Any news on the YouTube/Susan Wojcicki front? I know that the ADL was "advising" them wrt censoring supposedly antisemitic posts (i.e., posts the ADL doesn't like). I wouldn't be surprised if we saw similar videos disappear there as well. We have precedent in both cases.
Statistical algorithms like in machine learning can reproduce human racism that is fed to them. That does not mean that the creator or user of such algorithms is racist, but it is their responsibility.
Like airplane accidents, algorithms accidents are products of whole organizations, which include engineers, but are not only engineers. I don't condone blaming individual engineers for incidents when there is an entire system of quality control and management surrounding them that is supposed to proactively prevent these kinds of things. Nonetheless, it is possible for the whole system to be negligent, and it's also possible for the whole system to, if not be racist (because organizations don't have sentiments), to act collectively in a way that aligns with what a racist would do, if they were an organization. I admit that it's a stretched analogy and borders on anthropomorphizing organizations, but at the same time it could be a useful conceptual tool.
For a concrete example, imagine that a company was prioritizing investigation of moderator actions based on the average emotional reaction of twelve or so people on an accountability board, when presented with each case. If the accountability board has any biases that don't average to zero across the dozen, the diverse stream of injustices will get corrected more in one direction than another, and the result will be injustice even in the absence of any individual with bad intentions.
I don't understand what you mean. It reproduces the racism of the authors, no? It's just an extension of the producers. Like I guess you could say the hammer in the hand of a racist hitting you isn't itself racist but I think the point of people saying some tool is racist is to say that it is in some way designed to reproduce their own racism (even if completely accidentally and unintentionally.) But is something designed so like a hammer or is it something more specific?
Compare it to industrial accidents. If a lathe hurts a black person, that's not racism on the part of the machine (obviously) or on the part of the engineers who designed the lathe (obviously). However, if the machine shop company pays less attention, though through no conscious choice, to safety in their branch on MLK street, that's systemic racism on the part of the company.
So it is 'gLiTcheS' now or was this another 'acCIdENt' with their 'bots' when they declared it was “suspended in error by our automated systems”? Which one is it? [0]
Somehow it was not an accident when users were tweeting 'hammer' a few months back and getting suspended but this somehow falls under a 'glitch' (Yeah right).
Perhaps, another 'accidental glitch' once again by those who give no explanation of how it happened other than a vague description of the 'issue'.
I'm not sure what's so difficult to understand. Unless you're extraordinarily naive and have been living in the Tubbytronic Superdome, it is pretty clear that this is likely another case of BigTech censorship. It might not be, of course, but very likely given what we know.
I'm no fan of the man, but banning Trump, in retrospect, will be a mistake. From now on, Instagram/Twitter/FB will have to start taking sides in civil wars, religious disputes, and geopolitical disagreements. The Israel/Palestine conflict now has a new front. The Ayatollah is literally calling for more missiles to be fired[1] at Israel on Twitter. The lingering question is how, exactly, do you deal with this?
Who determines this? If I ask my Jewish friends, they'll say Palestine is inciting violence. If I ask my Palestinian friends, they'll say Israel is. Who should Twitter ban?
it's always good to consider people's words and feelings in the context of material facts, things that can be meassured objectively, like, for instance, counting dead bodies.
It seems like a disastrously bad idea for Twitter to make moderation decisions based on how many dead people they think are on some particular tweet's side. "Sorry, we've only assigned you 5 bodies - only movements with 20 or more bodies are allowed to send this tweet."
But in this case, both sides are killing people and acknowledge that they're doing so. Your comment seemed to suggest that we could further resolve the dispute with something like
4. count up how many people each side is killing, and only ban sides with a large number
Yes let's keep posts on twitter that say "Death to the Jews".
Your body count number isn't objective without context. Saying they killed 20 and the other side killed 2 so the one that killed 20 is bad.
And what if of that 20 some were killed by their own misfire or that part of that body count are also militants or that the only reason that only 2 killed was because defensive measures that if weren't in place would drastically increase casualties.
> And what if of that 20 some were killed by their own misfire or that part of that body count are also militants or that the only reason that only 2 killed was because defensive measures that if weren't in place would drastically increase casualties.
Well unless you have specific evidence, that seems to be a reality we don't live in, so not really something we need to worry about. The point of the GP was to point out the power differential. That seems to remain the consant even in your hypothetical world.
There are plenty of evidence the militants are part of the count, that's what the health ministry in Gaza publish and that misfired rockets and mortars land in Gaza killing Gazans.
As for the Israeli side, just take into account the number of intercepted rockets (those that would land in a populated area) and assume one death per rocket, the death toll would be in the hundreds.
You mean if Israel takes down their Iron Dome and suicide themselves for 10x extra casualties, this will be a material fact to decide whom to support ?
