Otherwise titled: Reducing the algorithmic advantage of conspiratorial antisemitism and antizionism.

Trying to correct a viral antisemitic or antizionist falsehood online is an Alice-in-Wonderland experience. Despite posting evidence, linking to reputable sources, and explaining context, the lies keep traveling. Reputable sources are discounted in favor of emotionally charged posts with no clear provenance. Debunking of falsehoods is distorted to validate the lies. The effort of a counter-argument is interpreted as a nervous, desperate attempt to avoid accountability.

It’s frustrating, but maybe it’s telling us we’re fighting the wrong battle.

Most people think debunking is about truth versus falsehood. But the modern misinformation war, especially when it comes wrapped in conspiratorial antisemitism, is not primarily a contest of accuracy, but rather a contest of distribution. And distribution is governed by algorithms and human psychology working together to elevate what captures attention, what triggers emotion, what creates identity, and what spreads fastest.

The uncomfortable reality is that some lies are simply better designed for the internet than is the truth.

So, how do we debunk a false claim in a way that doesn’t accidentally give it more reach? How do we reduce the algorithmic advantage natural to conspiratorial, engaging antisemitic or antizionist material? The answer is not by being more persuasive. The answer is by changing the mechanics of spread. If we want to win, we have to stop thinking like a lawyer and start thinking like an engineer searching for ways to introduce friction, change incentives, and interrupt the loop. We can achieve this by following ten important rules:

 Rule One: Stop Treating the Feed Like a Courtroom

 A courtroom has rules where evidence matter, arguments proceed in sequence, and people are required to sit still and listen. A feed is not a courtroom, it’s a casino.

The feed doesn’t reward what is correct.  It rewards what is irresistible, like outrage, fear, disgust, the thrill of forbidden knowledge, and the satisfaction of having an enemy. Antisemitic and antizionist conspiracy narratives, whether explicit or coded, are built out of these exact ingredients. They offer a clean villain, a secret story, and the sense that the viewer is one of the few people brave enough to see it and admit it. Conventional debunking fails because it assumes people are in truth-seeking mode when they are really in identity-seeking mode.

Rule Two: The Best Debunk is the One That Happens Before the Lie

 Psychologists call it inoculation; the idea that teaching people to recognize a tactic before they encounter it makes it much harder for them to be manipulated when they are confronted by it. This is why prebunking or warning people about the methods of misinformation often outperforms efforts to debunk after the lie.

Prebunking teaches the tells, the phrases used to draw people in, the distortion tactics for presented evidence, and the appeal to emotion. The point is not to turn everyone into a digital forensics expert, but to create a reflex that causes people to pause when they see the tactics in use. Prebunks are easier to share than debunks, because there is no need to repeat hateful content to teach the pattern. The lie can be confronted without giving it free advertising and an unintended algorithmic boost.

 Rule Three: Never Give the Lie the Headline

Algorithms don’t read intentions, only keywords and engagement. Repeating a false claim verbatim, even to deny it, gives it wings. When a rumor is quote-tweeted, even with outrage, that rumor is being aided in its dissemination. When a fake screenshot is reposted alongside a rebuttal, a clean asset is provided for someone else to re-upload. So, the most effective debunkers follow a simple rule: don’t amplify the lie.

Instead, use a structure sometimes called a truth sandwich. First, lead with the truth, clearly and confidently. Second, briefly label the lie without repeating it in full. And finally, return to the truth and explain the manipulation tactic. So instead of a denial or contestation, simply communicate here is what happened, here is the original source, and here’s how the viral version was edited or manipulated. We are not debating, we are replacing.

Rule Four: Corrections Have to Be as Watchable as the Lie

A conspiracy video is engineered for retention. It uses fast cuts, dramatic music, ominous voiceovers, and the addictive invitation to connect the dots. If we show up to debunk a video with a graphic and a moral lecture we shouldn’t be surprised when the conspiracy wins. The truth has to travel through the same pipes as the lies, which means it must be packaged in ways that fit the platform.

High-retention debunk formats include a 20–30 second clip that covers what it is, what it isn’t, and how we know; split-screens that show the viral claim blurred or partial on one side and the original source with a timestamp on the other; a quick timeline that gives the date, location, earliest known upload, and independent confirmation; and a stitch or duet that calmly re-anchors context without moral panic. This is not dumbing down, it’s respecting the environment we’re in. We need to be precise and concise, and these often requires brevity online.

Rule Five: Give People an Off-Ramp That Lets Them Keep Their Dignity

One of the great drivers of conspiratorial belief is shame. If correcting someone makes them feel stupid, they will cling harder to the claim not because it’s true, but because their identity is now attached to not being fooled.

