[ti:War in Gaza Also Waged on the Internet] [ar:Jonathan Evans] [al:Technology Report] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]From VOA Learning English, this is the Technology Report. [00:05.32]The war in the Gaza Strip is being fought [00:09.56]as much on the Internet as it is on the ground. [00:13.72]Some people say the increased use of social media [00:18.74]is changing the way people look at the conflict. [00:22.88]Palestinian activists recently put a video on the YouTube website. [00:29.55]The video shows rescue workers [00:32.83]trying to help a Palestinian boy look for his family. [00:37.07]Suddenly, the boy is seen lying on the ground. [00:41.60]The video claims he was shot by Israeli gunmen. [00:45.93]A second bullet appears to kill him. [00:49.83]The video is now being shared on social media. [00:54.01]VOA could not independently confirm [00:58.18]whether the video came from a pro-Palestinian group [01:01.97]called the International Solidarity Movement. [01:05.46]The current fighting in Gaza is not the first time [01:10.67]the Palestinian people have seen war. [01:13.55]But this is the first time Palestinians [01:17.15]get to tell their stories to the world [01:20.09]as the direct source of information. [01:22.90]Lisa Goldman is with the New America Foundation, [01:27.58]a non-profit group. [01:29.51]She spoke to VOA on Skype. [01:32.74]"Before, there were a lot of Israelis on Twitter. [01:35.78]Now there are a lot of Palestinians on Twitter, [01:38.41]and this is new; this is really new. [01:40.44]It's something that happened in the last year," Lisa said. [01:42.21]Yousef Munayyer heads the Jerusalem Fund, a pro-Palestinian group. [01:47.72]He says that earlier news reports about the Middle East [01:52.54]were generally pro-Israel. [01:54.76]But he says active social media work by the Palestinians [02:00.00]is changing how traditional media report the news. [02:04.06]"Because the mainstream is trying to put out [02:06.69]what they believe is the truth, [02:08.10]but when you have this marketplace of information [02:11.13]that is showing different ideas, different images, different realities, [02:14.96]they too have to then adjust their coverage [02:17.63]to become closer to that democratized sort of space of information." [02:21.41]Jed Shein is the social media director at Israel's embassy in Washington. [02:28.21]He warns against thinking that social media truly show [02:33.45]how the public feels about issues. [02:36.58]"The people willing to comment and react on social media [02:40.16]are the people that maybe are on the broader ends of each spectrum." [02:44.96]Use of social media to spread the news [02:48.05]is not limited to the Palestinian territories. [02:51.88]The Islamic group ISIL has also used the Internet [02:56.84]to spread its message to the world. [02:59.36]Recently, Syria blocked Internet access for two hours [03:04.77]across the entire country. [03:07.03]Some people believe the Syrian action was an effort [03:11.91]to stop ISIL from using social media networks. [03:15.73]Social media websites like YouTube and Facebook remain popular. [03:21.85]But experts say there is little scientific evidence [03:26.50]to prove how effective they are in the Gaza conflict. [03:31.06]Lisa Goldman notes the importance of having news media employees [03:37.17]report from conflict areas. [03:39.89]"People like Ayman Mohyeldin from NBC News in the States, [03:43.47]people like Sherine Tadros for Sky News, Ben Wedeman from CNN. [03:46.77]These are Arabic speakers, [03:48.19]people who've been in the Middle East for a long time [03:49.75]and who know Gaza very well," Lisa said. [03:51.66]And that's the VOA Learning English Technology Report. [03:56.52]I'm Jonathan Evans.