On Minecraft and Roblox, the information war between Israel and Hamas becomes pixelated

Since the outbreak of conflict between Israel and Hamas on October 7, the virtual war of narratives has taken on an unprecedented dimension. If false images, sometimes taken from video games, appeared from the first days of the conflict, the latter now extends to the confines of pixelated worlds, in two of the most popular video games in the world, Roblox and Minecraft. This holds the record for the best-selling game in history since it crossed the threshold of 300,000 million copies sold on October 16.

Launched in 2009 by Markus Persson, co-founder of Mojang Studios, before being bought by Microsoft in 2014, Minecraft is a game where worlds can be built and explored by its users. In “creation” mode, players have unlimited access to resources to freely build (or “craft”), in an infinite kingdom. Almost anything can be designed from the game's characteristic little blocks, a kind of malleable “virtual legos” that attract both children and “hackers”. Same principle for Roblox, created in 2006, whose graphics resemble those of Minecraft, but which is played in a more interactive way and whose number of players per day amounts to more than 66 million.

“Minecraft was used by Wagner supporters to create replicas of images broadcast by Hamas,” explains Mustafa Ayad, head of the Middle East office of the Institute for Strategic Dialog, who adds that this practice had been noted for the first time in 2016, in connection with the rise of Daesh. More recently, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the New York Times noted the appearance of pro-Russian propaganda on the game, such as the virtual reenactment of the Battle of Soledar, or the use of letter “Z”.

“But the phenomenon has increased over the last month around the conflict between Israel and Hamas,” continues Moustafa Ayad. “We had already noted on social networks the appearance of images from the game Arma 3, a hyper-realistic war simulator,” he recalls. “But on Minecraft, it’s not the same thing: it’s more about addressing an audience, spreading a story,” continues the researcher.

Because the popularity of Minecraft and Roblox extends well beyond games. The number of videos around Minecraft is breaking all records on YouTube, exceeding a trillion views in 2021. To celebrate this world attendance record, the platform has even created a timeline tracing the evolution of the game's popularity on YouTube since debuted in 2010, noting that “if each of these views were a Minecraft block, we could build a stack going from Earth to the sun and back again.”

However, among these videos taken from the game, some stand out. “To give you an example, one of the game's users, who runs what could be considered a 'Minecraft Wagner group,' produces content to share widely across platforms. One of his videos reached 500,000 views, for content which is only a Minecraft version of a video of Hamas members attacking an Israeli tank,” notes Mustafa Ayad. Its goal ? “Information warfare, he says it himself in his bio,” continues the researcher.

Another phenomenon which is less about information warfare than an extension of reactions to the conflict on virtual worlds: the organization of pro-Israel, or pro-Palestine, demonstrations on games. Two videos of pro-Palestinian rallies on Roblox, broadcast on Tik Tok, have been viewed more than four million times. Another video from the game posted on the platform on November 21, bearing the Hamas logo, shows a player “fighting the Israeli Defense Forces,” according to the video's description. “The battle will not stop until Palestine is liberated,” the description continues, before specifying, in parentheses, “this is all false, these are role-playing games in Roblox.”

“Minecraft and Roblox are too pixelated to be considered real content,” comments Mustafa Ayad, who has tracked this type of content online. “But their user base is young, so they play a key role in shaping young people’s preferences and promoting certain narratives that are part of the overall misinformation landscape.”

In a report on their statistics for the year 2021, Roblox indicated that more than half of its users were aged 13 or younger. Also popular with young people, Minecraft, like its competitor, develops educational activities. Building on this demographic base, the two games also want to establish themselves as teaching platforms.

Yet, designed to allow the greatest freedom to their players, are these games devoid of rules? Asked by Le Figaro, a Roblox manager clarified: “our community standards contain specific policies that prohibit certain images, certain content and certain user communications related to real-world events.”

In short, if support for Israel or Palestine is tolerated by the platform, more explicit content approving violence or inciting hatred is removed, thanks to the work of thousands of moderators and detection tools. Above all, for the platform, it is about “protecting the security and civility of our community”, further specifies the company manager. However, neither Roblox nor Minecraft can control what appears on social networks, the latter being responsible for their own moderation, and experiencing an unprecedented increase in war-related content since October 7.