The IDF, more commonly known as ‘Israel Defense Forces’ took on to tweeting, right after a new round of hostilities broke out. Amidst an escalated wave of tension amidst the already hot border, the IDF tweets had a video link pointing to a missile strike against a Hamas leader: Ahmed Jabari.

I

am not going to debate whether the attack was a hit or a miss, but the tweet did mention an ‘In Your Face’ taunt that goes on something like this, “We recommend that no Hamas operatives, whether low level of senior leaders, show their faces above the ground in the days ahead.”

This tweet met a response through what is known as Hamas’s “official” Twitter stream. Hamas military operatives tweeted about Israel’s attacks killing more innocent people – women, elders and children mostly, rather than hitting actual targets. The Hamas side of the tweets also castigated Israeli army as one of the most inhuman army in the world.

Real Life War Vs. Social Media | Battlegrounds of Another Kind

Yes, in some way, you can say that the entire globe is connected through various social media platforms. Whether it is ethical for armed personnel to tweet about the ongoing war operations, I will say that the social media websites are in the middle of carrying out a second war of its own kind.

Looking back once again, the internet does have its moments where a nation’s army took to either tweeting or updating Facebook statuses as a source of expression. Has Twitter been supplementing military campaigns? Take last November as an example when Kenya tweeted evacuation warnings to Somalians before initiating an attack on them.

Do you think that those Somalian villagers had internet connections available in their huts/ homes, houses, or whatever structure they resided in? Never mind, coming back to the topic of Israelis and Palestinians, we all know that any hostility gets magnified as soon as it occurs.

Some people say that a wave of social media propaganda is going on as days go by. Exploding cars, people getting shot down, death by firing squad videos, execution videos and many other incidents add up to a specific degree of outraged sensibilities. Is the social media ever going to stop these activities or are the developers behind these projects going to sit ducks?

War has always been raging throughout the history of our planet. It is just that with the spin of technology and the 21st century, you have this facility called ‘the internet’, which is so much intertwined with the integuments of our society.

Whether or not the social media websites are militarizing a nation’s army or that army doing so in any manner, it is still a fairly new culture. At least for now, some military personnel think that Twitter, Facebook or any website of such nature can hardly be of tactical advantage as their aren’t any policies made about these online platforms.

Oh and by the way, the image for this post was taken from the internet. Please do not whine about how ‘The National’ might be planning a conspiracy, or whatever. It is just an image and that’s all. Adios Amiguitas!

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 17th, 2012 at 3:49 AM and is filed under Latest News, National News, Tech Norms. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.