Andre Oboler examines how social networking and content collaboration are being used to target Israel and the Jewish people:
The main threat Web 2.0 poses to the Jewish people and their supporters is the creation of a culture where antisemitism has social acceptability, particularly among young people. In such an environment, the promotion of conspiracy theories, the demonization of Jews and the Jewish state, and the use of Jews as scapegoats become a norm and may lead to real violence against the Jewish people . . . .
The spread of Antisemitism 2.0 relies on the ignorance of the masses, the ability to manipulate them, and the pure democracy of Web 2.0 where each uninformed opinion counts just as much as an expert’s analysis. Web 2.0 is a mass movement that lends legitimacy to the majority opinion and uses peer pressure as an effective tool against those who disagree with the consensus.
In a Web 2.0 world, information is not usually imparted directly from authority. It either arrives through social networks or is sought out directly by individuals. The search methods in Web 2.0 favor the volume of supporters of a narrative and have little relationship to the degree of truth in the narrative.
