Last week I wrote about GIYUS — the “online public diplomacy platform of Israel†as the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Word document) describes it—and the powerful role it can play in shaping the results of online polls and changing the direction of message board discussions.
Yesterday GIYUS sent out an alert about a forum on The Christian Science Monitor’s website. GIYUS appears to have driven a lot of traffic to the discussion–which is titled “Israeli blockade of Gaza: What would you change?“–and has inundated the forum with pro-blockade comments.
Comments in favor of the blockade are consistently receiving “thumbs up†votes and those in opposition to the blockade, and the IDF’s lethal attack on the flotilla, are getting voted down.
As an example, here is the comment which is currently the most highly ranked.
“Johnny Gee†wrote:
I would stress the strongest support as possible for the beleaguered Israelis, who are threatened from every direction and by every mode, including missles [sic], suicide murderers, and of course arms from the sea. Remember, the Israelis are the canary in the coalmine – the real target of the Islamic fundamentalist murderers is the US, Europe, and the world.
“Sam from Oregon†didn’t have the same appeal to GIYUS users and has found his comment voted to the bottom of the thread.
Sam wrote:
I would eliminate all US financial and military support to Israel. Israel is not “too big to failâ€, and if they can’t figure out a way to make nice with their neighbors, then they deserve to fail. The US habit of unconditional support for everything Israeli is the primary cause of middle east unrest. It’s time for US military adventures to come to an end. Bring home the troops, and use all the money for improving US infrastructure, education, and health care.
This is typical of these folks. A mob of them descended on a Pat Buchanan column about the Gaza flotilla at Town Hall and took a column that normally would generate 150-200 posts tops and turned it into a 626 posts thread. The posts, needless to say, were 95% con with numerous calls for TH to stop posting Pat's columns. I've posted there for years and most of the folks on that thread were new to me. Furthermore, the bulk of them were using the same talking points. The column itself spiked late in the afternoon.
It would be quite interesting to examine the IP numbers to see where most of them originate.
These are some real censorial and nasty people.
Who says the Hasbara brigade and "Megaphone" doesn't exist?
http://townhall.com/columnists/PatBuchanan/2010/0…
Ryan. The sad "comments" following Pats article are truly pathetic. If this is what passes for "thought" then we may as well head for the hills because it's all over but for the crying. They love to call anyone who has an opinion contrary to the goose-stepping robots as "hater". Really now? Never mind the dead have been silenced and erased from their memory banks.
I noticed the same technic is being used here also, not on this thread that just started but on others.
Yahoo 'news' also employs censors that delete posts critical of Israel's actions. I posted a bunch of messages there condemning the attack on the 'Mavi' the other day and nothing came up, then posted a 'message' claiming that Muslims are animals – and it came up right away! Freedom at last!
Dang, maybe it's now NetanYahoo News….
What is difficult to understand is that these highjackers seem to think we are as dumb and as corrupt as the members of Congress. What do they hope to achive by descending like vultures on internet sites when all they do is make evident the talking point of the day.
Is this the Israeli idea of winning hearts and minds in occupied countries? AIPAC can no longer fly under the radar!
It is the spirit of Ilya Ehrenburg that drives these people. Hate, hate, hate! Kill, kill, kill! They aren't interested in winning hearts and minds. Anyone who doesn't genuflect and parrot their bile is an enemy deserving of annihilation. For this reason, the purpose of their descents upon message boards is to whip up their hate levels and embolden like minded persons. They also get a sick, perverse thrill out of "shocking and awing" their enemies, as they think they're "going Old Testament" on people they'd prefer to kill but can't, for whatever reason.
You really are a bunch of paranoid idiots. The crap you spew is just laughable. Your attempts at psychoanalyzing your enemies are lame in the extreme, with absolutely zero relation to reality.
If there's a hate site anywhere, it's antiwar.com, but you bigots are too blinded by your own seething rage to see that.
If there seem to be lots of posts attached to certain articles, maybe it's because those articles really hit a nerve, or they appear at a time of heightened tensions when many more people are compelled to pay attention to politics.
But the senseless bigots around here NEVER consider any explanations of enemy behavior other than those which reinforce your bigotry. Nope, to you it's a foregone conclusion that anyone who whispers a word in defense of Israel has nothing in mind but deceit, manipulation, hate, evil, yada yada yada.
Druthers and Valerianus: Dumb and Dumber.
Why come to a site you find so distasteful? You must be maso.
And you speak of " psychoanalyzing your enemies" and "enemy behavior"? Strange to say the least but that is your problem, not mine.
