<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail-top-anchor"></div>
<div id="gmail-toolbar" class="gmail-toolbar-container">
</div><div class="gmail-container" lang="en-US" dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail-header gmail-reader-header gmail-reader-show-element">
<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/pro-israel-trolls-mobbing-twitter-community-notes/286099/">mintpressnews.com</a>
<div class="gmail-domain-border"></div>
<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Propaganda War: Pro-Israel Trolls Are Mobbing Twitter's Community Notes</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits"></div>
<div class="gmail-meta-data">
<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time" dir="ltr">October 26, 2023<br></div>
</div>
</div>
<hr>
<div class="gmail-content">
<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div><p>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.</p>
<h2>Spending Millions to Whitewash Massacres</h2>
<p>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 <a href="https://twitter.com/sophiasgaler/status/1715642497588715981" target="_blank">Sophia Smith Galer</a>, this equates to almost one billion impressions.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Much of the content blatantly violated YouTube’s terms of service,
including a number of ads featuring gory shots of dead bodies. Another <a href="https://twitter.com/Lowkey0nline/status/1712446982403342616" target="_blank">ad</a>
that piqued public attention was played before videos aimed at babies.
Amid a scene of pink rainbows and soothing music, text appears reading:</p>
<blockquote><p>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.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Nearly all the Ministry of Foreign Affairs views are inorganic. Most of their YouTube <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@IsraelMFA/videos" target="_blank">uploads</a> garner only a few hundred views. But the ones selected as advertisements have hundreds of thousands or even millions of views.</p>
<p>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 <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/israel-social-media-opinion-hamas-war/" target="_blank">ran</a>
30 ads seen over 4 million times on Twitter. Like with YouTube,
analytics data shows they were inordinately targeting adults in Western
Europe.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also bought large numbers of
advertisements on Facebook, Instagram, mobile games and apps such as
language trainer Duolingo.</p>
<h2>Taking Notes</h2>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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,” <a href="https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1715105408304779463" target="_blank">wrote</a> journalist Caitlin Johnstone.</p>
<p>A case in point is the attack on the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza. Under a tweet from journalist <a href="https://twitter.com/dancohen3000/status/1714853525413327155" target="_blank">Dan Cohen</a>
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.</p>
<p>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 <a href="https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/israel-hamas-war-gaza-strip-conflict/card/israeli-military-claims-responsibility-for-church-blast-in-gaza-ItyUvoIPaeNBEsIeIS6J" target="_blank">accepted responsibility</a> for the destruction.</p>
<p>Pro-Israel trolls have also not been above blatant smears. On a popular <a href="https://twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1714706688605888821" target="_blank">post</a>
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 <a href="https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1715106410563072240/photo/2" target="_blank">message</a>:
“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.</p>
<h2>Seeing What Sticks</h2>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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:</p>
<p><i>“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.” </i></p>
<p><i>“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.” </i></p>
<p><i>“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.”</i></p>
<p><i>“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.”</i></p>
<p>“[Israel apologists] are just throwing everything they can at it to
get something to stick, solely because it is viral and inconvenient,”
Johnstone <a href="https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1715110644150931467" target="_blank">wrote</a>.</p>
<h2>Wiki Wars</h2>
<p>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.</p>
<p>One of the most well-known of these is the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/aug/18/wikipedia-editing-zionist-groups" target="_blank">Yesha Council,</a>
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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/pro-israel-activists-blacklist-mintpress-wikipedia/261022/">partisanship</a>.</p>
<p>Another organized pro-Israel group is Act.IL, an Israeli government-sponsored app. Users of the app (which<a href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/inside-israels-million-dollar-troll-army/27566" target="_blank"> reportedly</a>
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.</p>
<h2>Spies Among Us</h2>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Emi Palmor, for example, is one of 22 individuals who sit on Facebook’s<a href="https://www.oversightboard.com/" target="_blank"> Oversight Board</a>.
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.</p>
<p>Palmor is also a veteran of Unit 8200, perhaps the most controversial unit in the Israeli military. <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/revealed-former-israeli-spies-working-top-jobs-google-facebook-amazon/282413/">Described</a>
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 <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/69f150da-25b8-11e5-bd83-71cb60e8f08c" target="_blank">admitted</a>
that, as part of his training, he was assigned to memorize different
Arabic words for “gay” to listen out for them in conversations.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>A MintPress News <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/revealed-former-israeli-spies-working-top-jobs-google-facebook-amazon/282413/">investigation</a>
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).</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <a href="https://twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1716213306132734325" target="_blank">giant protests</a> calling for a free Palestine. Meanwhile, despite near wall-to-wall <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/media-politicians-gave-israel-greenlight-turn-gaza-graveyard/286073/">support</a> from top politicians and corporate media alike, pro-Israel demonstrations have been poorly attended.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Feature photo | Illustration by MintPress News</p>
<p><em><strong><a href="https://twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Alan MacLeod</a> </strong>is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Bad-News-from-Venezuela-Twenty-years-of-fake-news-and-misreporting/Macleod/p/book/9781138489233" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting</a> and <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Propaganda-in-the-Information-Age-Still-Manufacturing-Consent-1st-Edition/MacLeod/p/book/9781138366404?fbclid=IwAR2xQQWJd98C25wapG4ynmlEnGvL5wxG_mp5RwpBwtwPDxInjNZ1Oo7KD-E" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent</a>, as well as <a href="https://journalcontent.mediatheoryjournal.org/index.php/mt/article/view/65/56" rel="noopener" target="_blank">a</a> <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0306396818823639#articleShareContainer" rel="noopener" target="_blank">number</a> <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/blar.12940" rel="noopener" target="_blank">of</a> <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2018.00064/full" rel="noopener" target="_blank">academic</a> <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0896920518820934" rel="noopener" target="_blank">articles</a>. He has also contributed to <a href="https://fair.org/author/alan-macleod/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">FAIR.org</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/profile/alan-macleod" rel="noopener" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>, <a href="https://www.salon.com/writer/alan-macleod" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Salon</a>, <a href="https://thegrayzone.com/author/alan-macleod/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">The Grayzone</a>, <a href="https://jacobinmag.com/author/alan-macleod" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Jacobin Magazine</a>, and <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/author/alan-macleod" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>
</div><p><span>
<img src="https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/themes/core/images//icons/creative-commons.png">
</span>
<strong>
<a>
Republish our stories! </a>
</strong> MintPress News is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0
International License. </p></div></div>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div></div>
</div>
</div>