Al Jazeera investigation reveals false audience figures for Israeli counter-film | Cybercrime news

An Al Jazeera investigation has exposed flaws in claims that an Israeli counter-film to the acclaimed documentary NAZA was viewed more than 44 million times. By examining domain registries, web archives, source code and three independent traffic tools, the investigation revealed the fabricated figures adopted by official Israeli entities to promote the film.

The award-winning original film, NAZA, draws on the testimony of 24 anonymous Israeli military whistleblowers, accusing the army of using artificial intelligence-based targeting systems to kill scores of civilians in Gaza. The documentary takes its name from the Israeli military term for expected civilian casualties during airstrikes. After winning the Special Jury Prize at the Venice International Film Festival and receiving a historic 25-minute ovation, the film was scheduled to be shown in 56 countries.

Official backlash

The success of the original documentary sparked a political storm in Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded that the chief of staff, the head of the Shin Bet and the attorney general launch a thorough investigation into the participants and prosecute them for information security violations.

The film’s directors, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, were accused of treason, and Netanyahu and Culture Minister Miki Zohar threatened to revoke their Israeli citizenship.

Domain network

To counter the film’s global resonance, opponents created a counter-film. On September 16, just days after NAZA’s premiere, the domain nazadocumentary.com was registered via Cloudflare, with the owner’s details hidden.

Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine revealed that the site initially disguised itself as the official NAZA site, listing directors’ names and screening and press information. However, he described the film as revealing the systems behind the calculated massacres of terrorists in Gaza. By September 30, this misleading page was gone, replaced by a new title, “NAZA: The Real Story.”

The people behind the 49-minute counter-film are Ariel Averbuch, Roy Danino and Hagai Gutman, who claimed the work was self-funded. Later, two more domains, whatisnaza.com and watchnaza.com, were registered to redirect users to the counter-film.

The fake counter

As of the morning of October 14, the counter on the site nazadocumentary.com showed 43,758,421 views, without revealing the source of this figure or how it was calculated.

Public platforms tell a radically different story. The full 49-minute version of the film on its official YouTube channel had not exceeded 130,000 views as of the same date. This means that the website’s counter showed approximately 336 times the actual audience. The YouTube channel had fewer than 2,000 subscribers and the film’s account on X had only 170 subscribers.

Independent traffic analysis platforms have confirmed the discrepancy. The American platform Semrush estimated the total number of visits to the site as of October 8 at around half a million. Similarweb, founded in Israel, estimated only 326 visits for the month of September. Additionally, the film’s domains were missing from Tranco’s list of the world’s 1 million most visited domains.

Deviations and code

A review of the page’s source code revealed that the element displaying the large number was internally labeled as “visitors” but displayed to users as “views.” The number is delivered directly from the site’s server, making its calculation method invisible from the outside. When opening the page, the counter starts at 97% of its value and counts for three seconds, creating the illusion of a live counter.

Additionally, the site collects actual viewing data without publishing it, sending a “watch-tracker” file after approximately 25 seconds of video playback to identify the viewing session and parts watched, without knowing whether the counter is based on that data.

Despite these apparently fabricated figures, official Israeli accounts have spearheaded the promotion of the counter-film. The Israeli Embassy in Washington promoted it on October 3 on social networks.

Tzipi Hotovely, head of Israel’s National Directorate of Public Diplomacy, awarded the three creators certificates of recognition for countering the original film. Hotovely said the film garnered tens of millions of views, turning a fabricated and unsubstantiated number into an official talking point.

This elaborate digital campaign takes place against the backdrop of Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza, which began in October 2023. Since the start of the conflict, Israel has killed at least 74,000 Palestinians, including at least 21,000 children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.