About this database
The Propaganda Technique Database is a living reference of the named techniques that shape how violence, responsibility and evidence are presented in coverage of Gaza and Palestine. Each entry explains a technique in plain language, credits the researcher who documented it, cites the study behind it, and then shows it at work in real headlines, wire copy, interviews and official statements, with the exact words quoted and a link to the original. Tap a technique to open it.
It is a database, not an article. Techniques enter it from two places: the numbered cases we analyse one at a time, and the techniques already named in our other articles on this site, which are collected here with their research and linked back to the full analysis. It is updated whenever a new case or article adds a technique or a new real-life example; the counts below and the update log at the bottom always show the current state. Our method for tiering sources is explained on the methodology page.
The numbered cases are also produced as videos by The Propaganda Tracker, a YouTube channel that is a side project of It Didn’t Start on October 7. Every case below links to its video.
The Propaganda Tracker: the video behind each case
The Propaganda Tracker is a side project of It Didn’t Start on October 7, published as a YouTube channel. Each video analyses one piece of real news coverage; this database holds the research, the exact quotes and the sources behind it. Pick a case to watch the video, or follow the techniques it uses.
- Case 001
- Case 002
- Case 003
- Case 004
- Case 005
- Case 006
- Case 007
- Case 010
The techniques
Agentless construction
Describing violence as something that happened rather than something someone did, so the actor disappears from the sentence.Tony Trew 19794 examplesIn our articles
Trew compared how two British papers reported the same 1975 police shooting in Rhodesia. The Guardian wrote “Police shoot 11 dead in Salisbury riot”; The Times wrote “Rioting blacks shot dead by police,” pushing the police to the edge of the sentence and recasting the story around the “rioting.” When the actor leaves the sentence, responsibility leaves with it.
“Families in Gaza lived in a damaged building. It collapsed, killing 21.”
What it shows. The building is the grammatical subject: it collapsed, it killed. The Israeli airstrike that damaged it appears only in the subheadline.
“We condemn criminal violence by any party in the West Bank.”
What it shows. Issued after 100+ settlers attacked Jalud and burned the Tubasi family's homes. The same “any party” formula followed attacks on July 25 and Sept 3, never naming settlers.
“Hind Rajab, 6, found dead in Gaza”
What it shows. A headline written when the body of a six-year-old was found, after her car was fired on and a rescue ambulance was struck. It names no act and no actor. Washington Post and Forensic Architecture investigations established that an Israeli tank fired 335 rounds from 13 to 23 metres.
“In western outlets, we have repeatedly seen Palestinians described in the passive voice, dehumanising victims by taking away their autonomy.”
What it shows. A linguist’s description of the same pattern across Western coverage of Gaza. Our article contrasts “a baby was killed” with the active verbs used for Palestinian violence against Israelis.
Episodic framing
Presenting an event as an isolated incident instead of part of a documented, ongoing pattern.Shanto Iyengar 19913 examplesIn our articles
In experiments with TV news, Iyengar found that stories framed as isolated episodes led viewers to hold individuals responsible, while thematic stories that showed the wider pattern led them to hold governments and policies responsible.
“Families in Gaza lived in a damaged building. It collapsed, killing 21.”
What it shows. Reported as a single collapse, while UNDP says around 400 more damaged buildings are at risk and Israel has said it won't allow major rebuilding until Hamas disarms.
What it shows. The shooting of a seven-month-old in Hebron was reported as a single incident. A near-identical killing ten weeks earlier (the Bani Odeh family, Tammun) got one sentence at the bottom of the CBS report, and the pattern of soldiers being indicted in fewer than 1% of 2,427 complaints (Yesh Din, 2016 to 2024) was not mentioned.
What it shows. Reporting the “forty beheaded babies” claim in isolation hid that it was at least the second time in 33 years that an uncorroborated atrocity story about children, from a single interested party, helped build support for a war (the “Nayirah” testimony of 1990).
Epistemic asymmetry
Hedging one side's accounts (“officials say”) while reporting the other side's as plain fact.Edward S. Herman & Noam Chomsky 19885 examplesIn our articles
They found the New York Times gave one murdered Polish priest more coverage than 100 religious figures murdered in Latin America combined. Some victims are presented as certain and worthy of attention; others as claims to be doubted.
