Against the background of the abusive and violent discourse on social media recently, the "Think Well" campaign to change the discourse on the Internet, initiated by President Yitzhak Herzog and Meta Israel, is launched today.
As part of the project, dozens of celebrities and well-known figures in the country will share their videos reading the most abusive response they have received online, with the blunt and aggressive words censored and replaced with positive, good and empowering words.
Anna Zack,
The goal of the project is to flood millions of followers with the difficulty of reading harsh responses, to encourage people to think twice before using abusive and violent language, and to think positive thoughts before writing a response online.
Raising public awareness
In a unique move, the most blatant and offensive responses will be censored and replaced with positive responses, with leading celebrities being publicly exposed and illustrating to millions of Israelis the great power words have, which can hurt network influencers and celebrities with hundreds of thousands of followers, as well as ministers and MKs facing daily criticism.
The aim of the campaign is to raise public awareness of the consequences of cyberbullying, and to encourage a unifying and closer dialogue on social networks instead of offensive language and the easy hand on the keyboard.
Liel Eli, Photo: From the campaign
Some content creators will also appeal to younger audiences, with teen stars sharing tips for keeping their network safe with teens.
The campaign was born out of a commitment to preventing bullying and abusive and violent discourse on social media, and in light of the President's inaugural speech, in which he said: "When every group feels threatened, when everyone gathers their views and views God forbid to degenerate into alienation between citizens and their country. "
Among the participants in the campaign: Prime Minister Naftali Bennett (513k followers on Facebook and 126k on Instagram), Foreign Minister Yair Lapid (505k followers on Facebook and 121k on Instagram), Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked (227k followers on Facebook and 62k on Instagram), Maor Bouzaglo ), Anna Zack (1.4m), MK Miri Regev (345k), Judoka Peter Plachik (56k), Eviatar Ozeri (506k), Liel Eli (476k), Rif Ne'eman (391k), Omer Hazan ( 363k), and others.
Stop the abusive discourse
"The discourse on the networks bothers me," President Herzog said of the project.
"The hand has become light on the keyboard, and red lines are constantly crossed. I have set myself a central goal to moderate the abusive discourse and cyberbullying, which harm us as individuals and as a society, on a daily basis.
"I am happy to lead a project that encourages stopping and thinking before pressing the keyboard. It is important for us to flood the difficulty that lies behind reading harsh responses, through the dealings of public figures and influencers from many fields. We must do everything we can to change the network Good and write well. "
A safe online experience
According to Meta Israel CEO Adi Sofer-Thani, "The project turns the spotlight on the most difficult moments on the networks, in order to provoke a dialogue and make a clear statement against a phenomenon that has no place on our platforms.
I thank everyone who bravely agreed to expose the ugly words written to them, to lead an important move against any bullying, abusive discourse and violent language on the net.
We are committed to providing a safe and positive experience for billions of users. "
The initiative now comes in addition to a series of moves to improve the image of the social network in recent years, after a number of cases that harmed the company in terms of image and economy.
Among the memorable cases that led to criticism of the company: mining information and using it to skew elections, user data leaked from Facebook to third parties, minors and teens who were mentally harmed by using the social networks belonging to Meta, bugs and system downtime for continuous periods that caused mass stock sales, public audit And lawsuits over the use of facial recognition technology that only now the company has decided to announce its cessation of use, claims that the company chooses profit over user safety and more.
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