Israel has no legitimate claim over east Jerusalem. Even if they did, evictions based on ethnicity/religion can not be justified. Your Jewish friends are wrong.
"Israel" is not claiming ownership of the property in question. A Jewish organization purchased the property and started developing it during the Ottoman period, and despite several changes in which country's government is in charge, there has not been any legal transfer other than a sale to another Jewish organization. The Palestinian families that currently live there were originally settled there as tenants, not owners, by the government of Jordan. They are not being evicted on the basis of their ethnicity; they are being evicted because, despite signing what amounted to a perpetual lease in the 1980s, they have made no rent payments and have made unauthorized modifications to the property (and ignored a court order to remove those modifications).
More important than the actual facts of the case is this: HOW is a legal dispute, which is working its way through a civil court system -- the same court system that ruled in favor of these Palestinian families in the 1980s -- an "incitement to violence?" I am genuinely curious to know what the argument is here.
Your comment would be credible if the Israeli regime juridical system is unbiased. However, their rulings are oppressing the minorities. Indeed, the unrest that we are witnessing in Arab communities inside only highlights the feeling of injustice by the indigenous population.
Let us also remember that the ruling regime is accused of committing the crime of Apartheid. [1]
These are facts not opinions. Yes you may think the Israeli juridical system is biased and you maybe right but that doesn't make what he wrote any less true.
If you think the court made a wrong decision I'd love to hear your legal remarks where the court should have sided with the current residents.
Nobody was complaining in 1982 when that very same court system ruled that they had the right to live on the property as tenants. The people who are being evicted did not dispute the court's ruling at the time and agreed, in writing, to the terms of that ruling. Now, after 40 years of not paying the rent they agreed to pay, they are facing eviction -- and suddenly that same court system is too biased to give a fair ruling? Seriously?
Of course it's biased, you needed to dig back to one debatable instance in 1982, but you couldn't find any recent one since all the recent rulings enforce the hypothesis about bias. The system shifts in time, and you can't just pretend it's the same since 4 decades. But I'm probably arguing with JIDF, which makes all exchange futile since you are here to blindly defend the colonizer actions instead of listening.
Respectfully, I understand you're looking at this through a purely logical lens based on the rent dispute and its history. When first hearing about this in the news I did the same. However, reading more about it, I realized that the broader context here is crucial - my evaluating the situation purely through the lens of the facts of the dispute presupposed that Israel has a right to apply law here in the first place.
Based on a recent statement from the UN, I don't believe Israel has this right (https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/05/1091492). My inclination to evaluate the situation purely on the facts of the dispute implies that Israel does. Regardless of how long ago this all came to be, Israel remains an occupying power in the eyes of International Law. The laws and courts of Israel should not apply here.
I'm eager to understand the positions of those who downvoted my comment here. The situation between Israel and Palestine is fraught with deep mistrust and misunderstanding, and I am eager to engage with those who don't agree with my comment to better understand theirs.
Whose courts and what legal system is appropriate? Progress on the two-state solution has been stalled for years and the PA is at best a quasi-government that is not yet able to enforce its laws or exert control across its entire territory. The PA still relies on the Israeli government to manage the West Bank and they have basically lost control of the Gaza Strip. Has there even been an effort to bring this case before a Palestinian court?
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I’m not sure regarding any efforts to bring this case before a Palestinian court. I completely agree that the PA is ineffective at governing and deserves much criticism for the current state of affairs. Progress on the two state solution has been stalled for years and reaching any agreement at times seems like a pipe dream.
My understanding from the UN link that I shared is that international law applies here as Israel is an occupying power. I am not sure whether there is an international court to hear this dispute and rule according to the applicable international law. If there isn’t, though, I can’t bring myself to justify that Israel has the right to apply its laws and courts in order for there to be some system of law and order. Even if the PA is in effect ceding this responsibility to Israel through incompetence, applying Israeli law and adjudicating in Israeli courts sets a precedent that any occupying nation can do this in land that is not internationally recognized as their own so long as there is no functioning law and court system in that land. To me accepting this as precedent feels like a slippery slope toward an invitation for nations to engage in annexation and colonialism.
I didn't downvote you and respect your pragmatic view of research and coherent well thought-out out replay.
East Jerusalem is an annexed territory where the residents have an Israeli citizenship which is different from the west bank so in my opinion Israel law does apply and the specific International law/UN opinion does not apply.
Maybe don't rely on the opinions of random people? Why not take a look at what the IDF has to say, and then compare with what Hamas has to say, and see if you can figure out which side is inciting violence? It is not all that difficult to figure this one out.
