Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is Israel’s leading politician on social networks. He has 2.37 million followers on Facebook, 1.54 million followers on Twitter and 594,000 followers on Instagram. He is also active on Telegram, and has other social network channels associated with the Likud Party or the Prime Minister’s Office. These are impressive numbers, especially given the fact that there are about 5.8 million Facebook subscribers in Israel (as of December 2018) and several hundred thousand Twitter users.

These open and identifiable platforms have seen a surge in activity during the current election campaign. In the final days, and especially on election day itself, these platforms can be expected to reach all-time record usage in Israel. Netanyahu’s digital team can target its messages with pinpoint precision on election day and even in the final hours if necessary, based on breakdowns of the population and user profiles. This data has been collected over time in preparation for the big day by a much larger and more sophisticated system than was available to Netanyahu in the 2015 election. Yet even then, Netanyahu was the Israeli politician with the most prominent presence on social media.

Everyone remembers the “Arabs are going to the polls in droves” video clip, which Netanyahu posted to his Facebook page in the heat of the last election day, on March 17, 2015. It sent its audience a very explicit warning that Israel’s right-wing government was in danger. This was a brief video of just 28 seconds, filmed in a very amateur style in his office, with a map of the Middle East and a flag in the background. Its message however, was also sent to a precise target of hundreds of thousands of right-wing voters via text message. It was intended to encourage them to get out of their homes and go vote for the Likud.

This is a classic example of how a politician can act quickly and precisely through social networks to market a specific message. It could even be used to spread fake news, since it is very difficult to neutralize the impact of propaganda of this sort.