The global impact that social media and the real time web had as this story evolved is undeniable. From Twitter to Facebook and onto active forums and talkback threads, the battleground has shifted from the Mediterranean to a digital cacophony of data. It is a battle over the truth, a war over the validity of facts, who is right and what is wrong. Who can get more attention to their version of the story, and who can take down the other's site. Choosing a side is as easy as joining a Facebook group. Showing one's support is as simple as ReTweeting a post or sharing a status update. The flotilla orgnizers, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) and the world at large is witnessing the sheer power of the flow of information. Most importantly, they are realizing that in this day and age, its flow is impossible to block. Social media tools like Twitter and Facebook create immediate channels that give any user the ability post a message, friction free, and at little to no cost. Once online, messages can easily be passed on, through networks of friends and followers, mostly seen by a few, but sometimes reaching millions. The term ‘Flotilla‘ has been trending on Twitter for 20 hours over the past day and a half. This in itself, is a huge victory for its organizers, and the Free Gaza movement. The implications of a topic trending globally are immense: massive visibility and attention. Tens of thousands of messages posted within hours, over half of them include links to websites. When planning the operation, IDF placed an emphasis on making sure no updates would leak from the activists during the operation by means of electronic warfare. Israel was to be the first to deliver news on the turnout of events. Their intent was to block all forms of communication coming from the activist boats and let a group of journalists onboard the Israeli boats be the first to report to the world. To their chagrin, their plan did not succeed. Avraham Pechter argues that Israel should have opened its communication channels ahead of time: IDF should have started the operation with a continuous and open communication wave on TV and radio, accompanied by journalists that joined the forces. Describing the events in realtime to the whole world would prove IDF's claims – faced with a violent, organized trap that reached a life threatening situation necessitated opening fire – justified given the circumstances. Adding international journalists would have neutralized the worldwide hostility… Yoni Ben-Menachem adds: Its time to reorganize Israel's communications strategy, otherwise Israel will fight the de-legitimization happening against it with “empty hands”. Its time to crumble existing systems, waiting will cause further harm to Israel. Roni writes: Playing the provocateur's game – that's the biggest weakness. Israeli failed miserably with regards to PR. The foreign ministry, headed by one of the biggest militants our country ever saw, should be in charge of this subject. From reading newspapers around the world, all us Israelis seem like we support the operation. We have no right to act surprised that the world hates us – since there was no effort made at trying to explain our stance, or to compromise. When you look at the cold facts, Israel seems aggressive, illogical and fundamentalist. The problem with this government and country, and the extremists leading us to total loss, don't understand that we also need to get along with the world, not only fortify our opinions and say that we are right no matter what everyone else thinks. Twitter is not popularly used by the mainstream in Israel, but has been adopted by Government offices and officials (@IsraelMFA, @IsraelConsulate, @Tzipi_Livni) and media outlets (@Haaretz, @liquid_rotter, @galey_zahal). Out of those posting on Twitter in Hebrew, many rephrase the media headlines like ephic: RT @nrgcoil the cabinet: intercepting the flotilla – self defence against Hamas: at the end of a discussion on the IDF operation against the activist boats heading towards Gaza http://bit.ly/aPQmOL Some chose snarky cynicism: romanrap: Who is supporting to send a humanitarian flotilla to help the kurds or armenians in Turkey? And of course, not stop when asked to. And if possible, place some clubs and knives on board. And some provided critique: dkapuchino: Israeli shouldn't have been on that boat, and in any case, the Gaza siege is ridiculous. We should respond to violence with *full* force, but the flotilla was not violent. Facebook is substantially more popular within Israel. Over the past couple days Facebook has been used to host discussions within profile pages and group pages.