(For the lazy people who would rather listen to a random stranger on the Internet: Hamas is the political party that current controls the Gaza Strip and is widely recognized to be a terrorist organization. Among other things, the first actions Hamas took after seizing power in the Gaza Strip included killing leaders from other Palestinian political parties. The Egyptian government has repeatedly closed the border with the Gaza Strip in response to Hamas using that border to import rockets and for trying to use Egyptian territory to fire rockets into Israel. The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank has sanctioned Hamas by refusing to pay for various things in the Gaza Strip. Obviously the Israelis have no patience for Hamas, but let's not pretend that this is the typical Zionists-vs-Palestinians dispute.)
> For the lazy people who would rather listen to a random stranger on the Internet:
The not so much "random stranger" above is clearly taking the Netanyahu regime side and discrediting any humanity from the reaction that the other side is taking.
> Hamas is the political party that current controls the Gaza Strip and is widely recognized to be a terrorist organization. Among other things, the first actions Hamas took after seizing power in the Gaza Strip included killing leaders from other Palestinian political parties.
Yitzhak Segev, once the Israeli military governor of Gaza, funded Ahmed Yassin and encouraged antagonism in him against secular Palestinian political forces.
It's funny for Israel to fund the founding of Hamas, encourage Muslim religious antagonism against more internationally appealing secular Palestinian figures, and then turn around and whinge about the people that they bankrolled. Hamas was bankrolled by Israel and its no secret.
Working people around the world know this and stand in support of Ahmad Sa'adat and other Palestinians to live free of the barbarism and tyranny Zionism is inflicting on them right now.
Shooting unguided missiles at population centers without strategic value isn't tyranny?
Booming busses and stubbing people in the street or forcing your way into people homes and stabbing sleeping kids and babies isn't barbarism?
Instead of blaming Israel for all that is wrong why don't you demand the liberation of the Gaza strip from Hamas, why don't you demand a better lives for the Palestinians in the refuges camps in Lebanon and Jorden where they are treaded as second class citizens. Where are all those big Arab countries who stand by the Palestinians but don't really want to make their lives better but to perpetuates their suffering so they'll have someone to blame.
You mean like building them homes, letting them get an education, integrated into your community or perpetuating their lives in slums the way to give them a normal lives?
It's easy to just ignore the problem instead of actually coming up with a plan the help them regardless of what you think is the righteous thing.
I'm all for them to live a normal lives but maybe the Arbs nations are also to blame? Shouldn't they actually do something instead of putting all the blame on Israel.
This region can barely sustain it's current population letting a few million souls isn't practical in any regard.
You can't put 100% of the blame and responsibility on one side, even if it's the strong one.
The Arab nations attacked and kept attacking Israel, if they wouldn't attack in 47 the partition plan would hold if they wouldn't work towards war in 67 there would be no need to conquer Gaza, west bank, Golan heights etc. and there would be no refuges. Keep in mind the 20% of the population of Israel are Arabs.
When Egypt was in control of Gaza were the Gazans citizens? No
When Jorden ruled east Jerusalem and the west bank were they citizens? No
Did they mistreat them? Yes
Did they try and hold the peace and avoid conflict? No
Was there an International cry for Palestinians self determination? No
Did they encourage violence and throwing Jews to the sea? Yes
I'm not saying Israel is an angel who did nothing wrong, horrible things did happen, and could have done things better but this should not all be on Israel shoulders.
The bottom line is that the world doesn't really want to get involved, they don't want to solve the conflict, the Arabs don't want to look weak and ashamed and the Israeli side doesn't want to make hard concessions.
That's one of the more probable cause of this specific issue. There's speculation all over the place in these comments but it's extremely likely that an automatic moderation system triggered these bans... That moderation system may have been responding to a bunch of people flagging posts from those accounts as hate speech or violence.
It's also quite difficult to actually solidly connect accounts with real-world persons - and equally difficult to find reliable streams on who has committed violent crimes (ones that aren't likely to be poisoned by political silencing) and integrate that into your system.
Social media has definitely made this problem on their own, but it isn't surprising to me that they're all struggling to weave a line between becoming tools of political repression and being full to the brim with extremism.
> If I ask my Jewish friends, they'll say Palestine is inciting violence. If I ask my Palestinian friends, they'll say Israel is.
Inciting violence is a broad definition.
There are two sides at war, each one using what they have at hand to fight the other side, however when we see regular well equipped troops our brain thinks "Army", while when there are random masked citizens with AK47s, we immediately think "Terrorists", also thanks to well crafted western propaganda.
As Peter Ustinov said: "terrorism is the war of the poor, war is the terrorism of the rich"; I see two sides battling, but one side just follows orders while the other defends their homes, therefore I am 100% with the Palestinians.
Defending their homes? So you must be on the side of Israeli civilians at whome Hamas is salvo firing rockets.
Or if you are on the side of Hamas should Twitter remove all the Iron Dome videos showing interception of rockets deliberately fired at civilians by Hamas?
> So you must be on the side of Israeli civilians at whome Hamas is salvo firing rockets.
