Fact and propaganda: war and real-time social-media
Right now I should be writing a formal paper on enterprise-architecture and social-media. Instead I’ve been tracking one small yet deeply fascinating (literally…) aspect of the rebellion in Libya: the social-media ‘war’ that’s happening on the LiveBlog pages (e.g. April 27, April 28) of the Al Jazeera English-language website.
I’m a complete outsider, of course, relative to the (again literally đ ) bloody mess that is happening at present in Libya. Yet it’s important to me because it’s an all too real example of what I see as the fundamental shift that’s needed for our future survival: from possession (represented in all of its extremes by Colonel Gaddafi) to responsibility (represented by at least the hopes and aspirations of the rebels, freedom-fighters or whatever you want to call them).
After two months, the conflict has all but vanished from most of the mainstream media – but the conflict itself continues, as bloodily as ever. Given that it’s very much an Arab conflict, Al Jazeera is one the few media-outlets that continues to keep track – though even that is a lot thinner than it was even a week or two. Instead, as in this quote, it seems the real reporting is happening in the Comments sections of those daily LiveBlogs:
This blog is the most up-to-date source of information on Libya, and it has been for several days.According to the BBC maps, there is still a stalemate.According to the other organizations, Libya has fallen off the top of the page.And according to Al Jazeera, the stalemate has rapidly recededand has given way to an electrically charged prophase of victory.You would only know that if you had been paying attention to Al Jazeera.We aren’t there yet – and this is no time for complacency or for turning our backs,but Daffyland is in the swirling vortex of history,and Free Libya is emerging into the sun, in dignity:bloodied, but unbowed.
At present there are well over 6000 comments each day on those LiveBlogs. Almost all of them come from people with strong opinions, of course. Nothing is certain; one of the few things that does seem certain is that quite a few people there are not what they claim. Yet between them the commenters do seem to have a surprising range of skills, experience and information. For example, one of them, ‘Gerhard Heinz’, does appear to have near-real-time access to a satellite-feed, because much of his information, if opinionated, is precise, specific, and usually subsequently proven as fact:
[27April] my update for this morning
daffis troops are spotterd over the country and most in defensive positions.
what kind of aktion they do?
firing from distance and waiting to be destroyed.
some useless infanterie attacks in outskirts of misrata area with toyotas
in the west daffi lost position after position just shelling towns or try to hide inside towns.
the new satelites show that most of the troops have poor suply-lines,they get their last amu 4 days ago in the west.
diesel-suply is very short most of his diesel burning vehicels have left only the containment .
troops in the west start to give up now.
brega
most of daffis troops there are not good trained fighting troops .only the 200-300 are from the first push left.
the rest are from the supley lines to sirte and not realy fighting troops.
you hear not much from nato airstrikes this night becouse the targets are most on his supley[28April]Â daffis troops in the east recive a ultimatum to surrender from somebudy who dominate the sky.
we will see how they react.
round misrata
daffis troops have not only to look into the sky ,they also have to look arround ,becouse more and more ff-groops are aktiv by night.
nato tornados are aktive tonight with a target-list of 26 targets
we count 167 clashes tonight.
tripoli
clashes between ff-groops and daffi -merc. increase tonight.ff control large areas of tripoli by night
western
daffis troops trey to hold positions ,but without supley they can only surrender .
3 armed suply convois wiped out this night ,also a reinforcment convoy for western mountains.
diesel supley from algeria burning still now 170 km from border.
It usually takes two or three days, if at all, for any of this information to turn up in the mainstream media.
Another commenter, ‘Glen Parry’, keeps up a running commentary on aerial activity, from listening in to air-traffic control:
[27April]Â USAF, by the sound of it, Shadow 61, just cleared by Luqa ATC, Sigonella. Sounds like things could be getting started for the night. Not gone tactical yet, so might actually be returning to base.
Another flight’s just gone tactical, cleared to to the east (won’t say where for OPs reasons). They could be Canadians by the accent).
Another sortie, Dagger 31, cleared to Libyan destination going tactical.
Fourth flight is being held until airspace clears; no destination given.
French appear to be up at the moment as well.
Other commenters bring information from other sources, such as Twitter, other websites and even, it seems, direct phone-calls:
[‘beardyk’, 27April]Â hlk01: RT @ChangeInLibya: Misrata BREAKING: A big group of Gaddafi soldiers is surrounded in Kirzaz after they tried to sneak in and fell into a rebel ambush #libya
[‘hisham’, 27April]Â zintan has been liberated, mercs force puched back, then defeated….after trying to surround the town…
Then there are the ‘trolls’ – commenters such as ‘AntiNaziGuy’ or ‘DefiantFighter’, often very active, pushing a pro-Gadaffi theme. Unfortunately for them, many of the other commenters are very skilled at fact-checking, such as this example in respense to a purported video of pro-Gaddafi supporters marching in Benghazi and being shot at by the rebels:
[‘Rod_Hagen’, 27April]Â Well spotted! That really is laughable, Bart!
