With the advent of the conflict in Gaza, known by the hashtags #gazaunderattack or #pillarofdefense, it’s a surreal moment to be a citizen of this earth.
For perhaps the first time on this scale, a war is being waged both in real life and on Twitter simultaneously.
As rockets and bombs fall, as children lie wounded or dead, and as people rush into bomb shelters, the IDF Spokesman account and the military wing of Hamas have been duking it out on the interwebs, even garnering the IDF a suspension from Twitter for issuing “threats of violence.”
Buzzfeed writes that the IDF is winning the Twitter war, but in my mind, the callousness of these tweets and actions on both sides precludes any winners.
Meanwhile, the IDF has posted YouTube videos of the assassination of a Hamas leader (who had been possibly negotiating a ceasefire) and created its own ready-to-go-viral Facebook memes.
Copyright © 2013, Forward Association, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
You've successfully signed up!