I feel like this is similar to a false dichotomy. The GP is pointing out a difference in resources and thus power. It doesn't mean one does not empathize with anyone suffering. That's just not something that follows. Any case of someone who is having their home, workplace and life destroyed is an absolute tragedy. I don't think that distracts from GPs point at all which has to do with power dynamics and the media's presentation of events.
> Or if you are on the side of Hamas should Twitter remove all the Iron Dome videos showing interception of rockets deliberately fired at civilians by Hamas?
Why would they do this? I don't understand the relevance.
You’re right, civilians should be off limits. But don’t forget that many of those civilians are trained soldiers and could be deployed in a matter of days.
That had military targets including rocket depots, as you said targeted and that after doing a roof knock to notify the residents to evacuate. They have a few hours to do so before the building was destroyed, keep in mind that Hamas had offices there and rocket depots. This is not the same as lighting up a fuse to a rocket aimed at dense populated areas.
Ah, so it's fine to destroy civilian homes if they live near military targets and you give them some warning? Interesting. Do you apply that logic both ways? If Hamas sent a warning to Tel Aviv residents to evacuate because they would be firing rockets, would that satisfy you?
Yes it is, if there is a rocket depo in a building in central Gaza. There is a big difference between loss of life and loss of property.
I don't know of any military in the history of armed conflict that notify the targets to evacuate, keeping in mind that armed militants and rockets are in that building.
Do you think Israel should just let that site continue firing? I don't believe any country would allow that.
No, that will not satisfy me because they are shooting for maximum civilian casualties not military targets, what's the purpose of firing into Tel-Aviv, Rishon, Ashkelon, Jerusalem? It's to create terror.
Israel is occupying Palestinian territory in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Palestine is firing into cities because it has no other means to defend itself. It doesn't have an air force or the ability to pinpoint target missiles.
Imagine a much more powerful group was occupying your area, and you didn't have the technology to target your strikes carefully against only military targets. Should you simply roll over and allow their occupation to continue?
Let's start with that Israel isn't in Gaza, you can say that there is a sea blockade, ok, why? Remember Karine A? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karine_A_affair
Israel can keep it's border with Gaza closed, yet it's not, yes, it allows goods to come and go. There is border with Egypt yet it's the same. Water, electricity flow from Israel to gaza unpaid very colonialist of Israel.
I'm not saying that Israel isn't in the West bank, it is. Are their life better than the ones in Gaza? Absolutely yes. Why? Because https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Defensive_Shield and that there is corporation between the PA defense forces and Israel. Do they live normal life? No. Israel stand is that peace will be met with peace Israel is rarely the aggressor.
"Palestine is firing into cities because it has no other means to defend itself" this isn't self-defenses that's terrorism. You want to fire at military checkpoints, at soldiers at military vehicles and compounds fine, it's an armed conflict. If by your standards anything goes then don't hold Israel to a different value.
If I was under occupation I would target the military, I would target the the ones that are in my city I wouldn't go to a busy shopping center and blow myself up. I wouldn't fire rockets to kills as many people as I can, I wouldn't add ball bearings to create maximum affect.
According to nearly everyone - Amnesty International, the UN, the EU, the WHO, Oxfam, the Red Cross, the UK, etc. - Israel is occupying Gaza by virtue of all the control they have over it, even if they don't have troops literally living there. Israel itself says it's not occupying it, because that would be illegal, but they're hardly unbiased. In any case they control all airspace, territorial waters, what goods can be imported, they enter with troops at their leisure, etc. Then there's the West Bank, which even Israel acknowledges it is occupying (except Jerusalem, it still disputes that).
>>>...Israel is rarely the aggressor.
This completely depends on whether you consider military occupation aggression. I certainly would. If Israel stopped occupying Gaza and the West Bank and removed the settlements, then it would be a very different situation. As long as they're occupying Palestine, I don't know how you can see them as not being aggressors.
>>>If I was under occupation I would target the military
I suggest that if you were under military occupation, and you saw fellow civilians injured (or killed) and their homes destroyed, you might consider any methods that could stop that acceptable.
It's very simple. Drop the guns stop saying you want to destroy Israel and kill all the Jews. You think this is a political conflict? It's religious, always has been. Arab aggression towards Jews was way before the occupation, before the creation of the state of Israel. The fact that Israel has a peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan is a statement that a change of policies can enable peace, on both sides even if the other is reluctant.
Maybe show us an example by ending the illegal occupation of Canada and return to which ever country your family came from and give it back to the poor natives who suffer immensely under the Canadian occupation.
1) No modern Palestinian group (not even Hamas) is pushing the "kill all Jews" idea, thankfully. The majority seem to want a two state solution with Israel continuing to exist. And again, Israel is occupying territory; why isn't the onus on them to stop doing that?
2) What does it matter if it's religious or not? Call it religious or political or economic, what does that change?
