[News] Propaganda War: Pro-Israel Trolls Are Mobbing Twitter's Community Notes

[Anti-Imperialist News]

mintpressnews.com
<https://www.mintpressnews.com/pro-israel-trolls-mobbing-twitter-community-notes/286099/>
Propaganda War: Pro-Israel Trolls Are Mobbing Twitter's Community Notes
October 26, 2023
------------------------------

Almost as important as its military campaign for Israel is its battle to
control its public image. Even as it kills thousands of people in Gaza, the
small Middle Eastern nation is spending millions of dollars on a propaganda
war, purchasing ads on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and other online apps.
At the same time, an army of pro-Israel trolls has invaded the Community
Notes function on X/Twitter, attempting to influence the online debate
around the ongoing crisis.
Spending Millions to Whitewash Massacres

Since October 7, Israel has inundated YouTube with advertisements, with its
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spending nearly $7.1 million on ads in the two
weeks following Hamas’ incursion. According to journalist Sophia Smith Galer
<https://twitter.com/sophiasgaler/status/1715642497588715981>, this equates
to almost one billion impressions.

With its campaign, the Israeli government overwhelmingly focused on rich
Western nations, its top targets being France, Germany, the United Kingdom,
Belgium and the United States. In France alone, the ministry spent $3.8
million. Other branches of the Israeli government undoubtedly also spent
money on ads. The overwhelming message of the campaign was that Hamas are
terrorists linked with ISIS and that Israel – a modern, secular democracy –
is defending itself from foreign aggression.

Much of the content blatantly violated YouTube’s terms of service,
including a number of ads featuring gory shots of dead bodies. Another ad
<https://twitter.com/Lowkey0nline/status/1712446982403342616> that piqued
public attention was played before videos aimed at babies. Amid a scene of
pink rainbows and soothing music, text appears reading:

We know that your child cannot read this. We have an important message to
tell you as parents. 40 infants were murdered in Israel by the terrorists
Hamas (ISIS). Just as you would do everything for your child, we will do
everything to protect ours. Now hug your baby and stand with us.”

Nearly all the Ministry of Foreign Affairs views are inorganic. Most of
their YouTube uploads <https://www.youtube.com/@IsraelMFA/videos> garner
only a few hundred views. But the ones selected as advertisements have
hundreds of thousands or even millions of views.

Israel’s YouTube campaign has been matched by expansive attempts to control
the public debate on other social media platforms. In barely a week, the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs ran
<https://www.politico.eu/article/israel-social-media-opinion-hamas-war/> 30
ads seen over 4 million times on Twitter. Like with YouTube, analytics data
shows they were inordinately targeting adults in Western Europe.

One ad contained the words “ISIS” and “Hamas,” showing disturbing imagery
that gradually sped up until the names of the two groups blended into one.
In case the message was not clear enough, it ended with the message, “The
world defeated ISIS. The world will defeat Hamas.”

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also bought large numbers of
advertisements on Facebook, Instagram, mobile games and apps such as
language trainer Duolingo.
Taking Notes

The Community Notes function on Twitter is an attempt to fight false
information. Contributors who sign up for the feature can leave notes on
any post, adding context to potentially misleading statements. The
community then votes on these notes, and if enough people consider the note
useful, it is presented below the original tweet.

While it has its advantages, the system is ripe for abuse and infiltration.
Since October 7, an army of pro-Israel trolls has brigaded the function and
is attempting to undermine and attack as many posts as possible showing
Israel in a negative light or Palestine in a positive one. This has often
been done in an attempt to hide Israeli war crimes.

“If you’re not a Community Notes contributor, then you may be unaware that
any tweet about Gaza that poses an inconvenience to Israeli information
interests is being mobbed by Israel apologists working to manipulate the
narrative, including on tweets just voicing an opinion,” wrote
<https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1715105408304779463> journalist Caitlin
Johnstone.

A case in point is the attack on the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza. Under a
tweet from journalist Dan Cohen
<https://twitter.com/dancohen3000/status/1714853525413327155> noting that
Hananya Naftali (an aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) had boasted
that Israel carried out the attack before deleting his message, Community
Notes wrote that “Naftali has openly retracted his statement, as conclusive
evidence has since shown the explosion was fired from a misfired rocket
from Gaza.” The “conclusive evidence” offered was a statement from the
Pentagon and a tweet from a former Israeli Air Force squad commander.

