The United States Central Command (CENTCOM) announced on Sunday that a U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet, operating from the Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75), was shot down in a “friendly fire” incident.
As Sara Dorn reported for Forbes, “Two Navy pilots safely ejected from their F/A-18 into the Red Sea, with one sustaining minor injuries.”
However, the Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen quickly claimed it had “foiled a US-UK attack on Yemen,” which it alleged resulted “in the downing of an F-18 fighter jet.”
The Official Report From CENTCOM
CENTCOM acknowledged that the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Gettysburg (CG-64), one of the warships that is part of the Carrier Strike Group (CSG) was responsible for inadvertently downing the fighter.
CG-64 along with CVN-75 had only arrived in the CENTCOM area of responsibility last week.
Houthi Disinformation Underway
Misinformation and disinformation quickly spread across social media in the hours after the incident—yet, this isn’t the first time the rebel group has claimed victory over the United States. In June, the Houthis announced it had successfully carried out a missile and drone strike that seriously damaged another U.S. Navy carrier, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) in the Red Sea.
Last month, the group also declared victory after the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) departed the region and returned to the United States. That carrier had originally been deployed in the Indo-Pacific but Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin ordered the warship to the Middle East in August to bolster the U.S. presence and to deter Iran and its regional proxies including the Houthis.
The arrival of CVN-75 would seem to counter last month’s victory declaration, which may be why it was quick to announce it had downed the F/A-18 Super Hornet.
“The latest example of Houthi claiming a false victory over the friendly fire incident which downed a U.S. jet plane follows closely the self-aggrandizing model of Houthi propaganda, mainly but not exclusively aimed at their own base and other Middle Eastern actors, which has in previous incidents likewise took credit for unsubstantiated claims of attacks or damage to U.S. ships in the vicinity,” explained geopolitical analyst Irina Tsukerman, president of Scarab Uprising.
“The Houthis have consistently pursued the goal of showcasing their own strength and influence at the expense of the other side, in a basic display of crude information warfare with the aim of raising morale among supporters, and confusing adversarial forces and allies,” added Tsukerman.
Winning The War Of The Words
Even as the Houthi capabilities have increased considerably—and the group is likely being armed with advanced missiles and drones from Iran—where it has shown it can go head-to-head and toe-to-toe with the U.S. Navy is on social media. Though CENTCOM was quick to respond to the downing of the Super Hornet, many in the Middle East will believe the Houthis rather than the official response from Washington.
Unfortunately, many in the United States may even question whether CENTCOM is telling the truth.
“Social media responses are becoming exceedingly relevant as news like this breaks because these platforms are now de facto news sources for a lot of users,” said Dr. Julianna Kirschner, lecturer at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California.
“There are no journalistic standards in place on social media, so misinformation and disinformation have been spreading like wildfire,” Kirschner noted. “The Houthis have claimed responsibility for this friendly fire incident, simply because they have met little resistance in the echo chambers in which this fallacious content thrives. It would only benefit their cause to claim responsibility because there is no risk and all the ideological reward.”
Moreover, “official” media in parts of the Middle East will report the Houthi claims simply because it makes the United States look weak. That will in turn spread on social media, which often plays a disproportional role in boosting these disinformation efforts by providing nearly unlimited platforms for unfiltered content and fallacious and deceptive claims.
“In general, social media is useful for spreading misinformation for several reasons,” said Dr. Cliff Lampe, professor of information and associate dean for academic affairs in the School of Information at the University of Michigan.
“First, it is possible for anyone to generate content and disseminate it, and modern editing tools can make incorrect information look the same as correct information,” Lampe noted. “Second, information can move from channel to channel, often losing important context as it does so. For example, it can move from Reddit to X to TikTok and context can be lost with each jump making it easier to misrepresent the information. Third, sharing features in the platforms can make it so the information is distributed in a fashion that makes it hard to correct if it is wrong.”
The platforms can be blamed only so much for the spread of this disinformation.
“No social media platform has the capacity to review and take down every false statement; we are from the days when the militaries had the power to censor unverified or damaging information, or held patriotic sway over the mainstream media,” Tsukerman continued. “The millions of postings and messages exchanged on the proliferating social media platforms are taking on a life of their own. In some cases, either the algorithms or the strategic focus on boosting controversy provides the most audacious claims with a lifeline.”
Supporting An Agenda
Social media has become a powerful propaganda tool, as noted by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, with both sides regularly reporting their victories and highlighting the other side’s defeats. It can also reach an adversary’s populace in a way that traditional media typically cannot.
“Misinformation and disinformation continue to complicate events of war because these false narratives support some kind of agenda,” said Kirschner. “As conflicting messages continue to circulate, users exposed to them will not know what is correct and what is not. War is already a challenging space to maintain clarity, but we drift further from clarity with the influence of certain social media content. Users could consider a regular consumption of content from journalistic sources to ensure they are getting the fullest picture possible.”
In addition, the act of spreading anything that makes Americans look weak or bad is in itself an act of resistance in the view of Iran and its proxies.
“By the same token, in English, these sorts of things are easily disproven and anyone following mainstream news coverage will surely be aware of what transpired. Most Westerners are not likely to be directly privy to Houthi propaganda,” said Tsukerman. “However, there is a growing number of those inherently skeptical of Western institutions who are actively seeking out ‘alternatives’ sources of information and are likely to be goaded into supporting conspiracy theories or anti-American fake news propagated not only by Houthis themselves in Arabic but anyone with an agenda to undercut the image of the United States and to challenge the U.S. role in the region.”
It may go beyond the Middle East, she warned.
Likely, Russians, Chinese, Iranians, and assorted proxy accounts are already actively boosting versions of Houthi claims or other disinformation in ways that take the imaginary Houthi victories into a realm of far more insidious and closely watched disinformation networks.
Fact mixed with fiction could reshape the narratives that go far beyond the original and far more effectively so.
“Those who are already inclined to believe that U.S. military might is in decline might not take a Houthi-linked source at face value but may embrace a Russian-backed ‘alternative source; with gusto,” Tsukerman continued.
“Watching misinformation unfold online is like watching a small child with a knife,” suggested Susan Campbell, distinguished lecturer of journalism at the University of New Haven.
Yet, the Houthis—and their supporters—may only be able to cry wolf so many times. The presence of another U.S. Navy carrier and continued strikes serves to remind us that while they claimed “victory” a month ago, the war continues. Thus, the louder the Houthis make their claims, the fewer people may actually listen.
“People forget that if they become known as a purveyor of false information,” said Campbell, “eventually people stop paying attention to them.”