3) And which of the countries my ancestors left ~150 years ago, that I don't have citizenship in, that (in some cases) don't exist any longer, should I return to, exactly? It was wrong for my ancestors to colonize and occupy Canada; we should take steps to undo that harm in the ways we can. I don't think that's the same situation as asking settlers who actively started occupying an area in the West Bank in the last five/ten/fifteen years to move back into Israel.
Let's look at this another way. How do you think this whole mess should be resolved, ideally? I think a two-state solution is really the only way. What would you like to see?
1) This is false, you should read the Hamas and Islamic Jihad charter, and their official statements. It's liberate from the river to the sea and slaughter the Jews.
2) It matters because even if you believe the occupation is wrong you need to understand the reason for it, the hostilities didn't not start in 47 and not in 67. Hell the PLO was founded in 64 to liberate Palestine by force.
3) It's the same situation, it's just it was hundreds of years ago going back to the 16th century. By that logic lets wait 100-200 years and then there will a statute of limitation? The only reason this is a thing is because news media, tv and radio which distort reality into small chunks to be feed to the masses. If this was Muslims conquering other Muslims that's fine but when it's Jews? Oy vey that won't do.
You have to understand that it's not the settlements in the west bank, they consider every Jew a settler and want them to go back to Europe or Russia. What about the 850K Jews who were expelled from Arab countries?
Ideally? Palestinians stop all hostilities. Denounce violence. Disarm. Recognize Israel right to exists. Israel stop building more settlements. Israel sees that they hold on to their word, ease road blocks, ease the blockade. Help them have a sea port and airport (which Israel already agreed to do but was declined), connect the gaza and west bank somehow. Both sides agree on borders with land and population exchange, Israel retains security controls, Israel and the Palestinians reduce friction to a minimum but there is a joined council with daily meeting with cooperation on security, economics, health and holy sites.
A non ideal solution is that neither side agrees to anything, all the settlers go back to Israel and the west bank and gaza become a nature reserve because no one can play nicely.
> You think this is a political conflict? It's religious, always has been
People aren't that much religious in Palestine, at least not the younger generations. Things change, generations come and go.
But I can understand if you think people are, because of so much silly things to read on Facebook etc.
However a 2-3 hours bus trip to get to the University (can be in total 4-5 h in the bus, per day), when normally it'd been 20? minutes by train (on a railroad that hasn't yet been built), doesn't make Israel and the checkpoints popular.
> However a 2-3 hours bus trip to get to the University (4-5 h/day), when normally it'd been 20? minutes by train (on a railroad that hasn't yet been built), doesn't make Israel and the checkpoints popular.
How else do you propose they quell the proliferation of arms that they know will eventually be fired into populated areas of Israel out of pure hatred, killing innocent civilians? They certainly don't run checkpoints because they're fun.
Please note that I didn't say that the barrier could just be removed.
Indeed among both the Israelis and Palestinians, there's a small percentage violent men (mostly men), for example, a small fraction of the people in IDF shot a thousand people in Gaza some years ago (about 100 died, don't remember exactly).
And a small fraction of the Palestinian men in Gaza fire rockets against civilians (although they pretend they target military but they don't) and I think eventually some people like them would blow bombs if they could get past the barrier. And that would restart a circle of violence, bad for everyone.
> How else do you propose they quell the proliferation of arms
That might take about a generation.
Examples: Stop doing bad things to one's neighbor: Don't send soldiers with weapons to the West Bank, building settlements and taking other people's land, forcing them to leave. You can websearch for "Breaking the silence IDF" maybe combined with "male soldier Gaza" or "female border police" to find out other things individuals in IDF or the border police sometimes do, that can create and keep alive such hatred you mention. (And maybe is that kind of hatred, just this time from some Israelis against Palestinians.)
And do kind things to one's neighbor: Share the Covid-19 vaccine with the Palestinians: Reverse time and give it to high risk group in Palestine, instead of first to low risk groups in Israel. Support women in Palestine who start their own businesses -- women are generally more peaceful and the more influence they have, the better.
And about the barriers: More buses, more checkpoints, and more staff in each checkpoint, so takes less time to pass the checkpoints. To respect other people's time.
There're probably 100s of things to stop doing, and 1 000s of things one could start doing, to create peace and friendship. Then, continue like that, for one (maybe two) generations, and it'll be fine.
(Plus doing kind things to the people in nearby Arab countries, so it'll be harder for dictators or corrupted politicians there, to say bad things about Israel -- which they apparently do a bit much, maybe to divert attention from problems in their own countries. For example, share the covid vaccine with the people in Lebanon.)
However I think Netanyahu and Hamas or Jihad group leaders, need conflict, to get more votes and stay in power. Isn't Netanyahu popular partly because many voters think he's saving them from danger. Too many of the voters don't realize that he is part of creating the danger. And the same goes for Hamas and jihad groups. And they'll want to continue taking land, and firing rockets, doing the opposite to what I mentioned above.
