Today's
Sunday Times of London reports:
WHILE Israel fights Hezbollah with tanks and aircraft, its supporters are campaigning on the internet.
Israel's Government has thrown its weight behind efforts by supporters to counter what it believes to be negative bias and a tide of pro-Arab propaganda. The Foreign Ministry has ordered trainee diplomats to track websites and chatrooms so that networks of US and European groups with hundreds of thousands of Jewish activists can place supportive messages.
In the past week nearly 5,000 members of the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS) have downloaded special "megaphone" software that alerts them to anti-Israeli chatrooms or internet polls to enable them to post contrary viewpoints. A student team in Jerusalem combs the web in a host of different languages to flag the sites so that those who have signed up can influence an opinion survey or the course of a debate.
Jonny Cline, of the international student group, said that Jewish students and youth groups with their understanding of the web environment were ideally placed to present another side to the debate.
On a website founded for the purpose of US progressive politics, I find this stuff - which is pretty much lock-step with NeoCon agenda - to be a bit troubling. I've noticed at least one user (UID# 96534) who first posted on 7/16/06, an Israeli, whose posts appear to have no motive other than countering what he sees as "anti-Israeli propaganda" (from sources like the BBC). Perhaps found us through some such means, no way to know for sure.
I'm guessing that some of the 10,000+ people who have downloaded this software and are receiving "talking point" alerts are using them here on Daily Kos. Unfortunately, a lot of this stuff is ideologically in lock-step with the NeoCons, and potentially seriously disruptive - the kind of thing Karl Rove would love to set loose.
May not be trollish exactly, but certainly serving a different agenda that Daily Kos's official purpose. And no matter what, probably better to know it's going on than not. Good also to remember that we're out there, freepers are out there, and none of those "polls" are even close to scientific.