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Israel Has Bought a Mass Online Influence System for Gaza War (haaretz.com)
20 points by bhouston on Jan 16, 2024 | hide | past | favorite | 19 comments


> While Israeli officials have no expectation of enjoying massive support online, they say the wider popular support for the Palestinian cause has been successfully hijacked by Hamas to undermine Israel's standing in an unprecedented way. Officials say the sheer scale of content produced by Hamas and its affiliates, as well as its organic reach – especially among young Westerners – caught Israel unawares.

It's not the "scale of content produced by Hamas", it's the scale of killing done by Israel. People are reacting to the actual death and destruction taking place, not just tweets. Social media is helping people see what's going on in Gaza and the West Bank directly without Israeli propaganda interfering with the message.


Where's the protests demanding Egypt allow refugees entry? Or demanding the return of Hamas held hostages? One side of this conflict is being amplified in the est by the same tools that were used in other recent social agitprop events. Scan the media and decide for yourself which side that might be.


> Where's the protests demanding Egypt allow refugees entry?

Why would Egypt aid Israel in ethnically cleansing Palestinians? People who live in Gaza belong in Gaza, or in their original homes in Israel that the Zionists forced them from during Nakba in 1948.


> Or demanding the return of Hamas held hostages?

Everyone wants the hostages released. That would be amazing!

The best way to achieve that has been negotiations/ceasefire. Only one hostage has been freed by the IDF in this war so far.

> Where's the protests demanding Egypt allow refugees entry?

You are aligned with Israeli policy: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/01/05/wv-israel-ha...

The Palestinians want to stay. Israel's policy is to ethnically cleanse them, so preventing aid, starving them, destroying all buildings and then saying that they must to go Egypt makes sense.

Israel should let aid into Gaza so they don't starve - read more here: https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-israels-inspectio...


Nah.


Hamas content hit social media long before Israel started its offensive.


The Hamas created content from Oct 7th isn't what gained widespread popular support for the Palestinian cause, it was both what Israel has done to the Palestinians but also a thousand Streisand effects kicking in as many powerful actors immediately went to war with anyone who wasn't staunchly pro-Israel. This increased general awareness of the situation pre-October 7th and things like Nakba and the previous, peaceful March of Return where Israeli snipers shot thousands of protesters.



Original title was too long: “Israel Has Bought a Mass Online Influence System to Counter Antisemitism, Hamas Atrocity Denial”


Will it just counter real "antisemitism" or also criticism of Israel state politics?


Maybe it will use whatever definition that the ADL is using?

https://newrepublic.com/post/177993/adl-abandons-pretense-tr...


The Twitter files and subsequent reporting show that the USA used a similar system to mold public opinion around COVID response, then around the 202 election.

Seems to me that objecting to this instance of PR without objecting to the previous instances is "arguing over price."


> The Twitter files and subsequent reporting show that the USA used a similar system to mold public opinion around COVID response, then around the 202 election.

They used automated social media accounts? I didn't know that.


This article has no content so I’m responding to the headline.

If this is the case, then they wasted a lot of money. The general sentiment I get from most discussions around this is animosity towards Israel and calling their actions genocide.

Seems like their tactics are not working.


On Reddit, in /r/worldnews /r/world /r/canada, it is pretty much only pro-israel, or better described as anti-pro-Palestinian, stores that are upvoted high.

One prolific poster to /r/canada is only pro-Israel and tends to get every story upvoted somehow, although they seem to have been at it a while:

https://old.reddit.com/user/FancyNewMe/submitted/

I think the social media war on reddit is not being won by those who want a ceasefire at all. It is actually being decisively lost.


Thank you for showing me this. I haven’t been visiting Reddit as much, so I’ve missed this commentary. I appreciate the alternative perspective.


What is most important I think is ensuring basically no coverage of Gaza suffering or casualties or genocide accusations. Basically things that would make on opposed to Israel's war in Gaza.


Definitely not working. They’re very bad at producing content - almost as bad as they are at actual genocide.


So Israhell defense is Hamas while IDF and IOF are spies, terrorists,rapists,child murders,and whatever else the scum of the earth could possibly be.




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