The couple of hundred marchers shown are clearly entering Tripoli’s “green square” from Mizran St. The video at http://www.youtube.com/all_com… has nothing to do with Benghazi, and doesn’t show anyone shooting at anyone. There is no “depth” to the crowd, (see the car headlights behind the marchers).
If all Gadaffi & his pals can come up with is fake videos of a couple of hundred army age men marching to a? major tourist site in Tripoli, but pretending to be in Benghazi, he can’t have very long left at all!
And there are heartfelt pieces from those who are personally involved. This comment, for example, also shines light on the difference between an extreme possession-based societal context and a responsibility-based one:
[‘LibyaInAbsentia’, 27April] Living in Benghazi before the revolution was hard. Every day was covered by a cloud of oppression and a shadow of suspicion that someone could be watching and listening. People became tired and frustrated living like this and were less kind toward each other. Often people had little patience or compassion.
When the revolution began it was terrifying. We couldn’t sleep at night listening to the gunfire and tanks, hoping that in the morning we would not hear that loved ones had been killed. So many died and were hurt and everyone had a connection somehow. We didn’t know what was happening in other cities because the phones and internet were cut.
Then Benghazi was free! It was like the sun had finally come out of the clouds after so many years. Benghazi felt lighter and brighter than it ever has. Everyone has the same goal. Men and women, elderly and children, all the citizens of Benghazi stand together for freedom. Everyone has hope for the future and pride in their city. Young men and boys volunteer to direct traffic and clean streets. Women cook and distribute food to the fighters. Patience and compassion have returned to the city and oppression and suspicion have left.
As communication has been restored in Benghazi, we have learned that all the other cities, towns and villlages in Libya are fighting for the same freedom. As the people of Benghazi are untied in support of their city, they are untied in support of their brothers and sisters in all the other cities, towns and villages of Libya. We want the sunshine of freedom to break through the clouds of oppression and shine on all of united Libya.
So in effect this is a real-time social-media community, coming together in a classic emergent form. The only controls here are the ‘Like’ and ‘Reply’ buttons, and the ‘Flag to moderator’ link. The ‘Like’ button enables the comment to be promoted in the ‘Popular now’ and ‘Best rating’ sorts of the list (there is no matching ‘Dislike’-button to demote posts). The ‘Flag’ link reports a post to the moderators for breach of conditions-of-use, such as repetition, abuse and ‘shouting’ (excessive all-caps) – the ‘trolls’ being the most common offenders here, which results in many of their posts being deleted.
All in all, a lot of interesting lessons and examples here for anyone involved in social-media – and, given the drivers of the overall ‘enterprise’ in this context, for enterprise-architectures too.
Yes, the comments of Gerhard Heinz are different from what I know about blogs and social media when it come to reporting about a war zone.
Many thanks for your comments. Looking at your blog, it seems we share also an interest in archaeology. An understanding of the past brings with it, we would hope, a stronger and more respectful understanding of the present and the future.
I was googling “Gerhard Heinz”, just to see if this guy was real, and fell on this blog. He told he himself had a blog, that he got quoted in the german press…
I was also puzzled by its much too precise to be true data. Such data would of course be confidential. But the truth is that soldiers just don’t know that well what they are doing: war is still a messy stuff, even in the 21rst century.
He also has a “we head to victory” tone that has been beaten hard by facts : He has been predicting the imminent fall of Khadafi on a two times a days basis for one or two month, now.
He is beating NATO officials at this precise game, nice performance :-).
Results by google on “Gerhard Heinz”: close to nothing. This guy, under this avatar is only posting on AJE.
My guess: this guy is only telling what people want : epic action with decisive actions from the rebels and NATO, loads of details when they are scarce.
And it is working like hell. Every single comment he makes has dozens of fans. You even have people around ther telling that regular journalists should move their butt to get some “Gerhard-like” information… How many journalists already killed in action in Libya: at least 2?
But it works, because it is what people want to hear. Quite an interesting thing to study indeed if you have something to write about Social Media and nformation :-).
I am really wishing the best to libyan rebels, but I am sorry we will have to rely on more classical, less funky, less optimistic sources to know what is going on there.
Mr Graves,
I would be very pleased to learn what make my first comment here not to pass the moderation phase.
It is always a delicate subject to bring through as a technical problem cannot be excluded. Especially when my comment is not offensive whatsoever, and only bringing a legitimate challenge to what you say.
So, anything that might prove wrong the most obvious answer, “You cannot accept contradiction on your blog”, will be welcome. And if this comment I’ve tried to make as measured as I could given the circumstances and my non-native english, goes the same way… Well, I will just have to conclude you have a very, very extensive notion of “trolling”.