You should have SPLC shut us down. Would be really good for our numbers.
To be honest one of the reasons why I hold Israel to a high standard of conduct is that they are supposed to be a democratic ideal. They are supposed to to be a bastion of western values in a sea of tyranny. They also receive billions in aid from the US. So, following the golden rule, he who has the gold makes the rules, I don't think it is too much for us to ask for a bit more input as to how Israel should behave towards its neighbors. One of my problems with the IDF is that almost without exception every investigation comes up as 'self-defense.' Being in the IDF means never having to say you're sorry or that you made a mistake. Everything gets justified under this umbrella of self-defense that becomes increasingly absurd as time goes on. No one is that perfect. No one is that infallible. Yet we are asked time after time to give the IDF and it's policies a pass. Sorry, but I'm not prepared to rubber stamp their conduct just because we're friends. After all, a real friend is a friend that will stand up to you if you are doing something stupid and self-destructive and call it to your attention.
"Your attempts at psychoanalyzing your enemies are lame in the extreme, with absolutely zero relation to reality."
These "enemies" being who, exactly?
It is you that mindless genuflect for land theft, murder of human rights activists, and keeping Gazans in concentration camp like conditions, proud of Israel's vile illegal and immoral collective punishments?
GIYUS people are not interested in convincing anybody. Most of these morons couldn't convince a 6-year-old the sky is blue. What they do is flood the comment section with inane, racist and provocative nonsense, which otherwise intelligent people then respond to, effectively sabotaging useful and productive commentary in the comments section because no one wants to wade through 600 posts worth of bullshit to get to the nuggets of truth.
Why would the administrator delete a comment is beyond my beliefe and when many comments are nothing but trash.What isaid is that I've noticed the same tactics on yahoo news and as an example for any one is this piece of news on yahoo,and the comments that follows.
Jerusalem revives plan to raze Palestinian homes:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100621/ap_on_re_mi_e…
Obama internet 'kill switch' proposed
"The proposed legislation, introduced into the US Senate by independent senator Joe Lieberman, who is chairman of the US Homeland Security committee, seeks to grant the President broad emergency powers over the internet in times of national emergency"
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/…
Attacks on all fronts.Wake up America.
As I've mentioned before, the very fact that a moron like Loserman would even seriously suggest such a ludicrous idea is evidence that the pols are absolutely clueless about what the internet is or how it works. But that's also a good thing for freedom.
Nice going, Joey. If anyone had any doubts before about you being a complete imbecile, all such doubts have now been removed.
No doubts!
The free flow of information on the internet has also produced a reaction among those who are more concerned with getting out a specific message. If you have noticed the frequent appearance of bloggers and "talkbackers" on the various internet sites who write in less than perfect English and who always support attacking Iran and are defensive about Israel, sometimes overwhelming sites with garbage messages, you are not alone as it is clear that a sustained effort is underway to intimidate, influence opinion, and suppress opposing views. The United States and Israeli governments have taken the lead in putting out propaganda over the internet and there are also indications that several European countries, including Britain and Germany, are engaged in creating regulatory hurdles and countering information that they do not approve of. When the debate is open and the interlocutors are identifying themselves as government representatives one might well argue that the process is healthy as it permits a genuine exchange of views, but where the government hand is hidden the exchange should be regarded as little more than propaganda, what the old Soviet
http://original.antiwar.com/giraldi/2009/11/18/in…
Ha! I didn't know about this outfit but I guessed there must be something like that. You should read the comments at the Daily Mail, the English paper. Some of the comments are really silly, madly pro-Israel and just not credible at all. And I thought it must be crap.
They routinely target Canadian Internet sites as well. You can tell them a million miles away – nearly always new posters, only comment on stories about Israel and when you break them down use about a half-dozen talking rehashed over and over and over again.
The Canadian Conservative party was caught paying government employees and supporters to post messages, call radio and television shows etc on their behalf. They are very pro-Israel so I have no doubt that they are in on it too.
They simply believe that the rest of us are as dumb as they are.
A lot of pots here are calling the kettle black.
The only real existential threat to Israel is the bottom line truth – there is no need for a Zionist state. The Jews do not need a homeland in the Mid-East; their home is in the West. Israel is nothing more than a second home for Westernized Jews, a vacation home on the Mediteranean. A Jewish-only country club with maintenance fees paid by Uncle Sam. Their intense hatred of all who opposes their theft of Palestine is just the over-reaction arising from their own knowledge that what they are doing is wrong.
