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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <font
size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://english.palinfo.com/articles/2019/10/21/How-Israel-s-social-media-trolls-conquered-Facebook">https://english.palinfo.com/articles/2019/10/21/How-Israel-s-social-media-trolls-conquered-Facebook</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">How Israel’s social media trolls
conquered Facebook</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">By Ramzy Baroud - October
21, 2019<br>
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<article id="ltrFullPageDiv"> On October 9, the social media
platform, Facebook, deleted the page of the popular
Palestinian news website, the Palestinian Information
Center (PIC). This act, which was carried out without even
contacting the page administrators, confirms that
Facebook’s war on pro-Palestine voices is continuing
unabated.
<p>
PIC had nearly five million followers on Facebook, a
testament to its popularity and credibility among a
large cross section of Palestinians and their supporters
internationally. For Israel’s trolls on social media,
PIC was simply too effective to be allowed to spread its
message. As usual, Facebook obliged.</p>
<p>
This oft-repeated scenario – where pro-Israeli social
media trolls zoom in on a Palestinian media platform
while working closely with Facebook management to censor
content, bar individuals, or delete whole pages – is now
the norm. Palestinian views on Facebook are simply
unwanted, and the margin of what is allowed is rapidly
shrinking.</p>
<p>
Sue, a Facebook user, told me that she had been warned
by the platform for alleged “hate speech/bullying” for
claiming that “Israelis are militarized in their
psychology”, and that the “perceived threat of and real
hatred for the Palestinians (are) kept alive by the
(Israeli) government.”</p>
<p>
‘Sue’ is, of course, correct in her assessment, a claim
that has been made numerous times even by the Israeli
president himself. On October 14, 2014, President Reuven
Rivlin, said that “the time has come to admit that
Israel is a sick society, with an illness that demands
treatment.” Moreover, the fact that Israeli Prime
Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been stoking the fire
of fear, hatred and racism to win a few votes in the
Israeli elections has made headlines around the world.</p>
<p>
It is unclear where exactly ‘Sue’ had gone wrong, and
what portion of her comment constituted “hate speech”
and “bullying”.</p>
<p>
I asked others to share their experiences with Facebook
as a result of their pro-Palestinian speech. The
responses I received indicated the unmistakable pattern
that Facebook is indeed targeting, not hate speech, but
criticism of Israeli war, siege, racism and apartheid.</p>
<p>
For example, ‘José’ was censored for writing, in
Spanish, that “there is nothing more cowardly than
attacking or killing a child.”</p>
<p>
“Damned coward army, assassins of Palestinian children,
this is not a war, this is a genocide,” he commented.</p>
<p>
Meanwhile, ‘Derek’ has been suspended from using
Facebook for 30 days, “many times” in the past on
“various charges.” He told me that “all it takes is a
certain number of reports by trolls who have secret
groups on who to target.”</p>
<p>
The same pattern was repeated with ‘Anissa’, ‘Debbie’,
Erika’, ‘Layla’, ‘Olivia’, ‘Rich’, ‘Eddy’ and countless
others.</p>
<p>
But who are these “trolls” and what are the roots of
Facebook’s unrelenting targeting for Palestinians and
their supporters?</p>
<p>
<strong>The Trolls</strong><br>
According to a document obtained by the Electronic
Intifada, the Israeli government has funded a “global
influence campaign” with a massive budget with the sole
aim of influencing foreign publics and combating the
Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement
(BDS).</p>
<p>
Writing in EI, Asa Winstanley, reported on a “troll army
of thousands” that is “partly funded by the Israeli
Ministry of Strategic Affairs”.</p>
<p>
“To conceal its involvement, the ministry has admitted
to working through front groups that ‘do not want to
expose their connection with the state,’” Winstanley
wrote.</p>
<p>
One such troll group estimated to include 15,000 active
members, is Act.IL.</p>
<p>
Writing in Jacobin Magazine website, Michael Bueckert
describes the main function of Act.IL app users:</p>
<p>
“With the mobile application and online platform Act.IL,
Israel aims to recruit a mob of slacktivists and trolls
to join their war against the most insidious forms of
violence: pro-Palestinian tweets and Facebook posts.”</p>
<p>
Act.IL is only the tip of the iceberg of a massive,
centralized effort led by the Israeli government and
involving legions of supporters around the world.
