Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Twitter Wars: #IsraelLoves overtakes #Israelhates

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction....The chain reaction of evil--hate begetting hate...must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.
Martin Luther King, Jr., 1963.

When you pay a huge PR firm 30 K a month plus expenses to manage your social media, what does it get you?
Apparently it pays for "#israelhates" to trend on twitter.

Twitter activists noticed this disturbing trend over the weekend, as hateful, often anti-Semitic tweets began appearing, using the hash tag #israelhates. The hash tag had reached 0.15 percent of all worldwide tweets, according to the web site Trendistic, which monitors the popularity of trend topics.

The initial response from Jewish community activists? Variations on the theme #israelhates terror

Enter Avi Mayer, head of social media for the Jewish Agency, who tweeted “The haters have gotten ‘IsraelHates’ to trend worldwide. Let’s counter with #Israelloves”

From the Jerusalem Post

Mayer’s tag had become so popular, reaching 0.02 percent of worldwide tweets, that the message of hate he had sought to combat had disappeared from the trending list.

“It’s important for those who love Israel to talk about it in a positive way,” said Mayer.

Thanks Avi. This is an important lesson for all of us who love Israel throughout the world. As we enter the darkest day of the darkest month of the year, let us remember the power of light to overcome darkness, evil,and despair. Thats the message of Hannukah, and thats the also the message of Avi Mayer.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

How is it important to talk about Israel in a positive way when so many of its actions are those of an apartheid state?

Just sayin.

Anonymous said...

Well, Anonymous, you'd be wrong. As someone who spent countless hours fighting against the apartheid regime in South Africa, I can say without hesitation that your comment is not only wrong, but it defames and dishonors those that fought and died fighting for justice in Souuth Africa. And that makes it evil beyond measure.

Anonymous said...

From the danareport:
http://danareport.com/2011/12/05/tweeters-call-for-destruction-of-israel/

Here are a few tweets from when #IsraelHates was trending worldwide just to indicate how distasteful and misinformed the tweets were:

#IsraelHates all palestinians because it a racist country that gets away with what it does. Disgusting people are in charge of that nation.

#IsraelHates new born babies, blacks people, democracy aljazeera, Muslims, and #Israelhates Twitter for letting this topic trend uncensored

#IsraelHates ….they hate anything that is against them…this list would be never ending!

#Israelloves calling all Palestinians “terrorists” but #Israelhates the fact they they r the only source of terror & violence!

#IsraelHates hitler yet they are doing much worse to palestinians.

There’s more people who agree with #IsraelHates than against it so ppl who support Jews ur fkd up in the head yo