The inspiration: covert advertising on the Internet
Straight out of Avigdor Lieberman’s Foreign Ministry: a new Internet Fighting Team!Israeli students and demobilized soldiers get paid to pretend they arejust regular folks and leave pro-Israel comments on Twitter, Facebook,YouTube and other sites. The effort is meant to fight the “well-oiledmachine” of “pro-Palestinian websites, with huge budgets… with contentfrom the Hamas news agency.” The approach was test-marketed duringIsrael’s assault on Gaza, and by groups like Give Israel Your United Support,a controversial effort to use instant-access technology to crowd-sourceIsrael advocates to fill in flash polls or vote up key articles onsocial networking sites.
The Foreign Ministry admits that the inspiration comes from noneother than the much-reviled field of compensated commercial talkback:employees of companies and public-relations firms who post words ofpraise on the Internet for those who sent them there – the company thatis their employer or their client. The professional responders normallyidentify themselves as chance readers of the article they areresponding to or as “satisfied customers” of the company they arepraising.
Will the responders who are hired for this also present themselves as “ordinary net-surfers”?
“Of course,” says Shturman. “Our people will not say: ‘Hello, I amfrom the policy-explanation department of the Israeli Foreign Ministryand I want to tell you the following.’ Nor will they necessarilyidentify themselves as Israelis. They will speak as net-surfers and ascitizens, and will write responses that will look personal but will bebased on a prepared list of messages that the Foreign Ministrydeveloped.”