The decay of institutional media and immense power of social media combine to open a window into the complex communications world we’re living in.
The writer Brian Morrissey frequently uses the phrase “the information space” to describe our current media-communications systems. It came, appropriately enough, from Russian government thinking, but Morrissey defines it as “all the ways information swirls in the modern world, where anyone and everything can project viewpoints to influence others.” Essentially it’s the way a super-powered social platforms, widespread mistrust of institutions and huge fiscal pressure on news media combine to create a soupy mess of individual realities.
That term came to mind over the weekend when Texas senator Ted Cruz, a crucial member of Republican Trump-world, triggered a minor diplomatic incident with a post on X.
The post linked to a story from the Israeli news organisation Haaretz that alleged that New Zealand had recently changed its immigration policy to interrogate Israeli soldiers seeking tourist visas. Immigration NZ says there has been no such change – that the current three month visa waiver for Israeli tourists remains in place – as both New Zealand’s current and future deputy prime ministers, Winston Peters and David Seymour, were quick to point out in the replies.
Haaretz eventually amended its story – but as my colleague Toby Manhire explains on The Spinoff’s media podcast The Fold this week, the Times of Israel, another huge Israeli news site, also carried a version of the story. It was among its most viewed for some days, and remains live and uncorrected at time of writing.
“Israelis of reserve service age who applied for tourist visas to New Zealand have been asked to report whether they had served in the Israel Defense Forces — as almost all Israeli citizens are required to do — and whether they are active reservists,” the Times of Israel story reads. “Those who answered affirmatively were required to complete detailed questionnaires about their military service.” It goes on to say that at least one reservist has been denied entry, but does not name them.
Two stories, both on highly-read Israeli news sites, both understandably attracting huge traffic. One amended, the other very much still live. As is the tweet from Cruz, which has been viewed over 1.3m times. An uneasy mix of social media’s enormous distribution power and what appears to be a reporting and editing failure.
A minor episode in some respects, but not necessarily an insignificant one. Given the sheer volume of news created by the “flood the zone” early days of the Trump administration, and the way social media works to explode the distribution of posts which have explosive revelations – irrespective of whether they’re true – it’s likely that this false impression of New Zealand’s immigration policy will become part of how many people view this country. Diplomats and politicians will try and correct the record, but the vast majority of people will have moved on.
It’s not hard to imagine retaliatory tariffs imposed for some future incident, irrespective of whether it actually happened. A small episode in the brave new information space we’re walking into, whether we like it or not.
Follow The Fold on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.