War and Propaganda on Twitter
In light of the recent large-scale rocket barrages between Israel and the Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) has begun live-tweeting its military actions on its official Twitter IDFSpokesperson page. Since the page tweeted the assassination of Hamas military leader Ahmed Jabari on November 14, it has been providing frequent updates on its actions as well as Gaza’s – with its own spin of course – including several graphic images. At that time, the website had approximately 100,000 followers, though that number has grown to 120,000 by the time of this blog post. The page has garnered significant response from media groups, civilians and supporters – from both sides – and even opposition groups in Gaza.
The IDF’s decision to utilize Twitter as a propaganda tool to such an extent indicates a growing awareness by government and military forces of the effectiveness of social media in reaching large audiences. Currently, searching ‘IDF’ on Google brings up the Twitter page as the fifth result. This results in an information cascade as more Twitterers seeking information on the conflict – or at least Israel’s point of view on it – begin to follow the page, resulting in more links and an increase in the PageRank of the page, resulting in more exposure and consequently more Twitterers discovering the page. An interesting dynamic occurs here between the idea of information cascades and the strength of links on the Web. The cascade occurs precisely because of the increasing strength of the link. The equivalent of the page’s link strength in our classic lecture example would be the size of the line outside that restaurant you’ve never heard of, in that new town you’re visiting. Information benefits increase as the number of Twitterers following this page snowball.
Furthermore, this page illustrates the significance of strong and weak ties in social media. As the number of followers to the page increases, so does the number of ties, both strong and weak. While the vast majority of these followers are likely supporters or curious Twitterers, with only weak links to the page, there are stronger links as well. Other official Israeli pages, such as the Fuerza de Defensa de Israel (FDI) have strong links to this page. Popular activists, frequently sharing this page’s tweets, also have strong ties to the IDF page and contribute to the page’s popularity in a different way than the weak ties. While the large number of weak ties increases the page’s PageRank, the strong ties provide the greatest exposure outside of search engines by sharing the propaganda on the page and, in the case of strong supporters, arguing in the page’s favor. It is through the combination of strong and weak ties that the aforementioned information cascade has taken place, and made the page so popular.
When viral website Buzz Feed stated that the IDF’s recent use of Twitter in the conflict “may well be the most meaningful change in our consumption of war in over 20 years,” it is no exaggeration. Only time can tell whether the lessons and network applications evident in this case apply to future conflicts, and if so, how our point of view on war might change.