Inside Hamas' Social Media Strategy
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Slate
3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 20 October 2023
⏱️ 25 minutes
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Summary
Since war broke out, Hamas has been efficient in getting its message out on social media - both in providing crucial information to refugees fleeing the area, and in waging psychological warfare. How can platforms meet the need for open lines of communication without spreading propaganda?
Guest: Sheera Frenkel, covering tech for the New York Times
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A quick warning before we get started today, this episode contains graphic descriptions |
| 0:05.8 | of hostage-taking and war. |
| 0:08.0 | Okay, here's the show. |
| 0:14.4 | On October 7, friends and relatives of Gali-Edan started getting messages to check her Facebook |
| 0:20.5 | page. |
| 0:21.5 | Edan is an Israeli who lives in a cabin near the border with Gaza. |
| 0:26.8 | The first messages were frantic. |
| 0:29.2 | I think one just said Facebook and then it clarified, look at Gali's Facebook, open |
| 0:36.6 | Facebook now. |
| 0:39.0 | That's reporter Shira Frankl who covers tech for The New York Times. |
| 0:43.0 | Check Gali's page was another one. |
| 0:45.3 | A lot of them had misspellings and it was clear something was going on, but the messages |
| 0:51.7 | were pretty incoherent. |
| 0:55.2 | And what did her friends and relatives do? |
| 0:58.7 | One of her close friends who had known her for over a decade, their daughters had been |
| 1:03.6 | born in the same year so they'd actually become friends through their oldest daughters. |
| 1:08.9 | Opened up Gali's Facebook page and she had been looking for news of Gali because she had |
| 1:13.6 | heard that there was something going on near the border. |
| 1:17.2 | There were rumors that Hamas had maybe even managed across the border. |
| 1:21.5 | She knew that Gali's particular kibbutz was very close just a couple miles away from |
| 1:25.5 | Gaza and so she immediately thought of her. |
| 1:28.7 | And she had been trying to reach her and she thought, oh, well, maybe there's something |
... |
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