Farah, a teenage social media warrior

Propastop is opening a new series with a second front of postings on current military conflicts – battles in the public domain currently taking place and practical applications.

Military conflicts, whether it be between Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Hamas or the USA and Daesh, has brought about a full-blown information war in the public domain, by winning a victory over peoples’ attention and support.

In today’s posting, we introduce the Farah Baker story, which as of today has been talked about around the world. She has become the cover girl of the information war in Social Media.

In 2014, when she was 16 years old and living in the Gaza Strip, she began posting on Twitter information on the nightly bombings on a constant basis. She posted what she saw, heard, felt and experienced as well doing it emotionally. Farah tweeted in English, adding photos of both the events and herself as well as her close relatives who suffered due to the bombings along with her.

Farah tweets gained followers quickly, for example, her third posting had already close to 15,000 re-tweets and in a short time the number of her twitter account followers went from 800 to 200,000 followers.

She became a valuable source for major international publications such as the Guardian, the Wall Street Journal etc. as well as becoming an influencer on Gaza topics. Farah’s message of suffering spread and with that the Gaza sector’s anti- Israeli narrative spread as well.

It is noteworthy that a young girl living in a conflict zone, through her much gained attention brought a full-scale media battle to the Israeli military as well as spreading lengthy compromising messages against Israel throughout the world.

In information conflicts that accompany military actions, the amount of military equipment that you have, is not decisive. The overwhelming strength of one side in equipment can give an advantage to the other side in information warfare, giving them significant sympathy and support.

Nowadays, the winner of a physical war may no longer be the one who stays after in the information space and writes history. The loser in a war might have a very big say in how the conflict is globally perceived and listened to what actually happened.

Farah Baker’s story is written about at length in David Patrikarakos’ book, “War in 140 Characters: How Social Media is Reshaping Conflict in the Twenty-First Century“

It is not known if Farah was alone in all of the activity or was she the cover girl of a larger group whom wanted to spread their message about the activities in the Gaza zone. It is important to understand what happened and to think whether something similar would be possible in Estonia if needed.