Watching this play out on Twitter has been interesting. For days after the attack, there was almost unanimous support for Israel. Then the Harvard letter came o

Watching this play out on Twitter has been interesting. For days after the attack, there was almost unanimous support for Israel. Then the Harvard letter came out saying that the blame was entirely on Israel, infuriating most of Twitter. But then over the next few days, a steady stream of posts have been bubbling up which all carry the theme of making the reader question whether Israel is justified in its reaction. Telegram has been a source of war content, both for the Ukraine conflict and this one. I’m not sure why it’s so much more prolific than Twitter, but it definitely is. It might just be a difference of public vs private. Watching the Telegram rooms, you get the impression that someone is reporting to you directly, and that there’s no chance the videos will suddenly disappear. You had to opt in to the room to see it at all. Whereas a bunch of videos were made inaccessible on Twitter when the accounts that posted them got suspended — videos that bubbled up onto the “for you” feed algorithmically, rather than being shared in a private curated channel. It’s fascinating watching from a distance. Everyone likes to feel the social media forces can be controlled or shaped. To an extent they can be, but most of it is just chaos on both sides. Telegram shows that people will tune in to private channels, though their reach might be limited compared to default-public mediums like Twitter. Apropos nothing, pg highlighted one of the more interesting takes on the whole situation a few days ago: https://x.com/paulg/status/1712097145770156458?s=61&t=jQbmCk1JqL7depzFWJNuPA https://x.com/paulg/status/1712097145770156458?s=61&t=jQbmCk... One thing’s for certain: traditional media seems hopelessly outclassed by social media when it comes to influencing peoples’ opinions. The news blitz leading up to the Iraq invasion ("weapons of mass destruction…" rhetoric) might be the last time that such tricks will work for getting wide-scale public support for governmental actions. If 9/11 had happened today, one can’t help but to imagine what a Taliban social media presence would look like, or whether there would be a large scale surge of support in their favor.