Those who do that, make Netanyahu stronger -- I think many people vote for him because they think he's better at stopping such things. (When in fact he encourages it by eg using military to take more land)
By firing rockets, they are Netanyahu's best recruiters for the elections.
Please don't say that "Palestinians" fire rockets? It's a small fraction, one in a thousand or less? who does that.
> firing into cities because it has no other means
That's like, "we cannot reach the military so let's stab a bunch of school children instead". Doesn't solve any problems, doesn't make a good impression
(And btw I think it'd be a bad and sad idea to fire rockets at military too. It's just ordinary people, there's general conscription in Israel. Now when I've said that I suppose I have to mention that I don't like violent settlers (those who are) and talking land from others.)
I didn't know that the commanders in IDF were doing that just now -- they've killed 40 Palestinian children and 139 adults, and comparing 40 with 139 indicates that most (almost all?) adults were civilians.
Those "let's stab a bunch of school children" type of people -- some of them are military commanders in IDF, and gives orders about those reckless bombings (of Gaza). That makes Hamas and jihad groups more popular in Gaza. (Whilst the rockets being fired makes Netanyahu more popular in Israel.)
Replying to myself as I don't want to start a flamewar in which each side is clearly strongly biased, therefore with zero chances of changing opinion.
In a war there are potentially no good people; war makes everyone capable of committing atrocities if there is a higher motivation. During WWII the insurgents in my country did nasty things as well, but the ultimate goal was to fight against the Nazi, which were a greater evil, heavily armed and more numerous. In such a situation you don't think twice but rather throw at the enemy every weapon you have. That's why I don't judge Palestinians if they also do bad things as I'm pretty sure that if they could they would rather hit an armed tank rather than a car with a family inside, but as the Ustinov line says, terrorism is the war of the poor, and they are just fighting with what they have at hand, also with no control on how events are reported.
Regarding who started it, there are well known maps that give an idea on who invaded who.
Example: https://wikispooks.com/w/images/8/86/Palestinian_land_loss.j...
This is not the only one, and minor inaccuracies, if any, don't invalidate the trend that is shown there.
Feel free to dissect each and every sentence of my post in order to find six lines to hang me Richelieu style, but be aware that the more effort you put in this the more you reveal to be a lot more biased than I am.
There won't be any more replies by me on this subject. Now back to technical stuff.
Is that really true or a badly timed example you gave? I have Jewish friends who most certainly will not blindly side with Israel only. Your last wording only for a exacerbates the issue of making the conflict a religious only issue when it isn’t.
> I'm no fan of the man, but banning Trump, in retrospect, will be a mistake. From now on
This precedent was set in the late 2000s when Facebook, Google, and Twitter started massive campaigns to investigate, report and remove Islamic extremist content on their platforms. A lot of legitimate non-extremist Islamic content and users got caught up in the censorship.
After the liveleak shutdown, I was worriedly looking for alternatives. In the HN thread there was mention of theync.com which features many graphic videos. Viewing some of these videos reminded me that in the US we (white collared workers) live in a very safe and comfy bubble. I imagine these are the videos that are being filtered out by the low paid content moderators of Youtube/Facebook/Instagram, etc. I feel that this filter partially allows us ignore the severity of the issues occurring in the world. It is one thing to read about atrocities, but something completely different to witness them occur on video. Though traumatic, it is probably a good idea to expose ourselves to some of these videos to remind ourselves that we do in fact play a role, albeit small, in these events. When human rights violations occur in the world, we collectively need to respond. As technologists, I suppose one way to help would be to arouse public responses by supporting efforts to help distribute this content via federated platforms like PeerTube, Matrix, Mastodon. But then again, maybe this is completely naive as time and time again the US has turned a blind eye to many atrocities. Anyhow, I digress...
reminds of the 'accidental glitches' after anti-Modi posts vanished in India, curiously enough shortly after India pressured social media companies into silencing dissent.
People who think of centralised social media as an empowerement of voice of minority dissent have made a grave mistake. It's only contingently supportive as long as the position of the minority voices isn't in conflict with political or economic interests of the powers that be. And big anything be it government, business and so on is always run by people who come from the same power-centres that minorities are trying to speak up against.
I think it is a LOT simpler than what you are suspecting. As someone in the comments has pointed out, mass reporting on certain types of articles or certain sources trigger automated review/removal of that content.
Normally, consensus reporting is a good sign that something is undesirable. In this case it has clearly been weaponized. This is a TUNING problem and it seems like social media companies have to find a way to balance on this
>This is a TUNING problem and it seems like social media companies have to find a way to balance on this
OK -- to play nice, let's say it's a tuning problem.
Why didn't this 'tuning problem' get fixed the first few times politically motivated messages got 'disappeared'?
