Date Published:

Abstract:

This paper explores Facebook unfriending during the Israel-Gaza conflict of 2014. We suggest that politically-motivated unfriending is a new kind of political gesture. We present an analysis of a survey of 1,013 Jewish Israeli Facebook users. 16% of users unfriended or unfollowed a Facebook friend during the fighting. Unfriending was more prevalent among more ideologically extreme and more politically active Facebook users. Weak ties were those most likely to be broken, and respondents mostly unfriended people 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.

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