NoteOur articles also use the labels “one-sided doubt-casting” and “casualty-number delegitimization” for the same pattern.
“Palestinian authorities say more than 73,000 people have been killed … after Hamas-led fighters killed about 1,200 people.”
What it shows. Same sentence, two death tolls: one is something officials “say,” the other is stated as fact. A peer-reviewed Lancet study found Gaza's official toll was likely an undercount.
“IDF documents terror affiliations of 170 Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza war”
What it shows. The headline turns an army claim into a verb of fact: “documents,” not “says.” The evidence is “verified” only in the army’s own words, and the article names no outside check. The same day, The Jerusalem Post’s subheadline said the affiliations “were verified,” with no attribution, while Haaretz wrote “allegedly.”
What it shows. The BBC attached hedging language such as “cannot be independently verified” to casualty figures 951 times, and 98% of those instances targeted Palestinian-sourced numbers. CNN (176) and NYT (166) showed a similar, smaller pattern; their per-target split was not captured.
“Israeli forces kill a Palestinian baby after firing at car in the West Bank, health ministry says”
What it shows. “Health ministry says” is attached to the confirmed death of a named baby, while the IDF’s claim about what a soldier “perceived” is reported in the body without an equivalent hedge.
“nearly half of them members of armed militant groups”
What it shows. Appended to Palestinian casualty statistics in a report on a 2-year-old Palestinian shot in the head by Israeli forces, diluting the weight of the death by placing it inside a population described as half-militant.
False equivalence
Presenting a deeply unequal situation as balanced between two sides.Maxwell T. Boykoff & Jules M. Boykoff 20042 examplesIn our articles
Of 636 climate articles in four major US papers (1988–2002), 52.65% gave climate doubters roughly equal weight with the scientific consensus. Formal balance made a lopsided reality look like an even debate.
“At least 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed … while the Israeli military says four Israeli soldiers have been killed. Israel and Hamas trade blame …”
What it shows. A roughly 350-to-1 death ratio, framed as two sides trading blame.
What it shows. Across the three outlets combined, the ratio of stories devoted to each side sat close to 1:1, while the death ratio the coverage was reporting on was close to 20:1. Both figures are the study’s own hedged “close to” values. The preprint had not been confirmed as peer-reviewed when we wrote the piece.
Single-source cascade
One unverified claim from a single source is repeated by many outlets without independent verification, creating an illusion of confirmation.Lynn Hasher, David Goldstein & Thomas Toppino 19773 examplesIn our articles
People rated repeated statements as more likely true than new ones, whether or not they were true. Each repetition across outlets adds a feeling of truth without adding evidence. Now known as the illusory truth effect.
NoteOur analysis of the 2023 “forty beheaded babies” claim names this technique and ties it to the illusory truth effect: a 2024 review in Current Opinion in Psychology found it holds for fabricated headlines and conspiracy-style claims.
“Footage shows a terrorist using a child to transfer weapons into a civilian home in central Gaza”
What it shows. The army's wording reappeared almost word for word in The Jerusalem Post, then as “caught on camera” in Israel Hayom. One source, several headlines, no verification. Precedent: the “40 beheaded babies” claim of Oct 2023, never confirmed.
“their heads cut off, they said”
What it shows. The origin: one correspondent relaying an unverified, secondhand soldier account. FactCheck.org found she never claimed to have verified it. Every later outlet cited the previous one, not new evidence.
“confirmed pictures of terrorists beheading children”
What it shows. A head of state repeated the claim as something he had seen confirmed. That evening an administration official told NBC that neither he nor the administration had seen such pictures or independently confirmed the reports.
The “human shields” displacement
Attributing civilian deaths to the other side's alleged use of civilians, transferring responsibility away from whoever fired.Neve Gordon & Nicola Perugini 20203 examplesIn our articles
They show how militaries widen who counts as a “human shield” to lower the legal value of civilians who are killed: the more civilians are called shields, the less their deaths count, and blame moves from whoever fired to whoever is accused of shielding.