Meanwhile, a tweet from Lebanese political commentator Sara Abdallah
breaking the news that Israel had just bombed the St. Porphyrius Church in
Gaza was flagged by Community Notes. This meant that all users saw a note
added reading, “False. Saint Porphyrius Orthodox Church in Gaza has posted
they are untouched and operating as of October 9, 2023.” The problem was
this was breaking news related to October 19, so any statement before that
time was meaningless in assessing the news. Further undermining the
community note was that Israel almost immediately accepted responsibility
<https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/israel-hamas-war-gaza-strip-conflict/card/israeli-military-claims-responsibility-for-church-blast-in-gaza-ItyUvoIPaeNBEsIeIS6J>
for the destruction.

Pro-Israel trolls have also not been above blatant smears. On a popular post
<https://twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1714706688605888821> from myself
where I shared a picture of Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu embracing with
the words, “In the future, this image will be looked upon as one of the
most shameful moments in history,” Community Notes added the message
<https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1715106410563072240/photo/2>: “Alan
MacLeod is a Senior Staff Writer at MintPress News. MintPress is renowned
for publishing far-left disinformation and antisemitic conspiracy
theories.” Other MintPress staff, such as Lowkey and Mnar Adley, have also
been consistently targeted with smears and arguments dressed up as
clarifications.
Seeing What Sticks

In the fog of war, the Middle Eastern network Al-Jazeera has been a
consistent source of live reporting. The well-funded network has a large
team of reporters in Palestine and the wider region and has a long history
of covering the conflict.

Therefore, when Al-Jazeera released an investigation that found no evidence
to support Israel’s claim that a failed Palestinian rocket launch was to
blame for the damage at the Al-Ahli Hospital, the story went viral.

This was a major blow to Israel and its apologists, who did not want the
blood of hundreds of innocent doctors and patients on their hands. And so,
pro-Israel users attempted to get community notes plastered all over the
Al-Jazeera story, including ones that read:

*“This is false. Iron dome cannot intercept rockets during their ascend
phase. It intercepts rockets during descent when their trajectory is more
predictable. The crater is not consistent with an airstrike.” *

*“Al Jazeera is a Qatari state-owned outlet, whose journalist independence
has been questioned by the U.S. government, and Qatar hosts the political
office of Hamas, one of the combatants. Furthermore, U.S. intelligence
indicates the explosion was indeed a failed rocket.” *

*“Al Jazeera video digitally manipulated the hospital explosion moment time
and IR image shown in the video can’t be used to judge rocket debris. Other
sources already showed that the explosion at hospital yard is consistent
with rocket debris and not with aerial attack.”*

*“If you watch the video Gaza has lights on in the footage of the missile
being intercepted by the iron dome whereas in their own footage Gaza is
dark. Suggesting that the videos are of different times.”*

“[Israel apologists] are just throwing everything they can at it to get
something to stick, solely because it is viral and inconvenient,” Johnstone
wrote <https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1715110644150931467>.
Wiki Wars

This is not the first time that Israel and its supporters have attempted to
hijack and manipulate public highways of information. For over a decade,
well-organized and well-funded Israeli groups have infiltrated Wikipedia
and attempted to rewrite the encyclopedia to defend Israeli actions and
demonize voices who speak out against them.

One of the most well-known of these is the Yesha Council,
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/aug/18/wikipedia-editing-zionist-groups>
which, as far back as 2010, claimed to have 12,000 active members. Yesha
members painstakingly police Wikipedia, removing troublesome facts and
framing articles in a manner more favorable to Israel.

Those Yesha considers the “Best Zionist Editors” receive rewards, including
free hot air balloon rides. Between 2010 and 2012, this project was
personally overseen and coordinated by future Prime Minister Naftali
Bennett.

Yesha and other pro-Israel groups have ceaselessly targeted MintPress’
Wikipedia page, filling it with demonstrable falsehoods and misinformation.
Wikipedia is aware of this problem but has refused to address it
adequately, perhaps partly because of its co-founder Jimmy Wales’
unabashedly pro-Israel partisanship
<https://www.mintpressnews.com/pro-israel-activists-blacklist-mintpress-wikipedia/261022/>
.

Another organized pro-Israel group is Act.IL, an Israeli
government-sponsored app. Users of the app (which reportedly
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/inside-israels-million-dollar-troll-army/27566>
once had a budget of over $1 million per year) are encouraged to mass
report posts, leave replies in comment sections of websites, or boost and
share pro-Israel messages online. The point is to create a groundswell of
artificial support for Israel in crucial forums in order to influence
public opinion.
Spies Among Us

One of the reasons that social media companies have not cracked down on
disingenuous pro-Israeli activities could be that former Israeli government
and military officials hold top positions at a great number of the world’s
most important platforms.