Why does an American Jew need to live in Israel ? Do they face discrimination in America? Hardly – their incomes are higher, their educations more prestigious, their influence in our government is many times the expected average. Where are the Jewish ghettoes? Beverly Hills? And you can bet that American Jews never give up their American passports when moving to Israel.. The same is true for all European Jews living in Israel.
The Arabic or Sephardic Jews that are native to the MidEast may need to be in Israel but they would get along with the Arabs in Palestine just as well. They did for centuries.
All in all, Israel is an unnecessary colony of over-privileged malcontents whose main worry should be that the World one day, realizes that this is” just all bullshit”.
Excellent post richard.
Even in their own scriptures Israel does not have a deed in perpetuity to any piece of real estate on the planet. Genesis says that Esau's progeny will throw off the yoke of Jacob, who stole Esau's birthright and blessing by deceit.
Neither is the "Holocaust" any justification. During the 20th century more than 100 million noncombatants were killed by government actions. Ofthis group only Jews are deemed to be deserving of government reparations and billions of dollars of American taxpayer subsidies.
Time to cut the purse strings to the parasites and demand that they pay reparations to people they victimize.
I hearby protest Antiwar taking away my comments on net neutrality. I made the comments on Justin Raimondo's article on the internet kill switch. Just because they don't agree with Raimondo's view doesn't mean I tried to incite anything. I have been visiting this website for years and didn't expect that antiwar would kill comments that it want to hear. Makes me think a lot less of this website.
Peter
For some strange reason that article required logon for commenting, something I've rarely recalled seeing enforced for Justin's other articles in the recent past. What gives?
Why Does antiwar.com delete comments..?? No one [that posts] knows, there seems to be NO policy. Comments should be deleted if they are racist, inflammatory or loco.. "The wogs need to be exterminated BECAUSE they are in league with monsters from the planet Centaur and they are conspiring to destroy this planet"
I ask that my comments be reinstated.
The least antiwar.com administrator can do is give a reason for deleting a comment.
" Lear K · 1 day ago
This comment has been deleted by the administrator. "
US Fear Factory Kills Free Speech
"Millions upon millions of Americans wake up frightened, go to sleep frightened while others feed on the hatred and bile spewed out by politicians, preachers, academics and the media who tell them Israel is good and Palestine is bad.
There are some politicians who want to see the heroic Americans who boarded the Free Gaza Movement boats, joined the Viva Palestina convoys and the recent Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla prosecuted as terrorists…
"The supreme court has ruled that human rights advocates, providing training and assistance in the nonviolent resolution of disputes, can be prosecuted as terrorists," said David Cole, a Georgetown university law professor who argued the case before the court. In the name of fighting terrorism, the court has said that the first amendment [on free speech] permits congress to make it a crime to work for peace and human rights. That is wrong."
Even Jimmy Carter made the point that the activities he has done in the past could be considered a crime because of the vague touchy feely guiltmongering this makes of everyone who voices an opinion or even touches these groups on the periphery. Its one and only purpose is to put a chill on dissent.
The ruling is designed to intimidate Palestinian supporters and their fundraising activity. Some have already been prosecuted and jailed for raising cash for social groups dealing with issues such as housing and welfare in Gaza.
The government's case was enthusiastically argued in February by Elena Kagan, who is now the Obama administration's nominee to the supreme court. She said: "Hizb’Allah builds bombs. Hizb’Allah also builds homes. What Congress decided was when you help Hizb’Allah build homes, you are also helping Hizb’Allah build bombs. That's the entire theory behind the statute.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/ridley06222010.html
With such a "voice of freedom" on the bench you would be assured that yours would be silenced forever.
Elena Kagan is reacting with tribal loyalty; which is the same reason she is nominated for the SCOTUS, i.e. she can be counted upon to react as a tribal loyalist.We need to face facts,- this country’s affairs have been hijacked by a tribe with its distinguishing characteristic being loyalty to the tribe and no concern for the overall national good.
When Africa was liberated from colonial rule in the 1950s and 1960s, tribal loyalties soon trumped all of the high-minded, egalitarian notions of patriotic democracy. How soon most selfless patriots were waylayed by the tribal loyalists with devastating results. How quickly tribal loyalists can take over and loot the commons.
How weird to see that happen in a 200 year plus democracy.
They're on mondoweiss.net as well.
You can always tell these characters. They try to force you to explain why you're not bitching about Somalia, or some event in 1992; they're hijackers. The latest talking point is that Jews in the West Bank are being persecuted because they can't drive on the Arab-ony roads (which they created) and that they have to go through checkpoints (they put up themselves).
