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Sacha Dratwa enjoys some very normal things: macchiatos, swimming, vodka, hanging out with friends. You can see it right on his Facebook profile. But unlike most Facebook folks, this guy runs Israel’s Internet propaganda war machine.
Tablet brings us the story of Dratwa, who came to Israel from Belgium, and at only 26 years old, ” the IDF’s YouTube and Facebook presence and turned it into the most globally visible arm of the Israeli military.” No small feat. And you’ve got to hand it to the guy; as far as 21st century web psych-ops goes, the man is definitely onto something. Tweeting YouTube assassination videos is next-level stuff. And as a relatively young feller, Dratwa gets it: “We believe people understand the language of Facebook, the language of Twitter,” he tells Tablet. Ergo, the Israeli military is using the exact same tools to win you over as, say, Pepsi, or Boo the Dog.
The difference is that Dratwa, who commands a team of social media soldiers fighting to sway public opinion on a controversial war one tweet, Flickr upload, and YouTube share at a time, has an almost entirely public Facebook profile. You can’t say the same for most military brass in a wartime superpower. He’s just a guy — albeit a guy running the IDF’s highly-sophisticated online component of an IRL war — but a guy nonetheless. A guy who does guy stuff.
Interestingly, he’s only been on Facebook since 2009 — a late adopter! But he’s been busy since then:
Picking ruggedly handsome profile pictures.
Hitting the slopes!
Uploading vacation shots.
Boozin’ with bros.
Commanding a cyber propaganda squad.
Looking at all this, you probably wouldn’t guess that he’s running an ethically dubious, historically unprecedented Internet battle for hearts and minds. Mostly, it’s a show of humanity, like any other Facebook profile. It’s transparent. It’s mundane. And it’s probable that wars of the future, large and small, will be accompanied by something like Israel’s Twitter blitz, run by more dudes in their mid-20s who like Smirnoff and swimming. [Facebook via Tablet]
So let me get this right, if a freedom fighter shoots this 26 year old fascist snowboarder in the face then it isn’t classed as murder but is an act of war?
I would hope it would be classed as a casualty of an occupation.
Being from Belgium this guy is the worst kind of scum. Shows the mentally of those that defend Israel, if he were a Muslim going abroad to fight / occupy land he would be arrested at the airport. Instead he gets to leave the country of his birth and move to occupied land because of his religious beliefs and now gets paid to tweet about how the IDF are killing kids.
Does Biddle work for AIPAC? What’s with all these pro Israeli stories? Is he hankering for a job with the IDF?
They’ve reached an agreement Biddle, so there’s a truce and ceasefire. Mainly because nobody would buy IDF propaganda during a ground invasion – it’s pretty hard to put a positive spin on shooting Gazan children in the head because they’re considered sub-human by IDF soldiers huh Biddle?
Sad thing is Israel will continue illegal settlement building, limiting resources for Gazans as well as continuing the wholesale humiliation of Arabs on both sides of the border. I only hope Egypt opens up the border at Rafah further and allows the free flow of goods, humanitarian aid and people.
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pro Israeli? Did you read the story? It certainly didn’t come off as pro Israeli to me.
I agree with the second paragraph whole-heartedly Will, but I didn’t really sea a bias in the article. If anything I read it as slightly anti IDF if anything but the overall i got was Sam being pretty weary of the whole idea of social media being used as a propaganda tool.
Okay maybe you’re right. I think I’ve had too much coffee and I wondered onto ‘that section’ of the net that shows crap that’s uncensored. I’m now back on Disney’s homepage so all is well with the world!