The New Propaganda Machine: Why Social Media is More Dangerous Than You Think

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There's a speech I've been thinking

about a lot over the past year. Some key

lines of which I will quote for you now.

It would not have been possible for us

to take power or to use it in the ways

we have without social media. We live in

the age of the masses. The masses

rightly demand that they participate in

the great events of the day. Social

media is the most influential and

important intermediary between a

movement and the nation, between the

idea and the people.

Okay, full disclosure, that's not the

exact quote. I took the liberty of

inserting the words social media in

place of the original word radio, but

the meetings are identical even 91 years

after this was originally delivered on

August 18th, 1933 at the 10th

International Radio Exhibition in

Berlin. The author of these words is

none other than Joseph Gobles, the

infamous architect of the Nazi

propaganda machine who paved the path

for Jewish genocide straight through the

minds of the everyday masses. His speech

was entitled radio as the eighth great

power, a riff on Napoleon's assertion of

press as the seventh great power behind

the sixth great nations of his day.

Bonus points if you can name all six

without Google, we'll put them in the

show notes. Taking up this mantle, it

would surely be appropriate to anoint

social media as today's next great

power. And one can imagine a sinir or

nasala saying that without social media,

it would not have been possible for us

to take power or to use it in the ways

we have. The unending tsunami of

anti-Israel, anti-Jew propaganda, and

vitriol online can feel absolutely

overwhelming. As my recent guest Van

Jones put it, it's like we left an

undefended basket open and Hamas, Iran,

Russia, China, they're just draining

threes and running up the scoreboard

while we try to figure out what game

we're even playing. Our enemies excel at

this brand of subversive social

disruption, measurably influencing

American minds, turning us against our

values and each other to their benefit.

And despite knowing this manipulation is

happening, I'm talking hard evidence of

expensive and elaborate campaigns to

poison our society, we keep losing the

forest for the trees. I mean, Tik Tok is

literally owned and run by China, an

authoritarian surveillance state. And we

know this. And still millions of

Americans seem to have a recurring case

of temporary forgettiness and continue

to absorb the algorithm uncritically at

face value. It's clear we have to do

something.

Over the past year, I've been in contact

with dozens of different Jewish

organizations and initiatives, all

trying to throw spaghetti at the wall of

the social media problem to see what

sticks. We need bot farms. We need

influencers. We need celebrities. We

need commercials. But when you're losing

8 gillion to zero, the strategy of okay,

let's start copying what they're doing

as fast as we can, doesn't exactly

scream coupra, as Napoleon himself might

say. We need a different approach, a

comprehensive tactic that goes beyond

just messaging if we want to undo the

brainwashing that has already been so

effectively done. To figure out this

future, let us look to the past. When we

learn about the terrifying experience of

the days under Hitler and the Third

Reich, we can't help but wonder, what

would I have done? Would I have spoken

out, joined the resistance, seen the

writing on the wall? Would I be the

neighbor hiding Jews in my attic or

turning them in for reward? Would I have

fled or fought or prayed and waited? In

my experience, we always overestimate

ourselves in regards to this question.

We like to believe we would have been

one of the righteous ones or the brave

ones. But if every man and woman had

been righteous and brave in 1933, there

would have been no Holocaust. So we know

that's not the case. And while we will

never be able to answer the question of

what we might have done then, we can

answer it now in 2024 in the historical

moment of our lifetimes in which we find

ourselves today. Remember, the beginning

of a disaster is never the beginning of

the story. The Hitler youth, the slow

Nazi indoctrination of an entire

generation began in 1922,

16 years before even Crystaln. What if

every Jew and ally had spoken up then?

Could they have changed the outcome?

Which leads me to this, dear listeners,

a call to action. Jews may stink at

messaging and optics, but boy are we

good at making happen in the real

world. I mean, the average person has no

idea that Jews are responsible for their

ways app or favorite Christmas song or

for winning an inordinate amount of

Nobel prizes. That hasn't stopped us

from winning them. You know, when it

comes to the social media battle for

moral clarity, no amount of memes or

reals or infographics alone is going to

change our fate. And yet, we all know

how easy it is to get lost in the

vortex, the mindn numbing rabbit holes,

the endless doom scrolling. And so I

want to gift you a little nugget, a

simple yet profound maxim to set your

watch by from this moment forward. It's

one I heard from Rabbi Susan Goldberg,

leader of Nephesh, a spiritual outreach

community based on LA's east side. She

said, "For every minute you spend

scrolling, spend a minute doing."

I wrote it down immediately. So

straightforward and yet potentially so

impactful and importantly so achievable.

Doing can mean so many things. Start a

Jewish club at your school. Host a group

watch of the Nova documentary, We Will

Dance Again. Bring Drreidles and guilt

into your workplace for Hanukkah. Call a

city council member to combat a BDS

proposal. Check in on a Jewish friend.

Buy Israeli products. Throw a

fundraiser. Attend a fundraiser. On and

on and on. Don't let the scope of the

work required or your current bandwidth

for doing it stand in your way. You

don't need to run a nonprofit or quit

your job or start a podcast to make a

difference. Just do something. It all

makes a difference. We are where we are

today because of acquiescence and

inaction. But when we normalize standing

up and taking space for ourselves, guess

what happens? It becomes normal.

And if Jews owning our awesomeness ever

becomes normal, it's going to be a whole

lot harder to push us around. So, what

would you have done during Gobble's

time? Well, when you're done scrolling,

see what you decide to do today, and

you'll have your answer.