“Terrorist used child to transfer weapons into civilian home in Gaza, IDF footage reveals”
What it shows. An unverified army clip, with no location beyond “central Gaza,” no date filmed, and no name, age or fate for the child, became a headline stated as fact.
“The Palestinians make cynical use of children's lives by sending them to throw stones under cover of Palestinian fire.”
What it shows. After Muhammad al-Durrah, 12, was killed on camera at Netzarim junction, the army expressed “sorrow” in the same statement that blamed Palestinians for the child's death. Israel's head of military operations added that the boy had “participated in stone throwing in the past.”
“Hamas uses civilians and children as human shields — therefore civilian deaths are Hamas’s responsibility, not Israel’s.”
What it shows. Our myth article tests this claim against international humanitarian law: the attacking party must still pass the proportionality test, and the claim cannot explain killings in places with no military activity.
Rhetorical deflection
Answering a question about a specific event with a statement about something similar but different, so the question is never actually answered.Todd Rogers & Michael I. Norton 20111 example
When speakers answered a similar question instead of the real one, listeners often failed to notice: in their first study only 45% recalled the real question, against 85% when it was answered, and they rated the dodger just as highly. Keeping the original question visible restored detection.
“We are aware of these reports and are in regular dialogue with partners about improving stability and security in the West Bank.”
What it shows. The response to a settler attack that burned a family's homes is about “stability,” and the same wording was used in July and September.
DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender)
Denying wrongdoing, attacking whoever raises it, and recasting the accused as the real victim and the accuser or victim as the offender.Jennifer J. Freyd 19971 example
Freyd described how perpetrators confronted with wrongdoing deny it, attack the credibility of the person confronting them, and reverse the roles of victim and offender, creating the impression that the accused is the one who was wronged.
“a manifestation of the ongoing, mendacious campaign to delegitimize Israel”
What it shows. Deny: a government committee said the boy “is seen to be alive.” Attack: the cameraman was accused of staging. Reverse: a minister called the affair “a modern-day blood libel against the State of Israel.” The committee never interviewed the cameraman, the reporter or the father.
Escalating denial
Acknowledging an event, then reinterpreting it, then denying it happened at all, each version replacing the last as the story ages.Stanley Cohen 20011 example
Cohen identified three forms of denial: literal (“it didn't happen”), interpretive (“it happened, but it's something else”) and implicatory (“it happened, but it doesn't mean what you say”). Moving between them lets an official story survive each piece of evidence: when one version fails, the next takes its place.
“The shots were apparently fired by Israeli soldiers from the outpost at Netzarim.”
What it shows. On the killing of Muhammad al-Durrah, Israel's account moved from “Palestinian fire” to this admission by the IDF chief of staff (3 Oct 2000), then to “quite a possibility… Palestinian bullets” (Oct 2000), “staged by the network's cameraman” (2007), and “the boy is seen to be alive” (2013).
Manufactured doubt
Casting enough doubt on evidence that the public stops trusting it, without having to disprove it.Naomi Oreskes & Erik M. Conway 20101 example
They traced how the tobacco industry, and later others, fought evidence not by refuting it but by keeping the question open. A 1969 tobacco-industry memo put it plainly: “Doubt is our product.” Doubt is cheaper than proof and works almost as well.
“The events of that day were in fact staged by the network's cameraman in Gaza.”
What it shows. Within ten days of Muhammad al-Durrah's killing, the IDF demolished the buildings where he and his father sheltered, and Amnesty said “the forensic evidence was lost.” A re-enactment followed that Haaretz mocked for its “stupidity.” The case later gave rise to the label “Pallywood” (2005), still used against footage from Gaza.
Delegitimization
Placing a group in an extremely negative category, outside the bounds of what is acceptable, so that its members, and what they report, can be dismissed or harmed without explanation.Daniel Bar-Tal 19901 example
Bar-Tal, an Israeli social psychologist, described delegitimization as categorizing a group into extremely negative social categories that exclude it from acceptability, and showed how it is used to justify harming the group. Applied to journalists, the label can make their work look worthless before anyone examines it. Reporters Without Borders calls the pattern “double punishment”: journalists are targeted, then discredited.
