the Israeli government worked with Facebook to create joint teams to work together in fighting against online incitement. Facebook receives recommendations from Israel on the removal of accounts and posts. Palestinian activists have been critical of this arrangement, arguing that has been used as a means suppressing their freedom of speech on Facebook (Barak, 2020). Table 1: Organizational Form and Prevalence of Social Media Manipulation in Israel Initial Government Politicians Private Civil Society Citizens & Report Agencies & Parties Contractors Organizations Influencers Ministry of Likud Foreign Affairs, The office of Hasbara, The Hasbara array in The Office of The Prime Minister, Israel Defence Forces Spokesperson’s Unit, Ministry of Strategic Affairs Media Group The IsraeliVolunteer American Council, students the Maccabee Task Force, Interdisciplinary Centre Herzliya University, Stand With Us, Israeli Student Union, World Union of Jewish Students, the Jewish National Fund, the Jewish Agency, the World Jewish Congress, Inter-disciplinary Centre for Innovation and Leadership Source: Authors’ evaluations based on data collected. Blank spaces indicate no evidence was found. Strategies, Tools, and Techniques Coordinated inauthentic behavior: During the 2018 municipal elections an investigation undertaken by the newspaper Yediot Aharonot revealed the various strategies and tactics being used by political strategy companies in the online sphere to boost their clients’ campaigns. Some of the strategies that were revealed included: using trolls to harass and spread lies about other candidates, creating “armies” of fake accounts to spread misinformation, the creation of “avatar troops” to gather political information on social media users, and creating various fake Facebook pages to gain followers in order to eventually use these pages to boost their campaigns (Ginosar and Liberman, 2018). Ran Tennenbaum, the CEO of Media group, revealed in an interview cited in the investigation that his company holds around 120 avatars. He explains that these avatars are used to identify users’ political opinions, identities, and psychological profiles to be used later for political campaigning and advertising (Ginosar and Liberman, 2018). Michal Adar, a political strategist, also explained the focus on many occasions was on trying to find dirt on political rivalries and then spread it via social media (Ibid). Rotem Gaz, someone who had worked as an online campaign worker, listed various strategies being used today by political candidates online. According to Gaz, candidates are willing to spend a lot of money on buying likes and inauthentically boosting their online profile. Another strategy that is used is the buying of software that artificially spreads a political opponent’s name online. By doing so, Google’s algorithm tags the word as being more popular than it actually is, and subsequently charges the 211

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