Comment by Sporktacular
1 year ago
Israel set up troll farms years ago to attack, debate, downvote and report opposing content. It's the front channel.
https://electronicintifada.net/content/inside-israels-millio...
1 year ago
Israel set up troll farms years ago to attack, debate, downvote and report opposing content. It's the front channel.
https://electronicintifada.net/content/inside-israels-millio...
Saying Israel set this up is quite misleading. This group is no more affiliated with Israel than Alex Jones is affiliated with the U.S.
This is a grassroots organization doing this and in fact its funding and support mostly comes from Americans, such as casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and the Israeli-American Council.
Your rhetorical point about Alex Jones is contradicted within your own post. Alex Jones does not receive grant funding from the US government, but this group does receive a portion of its funding from the Israeli government.
James Bamford has written at least 3 good articles about Israeli government influence of US civil society (social media) and elections (the leak of the DNC hack materials), all in the last year or so, at The Nation: https://www.thenation.com/authors/james-bamford/
And until extremely recently, the IDF and associated arms of the state have been engaging in even more deceptive actions, such as creating sock-puppet accounts to bolster support for government policy, targeting Israelis themselves: https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-admits-psychological-warfa...
It's impossible to be certain of anything related to these highly unaccountable and secret operations, but the "grain" of truth runs very much in the direction of Israeli state interference, with quite wide scope -- but effectiveness unknown.
act.il has never received any government funding. It was an entirely grassroots organization with no affiliation to the Israeli government.
Please stop spreading misinformation.
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> This group is no more affiliated with Israel than Alex Jones is affiliated with the U.S.
Who gives a damn about affiliation? What matters is the material effect on the world, and it's hard to find a more notorious propaganda movement in the world than hasbara
Associating an independent politically motivated group with an ethnic state as a whole is a common means of disseminating racist views. Israel is no more involved in act.il than the U.S. is involved with Alex Jones, and it's worth pointing that out because otherwise people might think that this operation has some kind of official endorsement by the Israeli government.
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This is extremely concerning if true.
Your source is not reliable for any information regarding any topic, but is especially unreliable for topics involving Jews or Israel.
act.il was a pretty well known effort, there are multiple sources that describe the same thing and it wasn't exactly a secret.
Then see the wikipedia page on that or on Hasbara fellowships.
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And it's important to not make such claims lightly. But organised crowdsourcing of public discussion is happening in the open under the guise of "counter dangerous trends online" or "making sure Israel is presented fairly and accurately". Any propagandist can use similar justifications for what is bordering on censorship.
The sad fact is this will be used by anti-semites, but that's precisely why the State of Israel (Ministry of Strategic Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, intelligence or others) should NOT engage in it.