, both videos start at the same moment, though @GalitDistel’s version is 10 seconds shorter. @GalitDistel has made a dubious claim that she found the clip on the White House’s YouTube account. The video of the meeting is over 13 minutes long, while @GalitDistel’s video is only 22 seconds. As @GalitDistel’s video was posted almost a day after @IOMerreighn’s, and the latter’s video received substantial exposure, it is not far fetched to hypothesize that she saw it prior to her post. One possible vector — the user @ivgiz posted the same video on August 28th 20:35+3, and @GalitDistel follows
While the claim that President Biden fell asleep during his meeting with PM Bennett was debunked very quickly on social media and media outlets, it is still spreading. Whether or not it is true is irrelevant — it still has the potential to alter perceptions and impact domestic as well as international politics. While it is highly unlikely that we will ever see cooperation and coordination between Likud and/or the GOP and the Islamic Republic, it is clear that they can benefit from the same piece of disinformation
By Moshe Kwiat, Analyst at Percepto International