At what point does the responsibility lie on those massaging the tuning methods?
my personal view is that social media is heavily gamed by the three-letter-agencies and all of their equivalents abroad. The existence of internal 'squads' within most of these groups that focus on social media networks reinforces that personal view -- if it wasn't an important battle ground then why form squadrons to seize and control it?
Why do we assume that it can be fixed? Even if there were no time constraint at all, and you could abolish all moderation tools to spend an hour carefully analyzing each individual post, I suspect you'd produce a lot of valid moderation complaints from people with different but reasonable assumptions. I don't think there exists any good strategy for moderating such controversial issues.
They could try to detect incipient political situations, similar to how they detect trending tweets, and then treat reports related to those tweets with greater than usual scrutiny.
I don't think anyone expects Twitter or other social media companies to get this perfect. The nature of the problem means there will always be edge cases, debatable calls, and algorithms automatically doing unfortunate things. I do think there is a reasonable expectation for these companies to both do more and make progress.
This. Facebook is a small startup and don't have moderators to check the validity of the report bombing at all. It's totally a glitchy algorithm. They're totally not waiting to use the «glitch» argument to counter it the moment there is a public outcry.
> anti-modi and anti-hindu and pro communist or Islamic
You can be anti modi without being Anti Hindu. Lot of educated people are pretty rational. Opposing Hindu votebank politics is not anti Hindu. (Of course there are a bunch of liberal arts graduates posing as liberals but being actually anti Hindu, but no way they constitute the majority of "English educated elite".)
your comment sounds like a collection of all insults that extreme right wingers throw around a lot.
Sounds like you grew up in an upper caste household with all those conspiracy theories of India being suppressed from being a superpower by outside powers and colonial tendencies. I know this happens because I grew up in similar environment. :(
> And you sound like someone who grew up in a elitist cocoon, parroting "pseudo liberal" wishy washy.
I grew up in a Brahmin household, and that's part of why I came to dislike and question all religions. I am not some pseudo liberal like you'd like to dismiss of (If you read my comment carefully, you will observe I have bashed them too).
The biggest problem is elitist attitude among ourselves. We should accept we were not some innately superior civilization that somehow got looted and screwed by colonialists, and that we have things to learn from outside as well. That's what the right wingers in India would never get.
Savarkar must be crying in the heaven seeing all nonsense "right wingers" perpetrate today.
> You really need to read my first comment carefully before using your libed powered psychoanalyst powers.
Your first comment was just a blanket name calling lumping everyone you disagree with as anti Hindu anti Modi and COMMUNIST [sic].
Before talking about liberal education, realize your faction of extreme nationalists is busy perpetrating nonsense about vedic indians having invented all science and whatnot. I call out anything I perceive as biased, no matter right or left wing.
> You as well as the leftists are part of this elite.
Assume everyone you disagree with is elite, conveniently ignoring the 2000 years of religious elitism, ultimately leading to rise of a lazy preisthood to prominence, in midst of which we lost half of the country to invaders. If the europeans you hate so much did not colonize us, we would be under even more shitty religious rulers for more years.
Hating colonialists is just a trend among right wingers, conveniently ignoring that was the game then. You can't paste history with black and white.
We cannot play victim card here, brother.
> It is the western, Islamic and communist countries that want to export their ideology, not us.
Sort of, because our Rightwing ideology is not concerned about every nation. Otherwise you guys would be trying to propagate it as well. Not to mention you speak as if all these are united conspiracy to suppress some "superpower India".
Every fucking religion tried to spread itself. Even Vedic religion spread itself to South India through Brahmin migrations. Communism and western wokeism are just that - some kind of religions thinking everything can be painted black or white. We need to be aware of them, but thinking they are a unified conspiracy against Indian corrupt incumbents who claim themselves to be "Dharma Rakshakas" is stupid beyond imagination.
I use the phrase "a lot" and "conditioned", precisely because the leftist/communist hold on education, transfered from the colonialist/church.
The colonialism narrative of every native civilization is to demonize them. The fact that you believe it is that you have accepted the white man's burden line, hook and sinker.
If you can not be helpful at least stop being a Macauly's sepoy.
Every civilization is built on a unifying grand narrative, real or imagined. There is nothing in the Hindutva grand narrative that involves wiping out other civilizations or dominating/enslaving them.
I see no harm in indulging in it. Especially when every other alternative involves wiping us out.
And stop bragging about your Brahmin background. 90% of Brahmins will sell their identity for a dollar and munch on beef burgers given a chance.
Identity and culture is the only valuable thing that 90% of poor Indians inherit from their ancestors and it is important for them to preserve it.
> The colonialism narrative of every native civilization is to demonize them. The fact that you believe it is that you have accepted the white man's burden line, hook and sinker.
