On Sunday, the censor allowed the publication of the name and photo of Mahmoud Khir a-Din, the officer who was killed in November 2018 in Khan Yunis, who was hitherto known as Lt. Col. M.
The approval was made at the initiative of the censor himself.
This is a matter that is done once a period, to check whether the disqualifications are valid.
The rationale behind this examination is twofold: a desire not to "just" disqualify what is not required for disqualification, and also a fear that the media will violate censorship guidelines if the disqualifications are illogical.
Shortly after the details were released, social networks were flooded with allegations that the family of Emanuel Moreno, the officer killed at the end of the Second Lebanon War, opposed the intention to allow the publication of his photo.
It has been claimed that the person who is pushing for the publication is a "senior political factor" - a clear allusion to the prime minister, Naftali Bennett, who was a close friend of Moreno.
The IDF is indeed examining the possibility of allowing the publication of a picture of Moreno. The head of the Armed Forces, Maj.
He said he was the one who wanted to look into the matter, given the long time that has passed since the officer was killed.
As far as is known, no pressure was exerted on him, and pressure will not help anyway;
This is a professional matter: the question of whether security damage will be caused by the publication of the photo, according to the opinions of professionals.
The Moreno family has many rights.
Her position has moral, but unprofessional, weight.
Just as the IDF decided to ban the publication of the photo 16 years ago, it can allow its publication now. If that happens, the family can at most ask the media to refrain from publishing, and they can accede to the request or refuse it.
But those who write on social media should have a responsibility.
At the very least, they are supposed to seek the truth.
A brief inquiry would have raised what Haliya had said: that this was an internal initiative.
But from the moment things were published, they took on a life of their own and became an existing fact.
If the picture is published, it will forever be claimed that it happened only to promote Bennett's good, and not for other reasons.
Blurring the boundaries
In recent years, social networks have become a solution to a problem.
Democracy, in which everyone is allowed to express an opinion, has become a dangerous anarchy, under the auspices of which a variety of parties distribute partial or false information, intentionally or not.
This is a dangerous phenomenon, in which facts have no weight.
Everything is worthy of publication, without filters or control.
Every publication gets a resonance, regardless of its absurdity.
Just this week, old photos of the Palestinian flag on a military jeep were published, as if it were a new event that testifies to Israel's weakness;
Other pictures, of a donkey that was burned after the Israeli flag was painted on it, have been published as news, even though they are from a decade ago.
The result is a virtual reality that overshadows and takes over the real reality.
It is no longer just a blurring between black and white, but a complete takeover of black by white, and worse - the penetration of black into the heart of public debate and decision-making processes.
An example of this was given over the weekend, when a false post, allegedly written by a young Bedouin from the south, became a fact on the Internet, and was even quoted by the defense minister at a meeting in the Knesset.
There were a lot of things in this post that are worth discussing, and that many will also agree with, especially the feeling that the Bedouin in the south (and the Arabs in the north) have become homeowners, and that they are doing in the field as their own.
In closed conversations, Ganz warns that this is the case.
As the article states, Jewish Israel may remain within the confines of Gedera-Hadera.
It was legitimate for him to address the issue and make headlines out of it, but without relying on the false post (certainly if he knew, as his surroundings claim, that it might be fake).
From the moment he did so, he gave a hand to the dangerous blurring of boundaries, which has often been pointed in his direction in the past as well.
There are several factors responsible for this blurring of boundaries, social networks in particular.
False and extreme information brings in surfers, who resonate the information and generate more traffic, which brings in more publicity, which generates more money.
It is a cynical circle designed to enrich the networks, which consciously harm the public interest and universal values that are supposed to be agreed upon - first and foremost the truth.
Sub-responsible are a host of factors, mostly political, who leverage the lie to their advantage.
There is a long list of such factors in Israel and around the world, including many of Israel's enemies, who also use technological arrays that produce a false resonance through the use of bots, which mainly flood Twitter (but also Facebook and Instagram).
Last on the list are the users, who often do not invest a second of thought before chaining lies or extreme and violent statements.
The ease with which people wish death on others is alarming;
The possibility that it will go from wishes to deeds is appalling.
It is doubtful which of the tweeters will do it himself, but the toxic atmosphere that is created has weight, just as the atmosphere that preceded Rabin's assassination affected Yigal Amir (according to his testimony).
Please call for censorship of the networks.
It will be a hasty, anti-democratic and anti-social move, but corrections are needed.
Social networks must become prosecutors, against whom it will be possible to take legal action - just as with the Israeli media - in the event that false or offensive information is published on them.
They must also reduce and thwart any false or misleading activity, and make sure that each person stands by his or her true identity behind his or her publications.
On the way to the coveted Lake
The only way to get social media to do that is through legislation.
Israel is moving in that direction, but it is doing so lazily.
The government is deterred by the power of social networks, and deterred by criticism.
If it restricts (as required) the publications in the law, it will be argued against it that it is acting democratically to achieve an undemocratic goal - preventing criticism of its functioning.
But avoiding it will only make the anomalies of the networks normal.
Worse, it will infiltrate keyboard discussions into decision-making processes.
There is a situation where this is already happening;
After the network ruled last week in favor of eliminating Yahya Sinwar (although he was not responsible for any of the attacks carried out here in recent weeks), both the government and the opposition have also begun to engage in it, as if they are encountering the matter for the first time.
The same is true of the possibility of airstrikes during operational activity in Judea and Samaria - a net operational matter, which also took place under previous governments.
It is a dangerous process, which also entails the decision makers to compete among themselves for extreme statements on the net.
Already, many elected officials are releasing blatant statements, some of which are appalling.
From those elected to lead, in the coalition and the opposition, more is expected;
Unfortunately, instead of acting like Gideon Ben-Yoash's article - "From me you will see and you will do" - they act in reverse: not leaders, but led by the masses on their way to the coveted Lake.
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