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Adoption of "Unruly Bloggers" and Advancement of Legislation: These Are the Recommendations of the Committee for Examining the Notices of Casualties in the IDF | Israel Today

2022-05-10T15:03:58.605Z


The IDF Spokesman and the Head of the IDF are considering whether to adopt the recommendations. • The committee was established following the "bat" disaster and the shooting incident of the Egoz unit in Nabi Musa.


The committee for examining IDF casualty messages to the media in the age of social networks submitted its recommendations to the head of the ACA, Maj. Gen. Yaniv Asur, and to the IDF Spokesman, Brigadier General Ran Kochav (Rencho), a short time ago (Tuesday).

The purpose of the committee, whose establishment was first published in "Israel Today", was to find a way to balance the media's immediacy and rapid dissemination of information on social networks, and the need to inform the families of victims of the disaster that befell them in a dignified and proper manner.

The committee's recommendations have reached Israel Today, but we will already note that at the moment these are only recommendations, and Maj. Gen. Asher and Brigadier General Kochav can choose not to adopt them at all, or adopt only some of them. To Aviv Kochavi.

One of the revolutionary recommendations appearing in the committee's report received by Israel Today is to create for the first time an official dialogue between the IDF Spokesman and unofficial non-journalistic disseminators of information, write them on IDF Spokesmen's messages and provide them with current information. Consider giving the public notice of a serious incident without the names of the victims even before giving notice to the whole first-degree family member, in case one of them cannot be located within a reasonable period of time. Legislation on the subject, and more.

The committee was headed by the Chief Quality and Safety Officer of the IDF, Brigadier General Gvaram Hagalili, and its members included Chief of Staff, Colonel Edith Solomon, former Chief of Staff and Bereaved Mother, Col. (Res.) Varda Pomeranz, Former chief of communications, Col. (Res.) Yael Wolf, censorship chief of communications, Rachel Zada, bereaved journalist and brother, Razi Barkai, former deputy editor of Israel Today, Ariel Schmidberg, and MDA spokesman Zaki Heller .

Examines the recommendations.

Head of ACA, General Yaniv Asur, Photo: Oren Ben Hakon

Committee members, former casualty commander and bereaved mother, Col. (Res.) Varda Pomerantz, Photo: Oren Ben Hakon

Recall that the trigger for the establishment of the committee was the public hearing created following the deaths of two Air Force pilots in the bat helicopter accident on January 3 this year, and the bilateral shooting accident in the Walnut unit in Nabi Musa about a week later.

In these cases, as in other cases in the past, the reports of wounded or killed soldiers reached the families through the media or through social networks, before IDF representatives reached the families.

The IDF understood that this situation entailed a constant tension between speed and reliability and accuracy, and a rethinking of media talk was required. The information was distributed on networks and communication systems, including hard-to-view images of the spaces.

The committee's working assumptions were that the IDF's first duty is first and foremost to the bereaved families, and the army has a responsibility and duty to take care of its affected families in the event of a disaster. Committee members that the war on rumors has become particularly challenging and difficult in the age of social networks, where in a matter of seconds, false news spreads, sometimes even details that are prohibited from being published.

Accidental shooting in Nabi Musa.

One of the triggers for the establishment of the committee, Photo: Oren Ben Hakon

Part of the bat plane that crashed.

One of the triggers for the establishment of the committee, Photo: Michelle dot com

In the report, the committee noted that one of the first steps required to deal with the phenomenon is to monitor the discourse on the networks and identify the rumors that are spreading in real time. Initiated and immediate on the publication of rumors and unfounded information through spokesperson messages through the digital pages of the IDF Spokesman.

"These messages must refute the rumors and refute them and at the same time condemn the distributors," the report said.

In this context, the committee's most revolutionary conclusion is a change in the IDF Spokesman's attitude towards opinion leaders on social networks. They are addressed to the IDF Spokesman, and the army will provide them with current and reliable information.

The committee also recommended to the IDF Spokesman to create a working axis with all unofficial information distributors, in parallel with working with the official media systems. , Because he does not believe they will honor the agreements.

Objected.

The journalist, the bereaved brother and committee member, Razi Barkai, Photo: Koko

Another recommendation of the committee is to provide comprehensive information to soldiers regarding social networks already in the training phase, with a special focus on sensitive information about casualties.

This is after it became clear that in many cases those who started spreading the rumors on the networks are the ones serving in the units.

As for the institutionalized media, the committee pointed to the cooperation with the military, and to the mutual commitment of the systems and the military.

At the same time, committee members noted that communication systems often succumb to the pressure of social networks due to the desire for information primacy.

To alleviate the pressure, the committee proposes to produce a ranking of preliminary announcements with details that can be published, with the aim of transmitting them to the communication systems at an early stage.  

Not all the public knows this, but shortly after the disaster, the IDF spokesman distributed a "dark message" to the military reporters, with an initial update on casualties or deaths. The reporters send the same messages to their systems, and there were cases where these messages reached families Prior to the official announcement of the casualty informers, therefore, the committee recommends that the same announcement be made orally, and not by notice, in order not to be circulated on the networks by an IDF that is not perfect and reliable enough and has not yet been delivered to families.

The committee also recommended to the army to act for public information on the issue of not distributing casualty messages, and to harness the established communication systems for an ongoing, renewed and updated campaign on the subject.

The campaign should be ongoing and go up especially during emergency fighting.

Another significant issue in the committee's recommendations is the promotion of legislation on the subject.

The committee recommended harnessing the political and parliamentary echelon to fight the spread of rumors and to advance a legislative proposal on not distributing casualty notices before an official military announcement.

The committee further noted that the legal capacity to take actual action against the distributors of the information is small, but the law will lead to the definition of value-state criteria, and from this will lead to an improvement in the issue.

Will "obscured message" be transmitted orally?

IDF Spokesman, Brigadier General Ran Kochav, Photo: Coco

As for delivering the notices to the families themselves, the committee noted that the "families before everything else", and that over the years we have learned that a "spoiled notice", ie, unreliable, delivered to the families, has subsequently caused severe psychological harm to the families of victims over many years.

In the past, there have been cases in which the family was given the wrong message that their son had fallen into a void, and later it became clear that nothing had happened to him.

However, in light of the rapid spread of rumors and information, the committee recommended that in some cases where there is certainty that the space is the space in question, however, identifying the body takes a long time, the ACA head has the authority to approve delivery of a "satisfactory message" to the family. The head of the IDF will be able, in consultation with the Ramach Casualties and the Family, to publish an IDF Spokesman's announcement regarding an unidentified incident, before the announcement has reached the entire family from a close relative, if it is difficult to locate one of them within a reasonable time.

The IDF spokesman said: "The committee and its findings have not yet been agreed and approved by the IDF. At the end of the committee, all the findings will be presented to the public."  

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Source: israelhayom

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