Israel-Gaza conflict: Social media becomes the latest battleground in Middle East aggression – but beware of propaganda and misinformation
Monday 14 July 2014
Graphic violent images of civilians under fire were posted in large numbers, suggesting that news organisations were turning a blind eye to the attacks. “The media are not reporting anything,” was the hashtag’s catch line.
But social media, especially in its treatment the Middle East, has become a minefield of propaganda and misinformation.
Analysis by Abdirahim Saeed of BBC Arabic found that some of the pictures of violence circulated on the #gazaunderattack thread were recycled images from as long ago as 2007. Some were not even from Gaza at all but showed events from the ongoing conflict in Syria. Many of the pictures have since been widely distributed as the subjects of thousands of retweets.
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Social media has become one of the weapons of war. The Israeli Defence Force, which has been on Twitter since 2009, now has 286,000 followers. During violence in 2012, the Hamas military wing set up its own @AlqassamBrigade account to trade threats with the IDF. Twitter shut the account down earlier this year but the nature of social media means that the propaganda war is open to everybody and sources of information are increasingly difficult to determine.
In the student union of a private university in the Israeli coastal city of Herzliya, a “Hasbara war room” has been set up as a contribution to the military effort. Hasbara literally means “explanation” but has also come to signify propaganda. Up to 400 students sit at banks of computers getting Israel’s message out online. “The goal is to deliver a very clear message to people abroad – Israel has the right to defend itself,” Lidor Bar David told Israeli news website, Ynet.
“Although they haven’t been called up to the army yet, they’ve decided to enlist in a civilian mission that is no less important,” reported Ynet.
The students – speaking in 30 languages – target online forums while aiming to appear as ordinary social media users. They lobby Facebook to take down pages which incite violence against Israel and circulate drawings of Hamas rockets made by traumatised Israeli children living close to Gaza.
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EXTRACT ONLY - SOURCE - The Independent - here.
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COMMENT
So Rasmussen/NATO pointed the finger at Russia's supposed 'propaganda' on social media, the other day.
NATO officials are concerned about what they see as a sort of ambiguous or shadow warfare by Russia, including propaganda campaigns and the use of separatist proxies within several countries.
Groups within Russia have been posting photos on social media that purport to shows major humanitarian problems in eastern Ukraine, the NATO military officer said, but in fact the photos come from other places and times.
"Their statements to their own citizens appear to be building a justification for interference, and that is a bit worrying to us," the officer said. - SOURCE - WALL STREET JOURNAL - here.
The way I see it, it's the west that's stealthily building justifications for interference in eastern Europe -- and this is just another example.
And now it's the turn of Palestinian supporters on social media. LOL.
But the BBC itself puts out anti-Russian propaganda pieces sponsored by a dubious 'survey' group, that's actually an offshoot of a oil trust fund NGO (which was given US government blessings for a status change to 'charity' -- so it can collect FUNDS and LOBBY the US politicians.).
What's perverse is that if the anti-Russian propaganda was directed at any other group, it would (probably) be considered 'hate speech' or inciting violence or some other *card* that's regularly pulled in the west to shut down discourse.
Quite frankly, I wouldn't take as gospel what's written in mainstream western media.
But getting back to Gaza, are they denying that Gaza's under attack? Of course not.
** But they are strengthening the notion that social media is 'unreliable', and quietly seeking to undermine social media reports and information -- so that you can be more reliant on what they want to tell you through mainstream news. LOL.
Why would Israel need 400 students to send a message. Israel is set. Its strategic importance is such that the west (and major financial backer, US) will never interfere - it has carte blache in the region.
Bombs away.
[excuse typos...rushed.]
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