Israel-Hamas Bombed Car Wreckage Community Note Glitch

About

The Israel-Hamas Bombed Car Wreckage Community Note Glitch refers to a glitch on Twitter / X in which a Community Note was automatically given to any post featuring a specific aerial photograph of burned and bombed cars taken on the day of the October 7th, 2023, Hamas-Israel Attacks at the Supernova Music Festival. Major news outlets reported that the cars were bombed by Hamas forces. However, the reporting was highly disputed as many believed that IDF helicopters and missiles were the only weapons capable of such destruction. The Community Note (which read, "This was already debunked in November last year by basically every major news source in multiple countries") was perceived by many as pro-Israel because it was supposedly debunking the claim that IDF forces destroyed the cars. The Community Note was originally created for a March 2024 tweet, however, in June 2024, X users discovered that when they shared the photo with an unrelated caption, X automatically added the note, leading to the perception that pro-Israel bots were purportedly spamming helpful ratings and astroturfing the supposed debunking. Tweeting the photo then became an anti-Zionist participatory media trend as a way for pro-Palestine users to criticize X's seemingly broken algorithm and highlight its seemingly pro-Israel agenda, although these claims are unconfirmed.

Origin

On October 7th, 2023, Hamas militants attacked Israeli civilians and forces at the Supernova Music Festival held near the Gaza Strip border. An aerial photograph of bombed cars on the day of the attack was taken by Reuters photographer Ilan Rosenberg and widely circulated by major news outlets like The Guardian,^[1] which attributed the damage to Hamas forces in a caption reading, "An aerial view of vehicles destroyed by Hamas during the 7 October attack, collected in a field near the border between Israel and Gaza."

On November 18th, 2023, Haaretz^[2] reported, "According to a police source, the investigation also indicates that an IDF combat helicopter that arrived at the scene and fired at terrorists there apparently also hit some festival participants," including another angle of the bombed cars (shown below).

On November 19th, the Times of Israel^[4] disputed Haaretz's claim via quotes from an Israel Police statement that said there wasn't "any indication about the harm of civilians due to aerial activity there" and that Haaretz should "take responsibility for their publications and only base stories on official sources." Outlets like Business Insider^[3] then reported on the exchange.

In late November 2023, many internet users were skeptical of the Israel Police statement, centering on the photograph of the bombed cars. For instance, on November 29th, X^[5] user @LexiAlex posted a quote reading, "People looked at these images and fully went with the story that resistance fighters with hand-stitched paragliders did this," gaining over 39,000 likes in eight months.

The quote then received a Community Note^[6] that was rated helpful on November 30th, which aimed to debunk @LexiAlex's post, reading, "Hamas was equipped with rocket-propelled grenades (RPG) and hand grenades. They filmed themselves blowing up cars. Hamas also set cars on fire by igniting their fuel tanks." The Community Note did not directly debunk the theory that the IDF destroyed the cars, not Hamas (entire post shown below).

On March 11th, 2024, X^[7] user @Partisangirl resurfaced the anti-IDF discourse using the photograph, writing, "Israel killed its own people on Oct 7th, gave the rave goers and the kibbutz the Gaza treatment. The Israelis were the Hamas ‘human shields’ that day, few have lived to tell the tail. Never forget." The post gained over 1,300 likes in three months.

A Community Note^[8] for the post was rated helpful on March 11th, that read, "This was already debunked in November last year by basically every major news source in multiple countries," linking to multiple news articles that debunked a helicopter video unrelated to the photograph (entire post shown below).

On June 13th, 2024, X^[9] user @Is_Not_Brian tweeted the image and was given the same Community Note^[8] in the abovementioned post. Then, on June 16th, X^[10] user @fentpressed tweeted the image and captioned it, "Elon musk is not a ped*phile." The post received the abovementioned Community Note^[8] as well. The tweet is currently the first known memetic usage of the note glitch and it received over 64,000 likes in a day (shown below).

Spread

Other X users realized what was happening and started to share similar parodies on June 16th, 2024, such as X^[11] user @Solidarity_Star who wrote, "Apparently posting this photo caused an automatic community note to be attached?" gaining over 2,600 likes in a day (shown below, left).

Also on June 16th, X^[12] user @SxarletRed tweeted the image, captioned, "George Bush did not do 9/11," receiving over 6,200 likes in a day (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References