The smartest debunking doesn’t attack the person. It attacks the mechanism. It uses face-saving language that assures the other person we understand how convincing the lie looks, how its presentation was designed to fool people, that many others have also been tricked, and that this style of antisemitism tends to increase during a crisis. This shifts the emotional stakes. The viewer doesn’t have to admit they’re gullible, they just have to admit the world is manipulative. And that’s a far easier admission.

Rule Six: Debunk the Template, Not Just the Instance

Conspiracy culture is a factory. Once we debunk one claim, the same narrative returns in a slightly different costume. We want to focus on the reusable tricks like miscaptioned footage, cropped context, evidence dump collages with no provenance, synthetic audio and fake documents, guilt-by-association dot-connecting, and denial in the face of truth. When we expose the trick, we reduce susceptibility to the next version, and we do it without spreading the original.

This is especially important with antisemitic content, which is often coded and flexible. The same scapegoating template returns again and again. Debunking the template is like vaccinating against the whole family of viruses, not just one strain.

 Rule Seven: Don’t Fight Where the Algorithm Wants Us to Fight

Comment wars are a gift to the platform. They generate engagement, prolong watch time, and signal controversy, which is recommendation fuel. So, one of the most effective debunking tactics is also one of the least satisfying, refusing the fight. How do we resist? By turning off replies on high-risk posts when possible, moderating aggressively to remove bait, encouraging followers to share the correction (not debate the claim), and using quiet virality channels like broadcast lists, newsletters, and official community channels. Arguing boosts the lie. Sharing the correction boosts the correction.

 Rule Eight: Build Friction in Private Channels

Public platforms are only half the story. A huge amount of misinformation spreads on WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, and iMessage group chats. Private channels have the brutal advantage of material coming from known individuals that are seen as trusted sources.

The goal in private channels is not winning the argument but inserting norms. The simplest norm is the most powerful: No source, no forward. We need to train our community members to reduce social friction by asking for and checking sources, asking for date and location stamps, identifying recaptioned posts, and verifying everything before we share or comment. Verification needs to feel like care, not policing. We want to slow the first hour of panic because most damage happens early.

 Rule Nine: Create Truth Assets That are Easy to Reuse

The reason conspiracies win is because they are not only engaging but also portable. They arrive as a meme, a screenshot, a video clip, or a dramatic caption and can be forwarded without context.

We need to create corrections that are equally portable. We need to develop debunk kits on the community level so that the algorithm can react to our community-wide effort. Our materials need to include 20–30 second videos, screenshotable graphics, short paragraphs for group chats, longer thread or explainer content, and links to credible primary sources. These debunk kits will allow us to respond when a rumor hits, not through improvisation but deployment. The only way we can beat the speed of the digital world is through preparation. The only way we can counter the volume of posts is with our own mass distribution posts.

 Rule Ten: Make the Correction Findable Without Repeating the Lie

People will go looking for the rumor. The trick is to make sure that when they search, they land on our explanation, without our post accidentally helping the rumor spread by repeating its most searchable wording. What we’re doing here is SEO and algorithm hygiene, we want to signal verification and context to the platform and to the user, not echo the rumor’s catchphrase.

We can achieve this by using verification language keywords like deepfake, miscaptioned video, original source, and forensic verification, so our correction is discoverable to people looking for clarity, without repeating the rumor’s exact phrasing. If we do this through a durable set of posting identities our information can be linked again and again whenever a similar claim resurfaces, establishing both credibility and a destination site for people seeking a better understanding.

 We can’t debunk our way out of a radicalization system. The reason antisemitic and antizionist conspiracy content has an algorithmic advantage is that it reliably produces engagement, which is what the system is optimized to harvest. So, debunking that works has to disrupt the machinery that turns curiosity into belief.

We have to craft responses that reduce repetition of the lie, reduce identity-threat, reduce comment warfare, increase friction in forwarding, increase the speed and portability of corrections, and route people to trusted sources of truth. This what it means to reduce algorithmic advantage. We are not persuading people, we are changing the flow.

So, the next time (and there will be a next time) an antisemitic or antizionist false claim starts spreading we need to be able to activate a coordinated community response by reminding all our members of these ten rules and giving them the tools and resources to abide by them.

These steps are admittedly less dramatic and satisfying than a viral dunk. They are also far more effective. The truth doesn’t need to be louder than the lie. It needs to be better engineered for the world we’re in. And in today’s AI-generated social media environment, information integrity is not a posture, a virtue signal, or a clever thread, it’s infrastructure.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)