However, Israel would never have achieved its objectives
were it not for the fact that Facebook has officially
joined the Israeli government in its social media “war”
on Palestinians.</p>
<p>
In 2014, Sohaib Zahda was reportedly the first
Palestinian to be arrested by the Israeli army for his
social media post, in a new strategy of cracking down on
what Israel sees as “incitement”. The arrest campaign
since then has expanded to include hundreds of
Palestinians – mostly young artists, poets, and student
activists.</p>
<p>
But Israel only started monitoring Facebook in earnest
in 2015, according to the Intercept.</p>
<p>
“The arrests of Palestinians for Facebook posts open(ed)
a window into the practices of Israel’s surveillance
state and reveal social media’s darker side,” Alex Kane
wrote. “What was once seen as a weapon of the weak has
turned into the perfect place to ferret out potential
resistance.”</p>
<p>
Israel quickly manufactured a legal basis for the
arrests (155 cases were opened in 2015 alone), thus
providing a legal cover that was used in its subsequent
agreement with Facebook. The Israeli Penal Code of 1977,
art. 144 D.2 was repeatedly unleashed to counter a
social media phenomenon that was established much more
recently, all in the name of cracking down on
“incitement to violence and terror”.</p>
<p>
The Israeli strategy began with a massive hasbara
(propaganda) campaign aimed at creating public and media
pressure on Facebook. The Israeli government activated
its then-nascent troll army to build a global narrative
centered on the purported notion that Facebook has
become a platform for violent ideas, which Palestinians
are utilizing on the ground.</p>
<p>
<strong>The Facebook-Israel Team<br>
</strong>When, in September 2016, the Israeli government
announced its willingness to work with Facebook to
“tackle incitement”, the social media giant was ready to
reach an understanding, even if that meant violating the
very basic freedom of expression it has repeatedly vowed
to respect.</p>
<p>
During that period, the Israeli government and Facebook
agreed to “determine how to tackle incitement on the
social media network,” according to the Associated Press
citing top Israeli officials.</p>
<p>
The agreement was the outcome of two days of discussions
involving the Israeli interior minister, Gilad Erdan,
and justice minister, Ayelet Shaked, among others.</p>
<p>
Erdan’s office said in a statement that, “they agreed
with Facebook representatives to create teams that would
figure out how best to monitor and remove inflammatory
content.”</p>
<p>
In essence, this meant that any content related to
Palestine and Israel is now filtered, not only by
Facebook’s own editors, but by Israeli officials as
well.</p>
<p>
For Palestinians, the outcome has been devastating as
numerous pages, like that of PIC, have been deleted and
countless users have been banned, temporarily or
indefinitely.</p>
<p>
Quite often, the process of targeting Palestinians and
their supporters follows the same logic:</p>
<p>
-Pro-Israel trolls fan out, monitoring and commenting on
Palestinian posts.<br>
-The trolls report allegedly offensive individuals and
content to the Facebook/Israeli “team”.<br>
-Facebook carries out recommendations regarding accounts
that have been flagged for censorship.<br>
-The accounts of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian pages
and individuals are deleted or banned.<br>
While PIC did not receive any warning before their
popular account was axed, chances are the decision
followed the same pattern as above.</p>
<p>
When social media was first introduced, many saw in it
an opportunity to present ideas and advocate causes that
have been, for one reason or another, shunned by
mainstream media.</p>
<p>
Palestine suddenly found a new, welcoming media
platform; one that is not influenced by wealthy owners
and paid advertisers, but by ordinary individuals –
millions of them.</p>
<p>
Israel, however, may have found a way to circumvent the
influence of Facebook on the discussions pertaining to
Palestinian rights and the Israeli occupation.</p>
<p>
When exposing apartheid, condemning child killers and
discussing the fear-mentality pervading in Israel become
“hate speech” and “bullying”, one should then ponder
what has become of social media’s promise of freedom and
popular democracy.</p>
<p>
While Facebook has done much more to discredit itself in
recent years, no other act is as sinister as censoring
the voices of those who dare challenge state-sponsored
violence, racism and apartheid, anywhere, with Palestine
remaining the prime example thereof.</p>
<p>
<em>(Romana Rubeo, an Italian writer and editor,
contributed to this article)<br>
- Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of
Palestine Chronicle. He has authored a number of books
on the Palestinian struggle including ‘The Last Earth:
A Palestinian Story’. Baroud has a Ph.D. in Palestine
Studies from the University of Exeter and is a
Non-Resident Scholar at Orfalea Center for Global and
International Studies, University of California Santa
Barbara.</em></p>
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