“Individuals presented as innocent journalists were, in fact, militants in the military wings of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and other terrorist organizations.”
What it shows. The army named 170 Palestinians killed in Gaza and reported as journalists, and called the list “conclusive evidence” that it does not “deliberately and systematically” target journalists. The list includes Anas al-Sharif, Ismail al-Ghoul, Hamza al-Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuraya, whose cases had already been challenged by the UN, Reporters Without Borders, CPJ and The Washington Post. Some names may be accurate: CPJ itself removed 19 names over armed-group ties.
Sympathetic framing asymmetry
Naming, quoting and telling the personal story of casualties from one side, while the other side’s casualties appear mainly as running totals: a number in a ticker rather than a person with a name.Edward S. Herman & Noam Chomsky 19882 examplesIn our articles
Paul Slovic’s work on “psychic numbing” found that people respond more strongly to a single named, vivid victim than to a large statistical toll, and that concern can flatten or even fall as the number grows. Herman and Chomsky predicted the coverage pattern: victims whose deaths suit an outlet’s institutional and state interests get individualised treatment; victims whose deaths implicate an ally are aggregated into statistics.
NoteSourcing note from our article: the Herman and Chomsky coverage figures are corroborated across secondary sources but were not checked page by page against the book.
What it shows. The study’s individualization ratio (named, quoted or biographical mentions as a share of casualty references) was 0.20 for Israeli victims against 0.12 for Palestinian victims at the BBC, 0.16 against 0.08 at the NYT, and 0.13 against 0.09 at CNN. Al Jazeera English reversed it: 0.07 against 0.09.
What it shows. A full first-person narrative arc built around one spokesperson across 46 seconds, with no narrative capacity given to any other amputee.
Victim substitution
Using a member of the party responsible for a mass-casualty pattern as the sole human face of a “universal” cause tied to that pattern, while the far larger group of victims that party created goes unnamed and unrepresented.Jasbir K. Puar 20171 exampleIn our articles
As our article notes, each statement in the ad is true as far as it goes; the mechanism is substitution. Puar theorises how a state can pair a “right to kill” with a “right to maim”, using liberal disability-rights frameworks to obscure mass debilitation. The parallel with “pinkwashing” (term credited to Ali Abunimah, 2010; analysed by Sarah Schulman, 2012) has been named “disability-washing” or “access-washing” by scholars including Bassily (2021) and Issa (2025). Our article distinguishes it from pattern omission and institutional silence: it is about who gets to represent the harm.
“Oh, and for all amputees, the excuses have run out.”
What it shows. Our translation of the Hebrew closing line, spoken by an Israeli military veteran. The campaign never names Gaza or the war, while WHO reports more than 5,000 traumatic limb amputations in Gaza since October 2023 and Gaza has only 8 prosthetists.
Decontextualization
Presenting an event or response as an answer to a generic problem while leaving out its specific origin and the larger, related harm.Robert M. Entman 19932 examplesIn our articles
Entman defined framing as selecting some aspects of a perceived reality and making them more salient, so the facts left out stop shaping the audience’s conclusions. A response framed as meeting a general need never has to answer for the specific, larger harm next to it.
“Adidas decided to rise to the challenge”
What it shows. Presented as a response to a generic accessibility gap, with no acknowledgment that the spokesperson’s injury and Gaza’s amputee crisis share an origin. OHCHR reports 15.8% of Gaza’s children live with a disability.
“She amplified an image as ‘evidence’ of starvation in Gaza but did not mention that the child in the picture suffered from a serious congenital medical condition.”
What it shows. The diagnosis is presented without the famine. The child’s doctor told NPR “He was suffering severe malnutrition,” and on 22 August 2025 the UN-backed famine monitor confirmed famine in Gaza Governorate. A congenital condition and starvation are not alternatives.
Institutional silence
Declining to cover an event at all, or, in the corporate variant, producing content that never mentions the harm it is related to.Robert M. Entman 19932 examplesIn our articles
Audiences can only think about stories they encounter. Our article argues that silence is a framing decision rather than neutrality, and the absence is itself the evidence.
