Cyberwars in the Middle East :: facebook, google earth, wikipedia and flickr

The municipality of Kiryat-Yam decided to sue Google for slander last week, after many complaints from its residents over false information presented in the Google maps application. The municipality claims that the false information in Google’s software harms the city’s image within the general public in Israel and worldwide.

The Google Earth software claims Kiryat Yam to have been built over the ruins of a Palestinian village whose residents were sent into exile. Factually, this information is not true. Kiryat Yam was built by a group of Holocaust survivors and Jewish guards in the British police force (during the British Mandate), over desolate lands which were not inhabited previously. The founders, all Jews from Europe and Asia, worked in the Haifa harbor and in the many developing industries in the region. Blogger ShmoolikiPod wrote about this issue many months ago, which was recently picked up by Israeli mainstream media.

This fight over the ‘right’ information sparked my curiousity, as web-activism has been a hot topic recently. From viral obama video clips to facebook activism, to figuring out if and how online video can be used for social good (at the 24/7 Video DIY summit) – not only to spread information but also to get people to act out.

Israeli President Peres recently met Mark Zuckerberg in Davos. After his return, he promptend Israeli youth to use the tool to fight antisemitism. One post claims that Facebook is being manipulated by enemies of Israel to push the message that Israel is not a country. And efforts to “de-list” the Jewish state from the Facebook country grouping are afloat despite the fact that there are 33,855 Israeli Facebook members. The ‘Israel is not a country!… delist it from Facebook as a country‘ group has 34,853 members and 61138 wall posts. On the other hand, as Israel is one of the fastest growing Facebook communities, the ‘Facebook delete the group Israel is a terrorist country we all hate Israel‘ group has over 40,000 members!

But the Israel-Palestine struggle is emminent in cyberspace, as it is in real life. Many use comment space to generate some form of conversation, if over a photo on flickr, or a group on facebook. For instance, when searching ‘Israel’ on flickr, the first images that come up are:

Heated arguments are carried out over their comment spaces, which are controlled by their corresponding user. This does not provide a healthy platform for hosting an equal conversation. Many times, comments are deleated as they are hurtful or do not correlate with the account holder’s viewpoint. That is the reason why wikipedia is such an interesting platform to explore these cyber-wars – a neutral space that hosts discussions around the creation of information. For example, a hot topic is the Second Intefada – take a look at the discussion page on this topic.

It will be interesting to see how and if these different platforms will become vital spaces hosting international discussions. One that can host not only the academic, but also the more simplistic word on the street. Personally, writing for Global Voices Online has dramatically increased the amounts of discussions I hold with those who do not agree with information in my posts. Although comments and trackbacks are still a far cry from a true conversation, they are definitely a valuable step forward.

[tags] cyberwar, flickr, google earth, wikipedia, flickr, israel, palestine [/tags]