As armed conflict between the Israeli military and Palestinian militants escalated, a new kind of war broke out between the two foes – over Twitter and other social media.
6:57PM GMT 15 Nov 2012
Since the start of Operation Pillar of Defence on Wednesday, the Israeli Defence Force in particular has used its Twitter account to report attacks, highlight its successes, aim for the moral high ground and threaten the enemy.
Within minutes of the strike that incinerated the vehicle Ahmed al-Jaabari, the Hamas militant wing leader, was travelling in, the IDF spokesman's office posted video of his car exploding on YouTube, which then quickly began circulating on Twitter.
It posted a red-tinted graphic of killed in an air strike, with the word "Eliminated" emblazoned in capital letters. It urged online users following the account to "retweet" the graphic.
Later in the day, the IDF, via its @IDFSpokesperson Twitter account, issued a transparent threat: "We recommend that no Hamas operatives, whether low level or senior leaders, show their faces above ground in the days ahead."
The @AlqassamBrigade account of Hamas's military wing account quickly retorted: "@IDFSpokesperson Our blessed hands will reach your leaders and soldiers wherever they are (You Opened Hell Gates on Yourselves)."
Social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook have been used to galvanise political protest in the Middle East and elsewhere, but this is the first time either has been used for such blatantly belligerent purposes.
The IDF's Twitter account rapidly gained followers, more than tripling its numbers to 103,000 by Thursday evening. The less sophisticated Hamas account gained followers more slowly with only 10,800.
Though the Israelis were both inflicting more casualties on the ground and winning the Twitter war in terms of volume, there were signs that its bold approach on both fronts could backfire.
Twitter users responded to the IDF's tweets with denunciations of Israeli aggression and pictures of a Palestinian girl killed in the air strikes.
The hashtag #GazaUnderAttack was created by Palestinian sympathisers to allow Twitter users to keep up with reports and pictures of civilian suffering. Its usage was heavier than the IDF's account.
But generally on the service, there were also however plenty of comments supporting the Israelis or condemning both sides at once.
No comments:
Post a Comment