By Aljazeera’s Marium Ali, Hanna Duggal and Justin Salhani

Published On 22 May 202422 May 2024

As Israel's assault on Gaza continues on the ground, a parallel battle rages on social media between people and bots.

Lebanese researchers Ralph Baydoun and Michel Semaan, from research and strategic communications consulting firm InflueAnswers, decided to monitor how what seemed like “Israeli” bots have behaved on social media since October 7.

Early on, Baydoun and Semaan said, pro-Palestinian accounts dominated the social media space. Soon, they noticed, pro-Israeli comments increased vastly.

“The idea is that if a [pro-Palestinian] activist posts something, within five... 10… or 20 minutes or a day, a significant amount of [comments on their post] are now pro-Israeli,” Semaan said.

“Almost every tweet is essentially bombarded and swarmed by many accounts, all of whom follow very similar patterns, all of whom seem almost human.”

But they are not human. They are bots.