Two and a half months into the Gaza war, it's still not entirely clear whether Israel or Hamas is winning, but if you want to point to those who are really coming out ahead, it's TikTok and Telegram.
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Data released on Monday be Israeli cell carriers Pelephone and Partner shows how our smartphone has become the main form of communication and content consumption, far outpacing television.
While Israeli use of the Telegram app was relatively consistent throughout 2022, the Gaza war has seen it surge with 60% more new clients, and the rate of its daily usage has doubled. This, of course, constitutes a double-edged sword. While Telegram can be a legitimate avenue for circulating important information, it has also proven itself the conveyer of an alarming amount of unsubstantiated pieces of false narratives that are often accepted as fact.
While some channels do try to air reports that have been verified and can be counted on, reports by others lack the same journalistic integrity and are reported in a highly biased manner, cultivating a false or skewed perception of reality.
And while Telegram has indeed made significant strides, it's social media platform TikTok that has claimed the gold, with Israeli usage rising by 23%, more than all other social media platforms combined. Tiktok can be considered problematic since its algorithm isn't really bothered by truth at all. And it is specifically designed to retain the users it already has, often leading it to falsely define its users' areas of interest.
In the context of the Gaza war, it helps spread pro-Hamas propaganda at an alarming rate, most notably among young Gen Z users who are so heavily influenced by the content they consume, and they form morbidly skewed outlooks of the conflict. Nevertheless, that's the app everybody wants to be on. In stark contrast, Facebook has seen a 5% reduction in the number of users.
X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, has also experienced a boon of sorts, seeing a 50% surge in use since the war began, increasing the number of users by 20%. The rate of use of X is 31% higher than it was before the Gaza war, most likely due to the egregious division the network fosters, making it easy for both sides to vent people's frustrations on each other.
Another social network profiting from this geopolitical strife is Instagram, marking a 12% increase in volume of use since the beginning of the year.
That said, television isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Israelis have been glued to screens since October 7, mostly notably to live news programming. Waze, the world famous navigation app, however, has seen its use plummet by 44% in Israel, as rocket attacks and alert sirens have made the Israeli population reluctant to leave the safety of their homes.
On the romantic front, Tinder has seen a 13% drop in number of users; E-commerce outlets have dropped by a fifth in the number of users; and music streaming giant Spotify saw its use drop by a third in the war's early days.