‘I Don’t Like You Any More’: Facebook Unfriending Among Israelis During the War of 2014

• In Event: Social Media, Internet, and Political Deliberation

Abstract

This paper explores the phenomenon of politically-motivated Facebook unfriending in the context of Israel’s violent conflict with Gaza in the summer of 2014. We suggest that politically-motivated unfriending is a new kind of political gesture, though its origins are akin to many other homophilic behaviors that aim at the creation of online echo chambers. We present an analysis of a survey of 1,013 Jewish Israeli Facebook users. We found that 16% of users unfriended or unfollowed a Facebook friend during the fighting. Unfriending and unfollowing were more prevalent among more ideologically extreme Facebook users as well as among users who are more politically active on Facebook. Weak ties were most likely to be broken by the act of unfriending, and respondents mostly unfriended other Facebook users because they took offense at what they had posted or disagreed with it. While social network sites may expose people to diverse opinions, precisely by virtue of the many weak ties users have on them, our findings show these ties to be susceptible to dissolution.

Authors

• Nicholas A. John, Hebrew U of Jerusalem

• Shira Dvir-Gvirsman, Tel Aviv U