It's a remarkably crude, vulgar, and cretinous settler attitude. They whine. They're the eternal victims. They've never taken responsibility for anything in their lives: it's always the goyim who are at fault for their lot in life, therefore the Talmud is correct that they are justified in ridding themselves of gentiles.
Scroll on past them and don't fall for the bait, or the team-taggin where one will write really disgraceful anti-semitic trash, and the other will say, See that's the only kind of person who responds to this board.
jfranklin,
" Jews in the West Bank are being persecuted because they can't drive on the Arab-ony roads (which they created) and that they have to go through checkpoints (they put up themselves).
They lie again .And counting on the ignorance of the brain washed American public which would believe such outright lies ,they will continue to spread more lies such these.
The Jews have their own very well built and maintained roads in Occupied West Bank which the Palestnians are not allowed to use at all.Palestinian roads are anything but roads in the real sense of road.
As I said before ,my comment was deleted,that even on yahoo news some would find ways to turn a piece of news that has nothing to do with Arabs or Muslims into an attck aginst Arabs or Muslims .As an example is this:
" Maybe they had expected horses. Whoever stole a trailer in Quebec last week later abandoned it, leaving a tiger and two camels from an Ontario zoo safe inside." http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100623/ap_on_re_ca/c…
One commented as follows:
"Just a case of homesick Arabs….. until they saw the tiger."
I suspect that what may have happened LearK is that someone flagged a bunch of your posts at some point. It happened to me and for a while any comments I made had to be approved by the admin here. TBH, I have read your posts and there never has been anything I've seen that would be considered abusive or inappropriate. Still doesn't mean that cretins won't try and silence you by abusing the 'report' feature here. :)
Absolutely true about the report function being abused.
If you’re Palestinian, you know about checkpoints. There are over 600 checkpoints in the West Bank alone. They block, obstruct, frustrate and kill. Women die in childbirth at checkpoints, students are kept from attending school, parents from visiting their children, laborers from going to work. No one can swim in the sea. Israeli Jews are waved through checkpoints. They can swim in the sea. No problem. Jews travel freely on a complex system of Jewish-only roads and live on the Jewish side of the Separation Barriers along hundreds of miles of walls and fortified fences that keep Palestinians out. Palestinians live in an open air prison. Sometimes there is a moment of spring and the guards open the gates. But spring never lasts long. Blockades, nightly incursions, full-scale invasions, imprisonment, collective punishment, land theft, water theft, denial of education, health care, an economic future, frequent beatings and no freedom of movement is the daily bread of Palestinians. You can’t travel more than three miles without encountering a check point. Talk about stress.
http://mondoweiss.net/2009/10/j-street-do-we-real…
US funds Israel’s apartheid roads plan
http://www.redress.cc/palestine/jcook20100516
Only Jews deserve dignity? http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3795648…
Bulldozer politics won’t bring peace
That's why IP and MAC address logging are helpful. Not perfect but a good start to black listing blocks of IP addresses. Just as there is email spam you have comment spam.
As I understand it, after speaking with someone at AntiWar.com. There are a ton of messages that never see the light of day because they are so vile. Still, even I have made the "mistake" of clicking on someones post to give a thumbs up and accidentally clicking down. Ooops! And there is no way to go back and change it. It's quite possible the tools for moderation allow them to go through and clean messages but once one is deleted by accident (because we're all human) then it's sayonarra. Having moderated my own online forums in the past I found that there are a lot of nasty people in the world and plenty of trolls from the right and left who don't give a damn about the truth.
I've had trolls dig through my past comments dating back months, and all after my Gaza opinions, and found that a couple were making blanket stabs to my back because they haven't the courage to debate the arguments. Prior to the Flotilla murders this wasn't the case but immediately afterwards there was a definite pattern. It was so obvious it was laughable but at the same time you have to admit it is rather pathetic. They also popped up on other blogs, where they were never seen before, and then vanished like the spooks they are. Coincidence? Not hardly.
Woops! Spoke too soon. Seems the back stabbing brigade is out in force again.
Yeah that's right you should fight for your right. don't let them do that on you.
Jane
To attain this you will first need to pick a name on your company. Professionals recommend in opposition to placing your title in the headline of the company because it creates you appear like a starter. Prior to now, when a guide is said to be of Christian-associated origin, people mechanically conclude they're written with Bible verses and with series of morals being taught.
Jose Guimaraes