What it shows. Fox’s own sitemap for the day a seven-month-old Palestinian baby was shot in Hebron lists no article about it, while four days earlier it ran a full article on the killing of a Hamas military chief.
What it shows. Zero references to Gaza, the war or Palestinian amputees anywhere in the campaign’s text or visuals.
Quiet downgrade
After amplifying an unverified claim to a global audience, an outlet or institution simply stops repeating it once evidence fails to appear, without a retraction or correction proportional to the original amplification.Our analysis1 exampleIn our articles
The claim is neither confirmed nor withdrawn: it fades while staying uncorrected in public memory and in every article that already cited it. Research in Cognition found that labelling a claim “disputed by fact-checkers” does not meaningfully reduce the illusory truth effect once repetition has done its work.
“That specific report and that number I can’t confirm.”
What it shows. Within days, outlets that had carried the “forty beheaded babies” claim said they could not confirm it, but no outlet followed with an equally prominent correction. The claim faded rather than being withdrawn.
Source hierarchy
Treating one side’s institutional statements as the primary account and the other side’s testimony as secondary, so the first account frames the story before the second is heard.Mohamad Elmasry 20251 exampleIn our articles
Elmasry found that BBC News, CNN, Fox News, Sky News and MSNBC “consistently favored Israeli sources over Palestinian sources.” Our soldier article adds the reading effect: with the military’s explanation first and the family’s second, most readers who stop after a few paragraphs leave with the military’s frame intact.
“The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that soldiers “perceived” a vehicle accelerating toward them.”
What it shows. The scare quotes mark distance, but the IDF explanation still comes before the father’s account, the grandmother’s account and the AP’s physical evidence from the scene.
Loyalty test
Demanding a ritual performance of allegiance before a guest is allowed to speak. The question seeks no information; refusing it disqualifies whatever the guest says next.Aleksandra Zoric 20251 exampleIn our articles
Zoric calls the question “a sophisticated linguistic tool” that works as a performative speech act: language whose job is to perform a social act rather than describe reality. The condemnation establishes the guest’s credentials; refusal destroys them, whatever the evidence says.
NoteOur article presents the application of this scholarship to the question as the site’s own editorial interpretation.
“When someone refuses to condemn Hamas after October 7, then I don't take anything else they say seriously.”
What it shows. The interviewer states the function in his own words: a pre-qualification test that decides in advance whether any later argument will be heard.
Frame-setting
Opening with a question or statement that fixes the tone and moral position of everything that follows, so each later answer is judged inside the interviewer’s frame.Mohamad Elmasry 20231 exampleIn our articles
Elmasry describes it as what media scholars call frame setting: it establishes the tone of content based on the journalist’s own position. Our article connects this to experiments showing that identical information gets different responses depending on framing (Kahneman & Tversky, 1981) and that question wording changes what people perceive and remember (Loftus & Palmer, 1974).
“You're refusing to answer either of them. That is very telling. And you wonder why people believe you had a problem with Jewish people.”
What it shows. The guest’s refusal to give a binary yes or no is turned into evidence of antisemitism within one sentence: the technique escalates from loyalty test to character attack.
Narrative anchor
Fixing the starting point of a story at one date, so that everything before it is treated as inadmissible context.Robert M. Entman 19931 exampleIn our articles
Entman’s account of framing is selection and salience, and where a story begins is one of the most powerful selections. Our reframing article gives it as a detection question: what is the implied starting point? Frames that begin on October 7 omit decades of occupation.
“start the narrative on October 7, omitting the events of preceding years”
What it shows. How activists described the condemnation question to The Forward: a tactic that starts the story at October 7 and, in their words, is meant to shut down discussion.
Double bind
A trap in which every available response confirms the questioner’s premise: accept the frame, be demonised for refusing it, or be accused of deflection for adding context.Gregory Bateson1 exampleIn our articles
Our article walks through five possible responses to the condemnation question and shows that four of them concede the frame. The only partial escape is to make the frame visible to the audience, which Zoric, drawing on Wittgenstein, describes as refusing to play by the rules of the language game.
