Here in the US and elsewhere.

Disinformation campaigns about the war on social media are getting harder to track.

Experts say misleading content about the conflict is rampant online, and the media platforms changing policies have made it nearly impossible to hold them accountable.

Ted Goldberg was with federal lawmakers and members of the Jewish community today as they demanded immediate action to combat the harmful spread of misinformation.

They are complicit and they have blood on their hands.

Community leaders have strong words for social media companies as misinformation and hate speech have flowed freely while Israel and Hamas have fought over the last two weeks.

They actively seek to be these sources of information for the world, and particularly for our younger generations.

Yet they give a platform for hate and misinformation, and then they hide behind the Constitution, which they likely have neither read nor studied.

Congressman Frank Pallone joined other leaders in calling for social media companies to do a better job of monitoring in the wake of this war on platforms like Telegram and Facebook.

Hamas has broadcast the executions of hostages, and pictures from previous wars have been reused, with users claiming they're from Israel and Gaza, Pallone says.

Hamas and groups like it take advantage of social media companies in two ways deliberately put on social media violent content in order to scare people.

And then the second thing is halts or misleading information where they are essentially Hamas or is or its allies accused Israel and its allies of doing things that are not true.

A fake report went viral last weekend stating that the Biden administration approved $8 billion in emergency aid for Israel.

The report was a Photoshopped picture based on the Biden administration sending $400 million to Ukraine.

Another report stated that Hamas had launched a new assault on Israel that was debunked by video game developers who recognized the footage from one of their games.

In recent statements, Meadows says that Facebook has removed nearly 800,000 pieces of content in Hebrew and Arabic that violate their terms of service.

And Tik Tok claims to have removed more than 500,000 videos that violate their guidelines.

Peloton says these companies have to do more.

Terrorist associations shouldn't have accounts that they can use.

And then the second thing is, if it does go up, that immediately has to be taken down or not repeated.

All Jews now find ourselves fighting a barrage of online threats, intimidation, anti-Semitic images were subjected to images and messages that make parents afraid to send their kids to Hebrew school, go into any restaurant and watch every kid do it on their phone.

What do they do when they go home?

They're on their tablets.

That cannot be.

This should not be a weapon.

Pologne and others spoke at the Middlesex County JCC in Edison, where Mayor Sam Joshi says there is a tangible cost to misinformation spreading online.

Our public safety resources end up getting spread out, whether it be our K-9 units or our officers.

The sheer manpower that we need because of the misinformation is actually behind this, because stemming from this conflict, these people who are actually spreading this hate and who are actually putting the resources, our local police officials are at risk by not being able to attend to real calls when they need to pull people that are actually in trouble and they're not able to get to them because they're busy chasing false leads.

Some lawmakers have called for tighter regulation of social media companies.

Tik Tok has been banned in Montana, but that law might not survive a lawsuit.

Pelosi says she's not quite at the point where Congress has to write new laws to punish these companies.

These platforms have what they call terms and conditions that basically meet the probably need, what the law requires.

Right.

But they're either weakening them or they're they don't have any enforcement because they're having people to do the the moderation or to take things down or prevent them from getting it.

So at this point, it's not a question of legislation as much as that they should meet the responsibility that they say they're going to do.

Meadows says Hamas is banned from posting on its platform, while Tik Tok made no mention of them in its most recent statement.

X told us to check back later when we asked how they're responding to misinformation.

Not a new threat, but a growing one worldwide.

In Edison, I'm Ted Goldberg.

NJ Spotlight News.