Israel’s Top Cyber Commando: Danny Ayalon
According to the Klout Index, which measures impact in social media networks, Danny Ayalon is the most influential Israeli politician’ in Cyberspace.
Klout is a San Francisco based company that provides social media analytics to measure a user’s influence across social networks.
Its social media Index analysis is based on data taken from sites such as Twitter and Facebook and measures the size of a person’s network, the content created, and how other people interact with that content.
Index scores range from 0-100, rising as the person being tracked grows more influential on social media networks.
The average score of Israeli politicians and social phenomenon being tracked by Klout was 20, while Danny Ayalon weighed in with an impressive 52. The analysis was based on data mined from Facebook, Twitter, and Google +.
Israeli politicians and social phenomenon trailing Ayalon in the study included Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (ranked second), the ‘social protest’ movement (ranked third), opposition leader Tzipi Livni (ranked fourth), Labor Party chair MK Shelly Yachimovich (ranked sixth), and others.
Subjects that launched Ayalon to the fore in Klout’s rankings included Israel, Judaism, Politics, Middle East and Advocacy.
In particular, Ayalon scored big with three movies he made last year informally dubbed “The Truth About” series. Dealing with core Israeli issues such as the peace process, disputed territories and refugee status, the videos had over one million views.
Klout has been subject to substantial criticism, both for its business model and its operating principle.
Some social critics argue that the Klout score devalues authentic online communication and promotes social ranking and stratification by trying to quantify human interaction.
It has also been accused of conflating narrow influence in social media networks with tangible economic, military, political, or social influence offline.
However, the distinguished diplomatic magazine Foreign Policy also ranks Ayalon as the most influential Israeli in Cyberspace.