“If you want to only hear your opinion, I can just condemn Hamas and go home.”
What it shows. The guest names the trap aloud before it closes. Our article calls it the only documented instance in which the technique was broken in real time on a major platform.
Equivalence framing
Describing logically identical information in different formats, such as lives saved versus lives lost, so that people decide differently without the facts having changed.Amos Tversky & Daniel Kahneman 1981Research entryIn our articles
In the Asian Disease Problem, 72% chose the certain option when programmes were described as lives saved; when the same programmes were described as lives lost, a majority switched to the risky option. Decision-makers are typically unaware that the frame is doing the work.
Emphasis framing
Emphasising one dimension of an issue over others so that a different moral value becomes the standard people apply, without any change in the facts they hold.Thomas E. Nelson, Rosalee A. Clawson & Zoe M. Oxley 1997Research entryIn our articles
Viewers of an identical news story about a Ku Klux Klan rally were more tolerant of the rally when it was framed as free speech than when it was framed as public order. Druckman and Nelson (2003) found the effect is strongest when only one frame is present, so a missing counter-frame matters as much as the frame itself.
Strategic reframing
Institutional elites deliberately displacing an existing public frame and replacing it with one that defines the problem, its cause, the moral verdict and the remedy on their own terms.Robert M. Entman 19932 examplesIn our articles
Entman: “To frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation.” Elites with credible channels can set the default vocabulary of public discourse without announcing it, and Druckman (2001) found framing effects grow when the source is seen as credible.
NoteOur article draws its examples from a leaked 2009 language strategy document and from patterns in Western media coverage, and says its application to specific outlets is the site’s analysis.
What it shows. Our article reports that the document flags describing the situation as an “occupation” as harmful to Israel’s public image and recommends language stressing “peace” and “shared future”, turning a legal condition (occupation) into a symmetrical “conflict”.
“Isolating Iran-backed Hamas as an Obstacle to Peace”
What it shows. The title of one chapter. Our article reads it as instructing spokespeople to link Hamas to Iran and to avoid language acknowledging its origins under occupation, which removes the occupation from the causal picture.
Selective citation
Quoting only the half of a document that supports one reading, and omitting or demoting the half that conditions or qualifies it.Our analysis2 examplesIn our articles
The Balfour Declaration is one sentence in two parts. Our article shows that the first part (a “national home for the Jewish people”) is routinely cited, while the second (the condition that nothing prejudice the rights of existing non-Jewish communities) is omitted or placed several paragraphs later. Omitting it turns a conditional promise into an unconditional one.
NoteNo external scholarly study of this specific pattern is cited in the source article; the evidence is four documented examples (UK Parliament briefing, BBC, Churchill White Paper, Britannica).
“It stated that the British government supported 'the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people'… This suggested Britain would back their struggle for independence in most of the lands of the Ottoman Empire.”
What it shows. The centenary analysis leads with only the first clause; the second appears several paragraphs later, presented as a qualification rather than an equal condition.
“It stated that the British government supported 'the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.'”
What it shows. The briefing introduces the declaration with its first clause only; the conditions appear later as qualifying context.
Strategic ambiguity
Wording a commitment vaguely enough that each audience can read it as the promise it wanted, so one message serves several, even contradictory, purposes.Harold D. Lasswell 19271 exampleIn our articles
Lasswell’s definition: “Propaganda is the management of collective attitudes by the manipulation of significant symbols.” Our article argues that the vagueness itself is the mechanism: Zionists could read the declaration as promising statehood, Arab allies could read its second clause as protection, and British imperial planners could read it as securing Palestine.
“a national home for the Jewish people”
What it shows. Our article cites British government confirmation that the term had no precedent in international law and was intentionally vague about whether a Jewish state was contemplated. It was issued while Britain had also made two other, mutually incompatible, promises about the same territory.
Atrocity-claim template
A single emotionally devastating claim from a source with an undisclosed interest, adopted without independent verification by media and political leaders, used to build support for war, and never meaningfully corrected once its credibility collapses.Our analysis1 exampleIn our articles
Shaheen’s catalogue of more than 1,000 Hollywood films found Arabs and Muslims depicted overwhelmingly as violent and threatening, which our article argues makes atrocity claims against Arab, Palestinian and Muslim actors more readily believed, more quickly repeated and less rigorously checked.