I really hoped we could have an interesting discussion not that much about Gerhard Heinz, but the archetype he is an example of: the “armchair general”. Whenever the subject come to defense issues, it is quite a recurring figure, always playing the same few tricks: people love good news when they are scarce, it’s easy to impress with a few technical terms. You would be surprised how much people knew e-ve-ri-thing about the details of the special forces intervention against Ben Laden :-).
I woud find it rather sad seeing an obviously smart, internet-savvy person falling into those kind of trap.
Vivien – there is actually a very simple answer as to why your first comment didn’t pass “the moderation phase” – it’s that I was very busy elsewhere, at two conferences in the same week, and was not available to do any site-moderation here. No conspiracy theories, please?
With regard to your critique, if you care to read the blog again, you’ll note many repeated usages of the words ‘seems’ (as in ‘seems to’). I am very aware that not everything on the net is what it claims to be, and that not everyone is who they claim to be – hence, you’ll note, why I placed the name ‘Gerhard Heinz’ in quotes, as I did not and do not assume he is who he says he is.
For the purpose of the blog-post – as you will again see if you read it once more, without seemingly excessive excessive focus on ‘Gerhard Heinz’ – my interest in the Al Jazeera comment-stream was in its nature as a self-organising web-based community, with certain seemingly-unique features as a community. That is all.
If your own interests extend beyond that – such as seeking to convince others that one specific player in that community is not who he says he is – that is your concern, not mine, and this is not the place to express that concern. If you do have interest and comments in how that community functions – such as, for example, the initial challenges against another actor in the community, ‘Omar M’, and the negotiating of a more inclusive relationship with him – then I would be pleased to discuss it. But beyond that, please leave the politics or personal vendettas out of it: if you want those, please go to the Al Jazeera blog, not an academic/business-research website.
Thank you.
Thank you for your answer.
Iâd like to apologize for the censorship accusation. In fact, my comment appeared for a few days as “awaiting moderation”. For some reasons, this mention disappeared and the comment too, so I really thought the reason for that could be deletion. You will certainly see by yourself what in my comment was due to this particular context.
I do not have a political agenda nor a personal vendetta against “GH”, even it’s true this particular character got on my nerve. I didn’t even got into a discussion with him on AJE, and I am certainly not waging a pointless smear campaign against him on the internet. In fact I got fascinated too by the way this peculiar “community” built up; with “GH” only a flagship, fascinating character (with naive eyes: I am a PhD student, but from a field that couldn’t be further from yours…).
I did read back your note in the light of your comment and it certainly eased my understanding of the point you want to make. I still struggle on some formulations I would not consider as very “neutral”, but maybe that is part of your scientific approach not to challenge the actorâs position once you stated once and for all that appearances could be misleading?
What struck me most was, compared to the mess discussions on the net could be, how this group structured himself around a particular ideology, I would describe as: unreasonable optimism, assimilated to the support of the rebels cause (you support, you must be optimistic). They really built a world of their own, with peer-proclaimed experts, protection mechanisms against ‘trolls’, but also bad news. You praise the fact checking ability of the actors, but my impression was that this ability was used in a very dissymmetric way: a favorable rumor certainly didn’t pass through the same rigorous fact checking. I was interested in your note in how you underline the low level of control people had to build this structure (I like buttonsâŚ).
What I must call “imagination” also made this world much more exciting then the duller, checked-fact journalistic world: action and change everyday, no “boring diplomatic”… I was fascinated by the way those two worlds cohabitated with only a few screen lines in distance. I didnât follow the line on a daily basis, but they seemed to have maintained this exhausting enthusiasm through two months of not-always-so-good news.
A recent example: You might know that a few days ago, the Misurata airport was taken by rebel forces, after fierce fighting. The news was of course celebrated in the comments. But the same people could be believing as hard proven facts that massive defections were occurring in Tripoli, with fierce fighting in the capital itself. This astonished me: how could you at the same time believe the victory to be so close (the âforumâ world), and rejoice for an event that look so minor in this epic context (the âAJEâ world)?
I thought the whole thing very disturbing, to be honest, and it left me wondering if I wasnât part of the same kind of logical gaps in my own life, right under my noseâŚ
Well, sorry for this much too long comment. I simply hope it better describes what brought me to the AJE liveblog comment line, and then to your blog.
Thanks again for the long comment. I do agree with you in certain aspects, particularly from a technical perspective, but I think you’re perhaps being a bit too harsh, partly because of the way that the ‘Like’ and ‘Flag’ mechanisms (especially without a matching ‘Dislike’ function), and the Disqus ‘Most Popular’ sort-mechanisms, tend automatically to support a developing asymmetry of belief.
