A Facebook War: Libyans Battle on the Streets and on Screens
Declan Walsh and Suliman Ali Zway, New York Times, September 4th, 2018
Some highlights:
Keyboard warriors spread disinformation and coordinate battlefield guidance … Facebook as a force multiplier … Libyan Facebook appears to host military-grade weapons being traded openly and human traffickers highlighting their successes.
The most dangerous, dirty war is now being waged on social media and some other media platforms, Mahmud Shammam, a former information minister… Lying, falsifying, misleading and mixing facts. Electronic armies are owned by everyone, and used by everyone without exception. It is the most deadly war.
So many times over the past seven years … I heard people say that if we could just shut down Facebook for a day, half of the country’s problems would be solved –Mary Fitzgerald, an independent researcher on Libya