What it shows. A 15-year-old identified only by a first name testified to incubator killings in a Kuwaiti hospital. She was later revealed to be the Kuwaiti ambassador’s daughter, her testimony coached as part of a PR campaign funded by the Kuwaiti royal family, and the claim could not be substantiated at the scale described. Our article sets it beside the 2023 claim, 33 years to the day later.
Paltering
Stating true facts, selected and truncated, so that the audience reaches a false conclusion the speaker never has to state.Todd Rogers 20172 examplesIn our articles
The authors named paltering as a third form of deception, alongside lying by commission and lying by omission: “actively making truthful statements to create a mistaken impression” (Rogers, via the American Psychological Association). Each sentence survives a true-or-false check, which is why it needs a different question: what happened next, and what was left out? Once people discover it, they judge it about as harshly as intentional lying.
NoteOne co-author, Francesca Gino, was later found responsible for data misconduct in other research; our article cites the definition and finding as summarized by the APA, and the definition is not in dispute.
“She collaborated online with Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza, who had praised Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader and architect of the October 7 massacre.”
What it shows. The collaboration happened. Left out: Ms Rachel deleted it and said “I condemn Hamas, I condemn October 7,” both facts reported by British Jewish outlets critical of the collaboration.
“She amplified an image as ‘evidence’ of starvation in Gaza but did not mention that the child in the picture suffered from a serious congenital medical condition.”
What it shows. The condition is real, and the post uses it to cancel the hunger. Left out: the child’s doctor said he was suffering severe malnutrition, in a confirmed famine. A child with a muscle-wasting disease in a famine is more at risk, not less.
Name-calling
Giving an idea a bad label, and so rejecting and condemning it without examining the evidence.Institute for Propaganda Analysis 19391 exampleIn our articles
It is the first of the Institute’s seven devices. The label replaces the argument: a finding can be disputed, but that takes evidence, and the label supplies none.
“For example, Ms Rachel has made posts spreading the big ‘genocide’ lie about Israel.”
What it shows. In September 2025 the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. Israel rejects the finding. The post offers no argument against it, only the label “lie.”
Transfer
Carrying the feeling attached to one symbol over to something else, whether approval or disapproval.Institute for Propaganda Analysis 19391 exampleIn our articles
The Institute listed transfer among its seven devices. The picture can imply what the text would have to defend: no claim needs to be made, so none can be tested.
What it shows. The caption never says Ms Rachel teaches children hate. The image does: a child’s hand builds H-A-T-E beside her logo and her smiling face, under “Children deserve better.”
Poisoning the well
Discrediting a source before the audience hears its argument, so that nothing it says will be believed.John Henry Newman 18641 exampleIn our articles
Newman named the move in 1864. It works by attacking the messenger rather than the message: a post that cannot refute a children’s educator’s appeals for Gaza’s children asks a platform to review her instead.
NoteOur article also cites an April 2025 call by the StopAntisemitism account for the US attorney general to investigate Ms Rachel, reported by Middle East Eye, as a pattern.
“We’re also asking Meta to review Ms Rachel’s content, enforce its policies consistently, and take appropriate action if violations are found.”
What it shows. The post closes by asking the platform to act against the messenger rather than answering the message.
Where these techniques are analysed in full
Each article below goes deeper than a database entry can: the full case, the evidence and the limits of the analysis. The techniques it covers link back to their entries above.
Update log
How to read an entry
The research describes the technique in general; the example shows the same pattern in a specific text. Matching the two is our analysis of the wording and structure of that text. It is not a finding about anyone’s intent, and one example does not establish that an outlet or speaker uses the technique habitually.
Entries that come from our own articles carry the research that article cited. Where the article named a technique but cited no scholar for it, the entry says so rather than inventing one. Quotes are reproduced exactly as published. Spot an error or a missing technique? Use the contact and disputes page; corrections are recorded in the corrections log.