I don’t think I quite agree with you about the asymmetry of fact-checking: I’d agree that there is an asymmetry there, but not as extreme as you suggest. There are plenty of comments insisting that tweets, for example, should be treated as unconfirmed, even from relatively ‘trust-worthy’ sources such as Mark Stone of Sky News or CNN’s Pleitgen.
I too note the somewhat unhealthy personality-cult developing around the ‘Gerhard Heinz’ character – for example, receiving twenty or forty ‘Likes’ just for saying “Good evening Libya”. I do regard him (if that’s the right word – it may actually be a collective) as a propagandist rather more than a news-source as such: in fact he even admits as such in one of the posts a couple of weeks back, with a comment about his posting being “an information experiment” or something like that. In that sense, it could be argued that he’s little different from some of the so-called ‘trolls’ such as ‘Anti_Nazi_Guy’, who persistently push a blatantly propagandist line on behalf of the Gaddafi regime. And as you say, he does present a consistently ‘positive’ (‘pro-democracy’) spin on all of the events. What does make ‘Gerhard Heinz’ different is that, unlike the trolls, much if not most of his information is subsequently confirmed to be close to fact, given the real-world (i.e. often multi-day) lead-times between information versus subsequent action on the ground. So for the moment I tend to regard ‘Gerhard Heinz’ to be what he says he is: in effect, someone providing a somewhat selective subset of factual information in near-real-time, to support a particular ‘optimistic’ view that is hungered for by many participants in the blog. The internet being what it is, though, I make no assumptions to whether any of it is actually fact, until proven by other real-world sources.
‘Mark Topham’ and ‘AFreedom’ are two other examples of similar ‘information-providers’, each with somewhat different sources. Another is ‘Glen Parry’, who is slightly different in that, for much of the time, he concentrates on real-time factual information that can be verified by others, such as air-traffic control at Luqa referencing various military assets ‘going tactical’.
“I thought the whole thing very disturbing, to be honest, and it left me wondering if I wasnât part of the same kind of logical gaps in my own life, right under my nose…” – that’s exactly the point: we usually are. There’s a fundamental paradox that ‘things have not only to be seen to be believed, but also have to be believed to be seen’. How people resolve that paradox, particularly in a web-context with so few clues about people’s real motivations, is fascinating in itself: but we should never forget that the same also applies to us. đ
Fascinating stuff here. I too have been on AJE blog and because I came late, wondered who Gerhard Heinz was. This is how I got here to this site. It’s interesting how sucked in I have been by the AJE Libya blog. Because there is so much information out there it is hard to make sense of it and people do post up useful news links. But yes, there is a tendency to only believe good news and there are often fierce arguments between the ‘trolls’ and those on the other side, and those arguments can be very ‘black and white’ with nothing inbetween. This is the problem with blogs. They are not as subtle as a conversation over a kitchen table, and never will be. But one can start to feel part of something and that’s interesting for me because I’ve always been rather anti Facebook and blogs so it must have resonated in some way for me – yes, in part because I have an interest in Libya – but perhaps it’s a feeling that one can be part of something ‘bigger’ – I don’t know!
Hey, thanks for bringing our humble little blog to the forefront of the Libyan fight for freedom from a tyrannical murderer.
Thanks Andy. A fair number of people on the AJE have attacked me for this this post, so it’s nice to have some support for a change.
My politics will be fairly clear from other posts on this blog, but that wasn’t the point of this particular blog-post. The purpose of this one was to draw my social-media colleagues’ attention to the way the community developed (and continues to develop) on the AJE blog, in particular the way that the Disqus mechanisms (such as Like, Reply, Flag, without a symmetric Dislike or Ignore) affect how the community interacts within itself and how specific narratives come to dominate. Again in terms of community on social-media, it’s also interesting in a technical sense to see the ways in which certain almost archetypal roles develop – not just that of ‘Gerhard Heinz’, for example, but also ‘Bivi’ or ‘Zukov’, for example, or even ‘Levan’. (I’ve used quotes there because in an anonymised community, I have to assume that people may not be who they claim to be.)
There are very important lessons to be learnt there, in a purely technical sense, about system-design to support communities on social-media: how the mechanisms affect the community, the community impacts on itself, the role of ‘external’ moderators, and so on. In that sense, the post above is primarily technical, not political. (And well within conventional academic-style ‘Fair Use’ copyright-rules, by the way.)
So I really don’t see what people are complaining about – other than perhaps that it’s about the nature of communities rather than about individuals? I honestly don’t know. Oh well.
I did write a few posts to the AJE blog way back in April, but was told in no uncertain terms to go away, so I did. I do continue to read the blog daily to watch progress, but I haven’t posted there since, and won’t.
Thanks again, anyway.
Tom did you follow Gerhard posts till the end?If you look back you will see how much accurate info he posted.I know of a person who lives in a country adjacent to Germany who was invited to go sailing with him