Bloggers Battle Without Bombs

With the recent conflict in the Gaza Strip, both sides found new ways to take down their enemies. While some fought the war on the ground, Jaron Gilinsky found that others were committed to fighting the war in the realm of social media.

I'll be the first to admit that my interest in international politics is minimal at best. My only interest in this story is from a public relations standpoint. This post is not meant to promote any political agenda.

Stand With Us is a pro-Israel advocacy group based in the United States. They created a social media “command center” where they coordinated a group of volunteers who took to the internet and “fought” against what they saw as biased information circulating the web about the conflict. Using your typical blogs as well as Twitter, Facebook and even YouTube, this group worked to win in the realm of public opinion and mainstream media.




“Social media is an effective way of providing the right information passively,” said Ahuva Berger of Stand With Us.

Their commander, Niv Calderon, assembled a group of about 20 individuals with multi-lingual backgrounds such as French, German, Dutch, Russian, English and Spanish. With this tech-savvy group known as "Help Us Win," Calderon was able to coordinate their influence online.



One interesting tool they used was the Qassam Counter Facebook tool which allowed for Facebook users to “donate” their Facebook status to this counter.



As the article explains, “Every time a Qassam rocket fell in Israel during the war, the Qassam Counter account would tweet another rocket, automatically changing the Facebook status of anyone who subscribed. The Qassam Counter became infectious. At its peak, 75,000 users from 150 countries had "donated" their Facebook status to the Qassam Counter.”

For more information and to read the rest of Jaron Gilinsky’s article, click here.