Emi Palmor, for example, is one of 22 individuals who sit on Facebook’s
Oversight Board <https://www.oversightboard.com/>. Palmor was formerly the
General Director of the Israeli Ministry of Justice. In this role, she
directly oversaw the stripping away of Palestinian rights. She created a
so-called “Internet Referral Unit,” which would push Facebook to delete
Palestinian content that the Israeli government objected to. In her new
role at the Oversight Board, she effectively writes Facebook’s rules,
deciding what content to promote to the platform’s 3 billion users and what
to censor, delete or suppress.

Palmor is also a veteran of Unit 8200, perhaps the most controversial unit
in the Israeli military. Described
<https://www.mintpressnews.com/revealed-former-israeli-spies-working-top-jobs-google-facebook-amazon/282413/>
as “Israel’s NSA,” Unit 8200 is the centerpiece of the country’s high-tech
surveillance industry. Unit 8200 spies on the Palestinian population,
compiling vast dossiers on millions of people, including their medical
history, sex lives, and search histories, to be used for extortion later.
Individuals found to be cheating on their spouse or engaged in homosexual
activities are often distorted by the military, and turned into informants.
One veteran admitted
<https://www.ft.com/content/69f150da-25b8-11e5-bd83-71cb60e8f08c> that, as
part of his training, he was assigned to memorize different Arabic words
for “gay” to listen out for them in conversations.

Unit 8200 graduates have gone on to produce much of the world’s most
controversial spying tools, which they have sold to repressive governments
around the globe.

A MintPress News investigation
<https://www.mintpressnews.com/revealed-former-israeli-spies-working-top-jobs-google-facebook-amazon/282413/>
unearthed a network of hundreds of Unit 8200 veterans working in
influential positions at some of the planet’s most important tech and
social media companies, including Google, Amazon and Meta (Facebook).

For example, Google’s Head of Strategy and Operations for Research, Gavriel
Goidel, was previously a senior officer in Unit 8200, rising to become Head
of Learning. Facebook Messenger’s Head of Data Science, Eyal Klein, served
for six years in Unit 8200, rising to the rank of captain. And after
serving in the controversial unit, Ayelet Steinitz became Microsoft’s Head
of Global Strategic Alliances.

While Israel is militarily dominant over its neighbors and its captive
population, it is losing the battle for public opinion in the West.
Virtually every major city across Europe and North America has seen giant
protests <https://twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1716213306132734325>
calling for a free Palestine. Meanwhile, despite near wall-to-wall support
<https://www.mintpressnews.com/media-politicians-gave-israel-greenlight-turn-gaza-graveyard/286073/>
from top politicians and corporate media alike, pro-Israel demonstrations
have been poorly attended.

Governments are siding with Israel. But the people are standing with
Palestine. And so, while Israel is perfectly capable of leveling Gaza, no
matter how much it spends, how much propaganda it produces and how many
dirty media tricks it plays, it seems it cannot convince the world to
support its actions. But that isn’t stopping it from trying.

Feature photo | Illustration by MintPress News

*Alan MacLeod <https://twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod> is Senior Staff Writer
for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two
books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting
<https://www.routledge.com/Bad-News-from-Venezuela-Twenty-years-of-fake-news-and-misreporting/Macleod/p/book/9781138489233>
and Propaganda
in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent
<https://www.routledge.com/Propaganda-in-the-Information-Age-Still-Manufacturing-Consent-1st-Edition/MacLeod/p/book/9781138366404?fbclid=IwAR2xQQWJd98C25wapG4ynmlEnGvL5wxG_mp5RwpBwtwPDxInjNZ1Oo7KD-E>,
as
well as a
<https://journalcontent.mediatheoryjournal.org/index.php/mt/article/view/65/56>
number
<https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0306396818823639#articleShareContainer>
of
<https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/blar.12940> academic
<https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2018.00064/full> articles
<https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0896920518820934>. He has
also contributed to FAIR.org <https://fair.org/author/alan-macleod/>, The
Guardian <https://www.theguardian.com/profile/alan-macleod>, Salon
<https://www.salon.com/writer/alan-macleod>, The Grayzone
<https://thegrayzone.com/author/alan-macleod/>, Jacobin Magazine
<https://jacobinmag.com/author/alan-macleod>, and Common Dreams
<https://www.commondreams.org/author/alan-macleod>.*

* Republish our stories! * MintPress News is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License.
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