"Call it the first social media war." This is what Lawrence Husick, co-chairman for the Center on the Study of Terrorism at the Foreign Policy Research Institute said about the new strategies of Israel and Hamas as they wage a war against each other. The two groups have been using social media hubs like Twitter and YouTube to try to promote their group and their actions as they fight against each other.
The two groups have posted videos of air strikes on YouTube. They have also been posting information about future attacks that sometimes are given to the public before the media can even learn about it. Husick says that the two groups are using social media as propaganda for their causes. In a hotly debated issue, these two groups are trying to promote their side of the war to the world.
I feel that this is a sad use for social media. I do not think that such violent media should be posted for the entire world to see. I could guess that the creators of these social media sites are as equally upset as I am if not a lot more upset. The Philadelphia Inquirer article mentions the earlier political uses of Twitter in Egypt and Tunisia. Those movements were not using violence and the images posted were not those of leaders being murdered.
One of my favorite radio show hosts, Jim Rome, always said that Twitter is like a loaded gun. What he meant was that it was dangerous for famous people to use it because they could instantly destroy their reputation if they made the wrong statements. But now Rome's analogy is quite literal. These two groups are using social media as a weapon against each other. They are trying to show their might and instill fear, but i think that everyone should try their best to boycott these actions.
I do not know exactly how Twitter polices their website, but i do know that they can block accounts. Twitter should try to stop these groups from putting out these violent messages. If they block an account and another one is created, they should just keep trying to block the accounts. It may not be an effective strategy, but it will definitely slow down their efforts and would show that the representatives at Twitter do not approve of such content.
I can see where you're coming from. However, the social mediums are open to anyone in any (free) nation, so it would be highly unlikely for twitter to be able to block all users of a nation. I also feel that it would be wrong for them to do that, because different people in that nation could have opposing views towards the situation. It's a complicated issue, and I feel that more responsibility should be taken up by consumers of information, rather than leaving it all up to a social media provider.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, it would be interesting to see how many people actually have access to Twitter and YouTube in these countries. Second, television and radio has been used as propaganda tools for decades. Why would the web be any different?
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