Every civilization does that. They write history from their viewpoint. But at least they don't rely on sources of dubious credibility to reinforce their points. The grand hindutva narrative is often dubious and science-defying.
> I see no harm in indulging in it. Especially when every other alternative involves wiping us out.
You don't have to buy into a political narrative. You can just try to see objective truth.
> And stop bragging about your Brahmin background. 90% of Brahmins will sell their identity for a dollar and munch on beef burgers given a chance.
I did not brag about it. I told growing up in a Brahmin household made me realize we are also a stupid outdated religion, like all other religions. I also despised lazy preisthood in last comment.
And what's wrong with eating beef? It was just a tradition not to eat it due to religious reasons. You can follow good & reasonable things from Indian culture and be an atheist, Savarkar was.
The Brahman was supposed to be intellectual, even having an authority over the ruler class, being the face and brain of the society. What did __most__ Brahmins over the history do? Being lazy preists who did not contribute anything to society. Of course there are exceptions, but most did not value intellectual rigour, rather continued as religion preachers doing mystic rituals which position reinforced their wellbeing. If anything I am guilty of being born brahmin.
> Identity and culture is the only valuable thing that 90% of poor Indians inherit from their ancestors and it is important for them to preserve it.
It's also important to see what's good and what's bad for the current era. Even our sacred books say what's Dharma changes with time.
I generally don't argue with people indoctrinated with right or left wing philosophy and see everything as black and white. But on this site, it's disappointing to see someone repeating all the usual rightwing insults at the people they disagree with.
I do not understand what was misguided about my initial comment.
We are a decolonising nation, Modi is the first significant power shift away from the Lyuteans.
Our education is so full of leftist propaganda and whitewashed history.
For all your fears of pseudoscience, I am yet to see evidence of Modi pushing for it.
If you think "beef" is a religious issue and not a civilizational issue, I do not think you know enough about India to have an opinion. Just like Raul Vinci.
Asymptotically as the size of the staff that can delete things grows, the probability that at least one of them would be willing to delete things for "ideological purposes" will approach 1, right?
For sure, and we may well end up seeing some number of content moderators fired. As with any major crisis, there's gonna be people who feel that it's worth losing their job over.
I highly doubt anyone will lose their job for censoring Palestinians if not rewarded for it. Facebook has been banning Palestinians or pages sympathetic to them for a while now without any consequences. I would actually argue the volume of censorship of Palestinians has increased as the deep state’s control over Facebook has increased.
Heck, it even happens on TV ... look up "A staffer at local Fox affiliate Q13 has been fired after the station aired what appears to be a doctored video of President Donald Trump’s Tuesday night speech from the Oval Office." Sometime in 2019.
Arab Israelis are also Semites, and are just as much a target of anti-Israeli attitudes as Israeli Jews. The Palestinian identity is historically bound up with opposition to Israel which has often gone as far as outright hate, e.g. in Palestinian mass-media propaganda and early school education. This is what Israel has to work with, while seeking some sort of durable peace in the region. It's not an easy situation for them.
> The Palestinian identity is historically bound up with opposition to Israel
Yeah, I wonder why is that. It's not like they have any valid reason to be against Israel, like having their land being taken away from them in what is basically a lebensraum, so it's surely has to be just some kind of irrational hatred towards Jews.
> having their land being taken away from them in what is basically a lebensraum
I will concede that this is a common framing of the facts from the Palestinian side. It's not nearly as easy to describe it as 'neutral' however, or to ascertain with any certainty what counts as any "valid reason" as opposed to "irrational hate".
>> According to a 2017 survey by University of Haifa professor Sammy Smooha, 16% of the Arab population prefers the term "Israeli Arab", while the largest and fastest growing proportion prefers "Palestinian in Israel", and 17% prefer "Palestinian Arab"
>The Palestinian identity is historically bound up with opposition to Israel
All cultural and ethnic identities are synthetic. Whether we choose to accept a definition of Palestinian identity "in opposition to Israel" or not, we are not simply reading off a list, but creating new language. The area that became Israel and Palestine was partitioned between the Sanjuk of Jerusalem and the Vilayet of Beirut under the Ottomans, and the local and regional cultures and identities formed then were not in opposition to anything. To build a future, we are better off taking the good things from the past, rather than the bad ones.
> This is what Israel has to work with, while seeking some sort of durable peace in the region.
This is a situation prior generations of Israelis created in the midst of Palestinians who preferred not to be evicted and harassed from their homeland. This isn't some impossible situation in which Palestinians instinctively hate Israelis with no specific grievances. Moreover, Israel's idea of "durable peace" as proposed in agreements seems to be highly conditional on keeping the land they occupy, in excess of what is recognized by the Palestinians or even by international agreements.
The problem is that the lines between many of these words are confusing and often intentionally blurred by people on various sides.
While the definition of Semite includes Arabs and other people[1], anti-Semite is specifically defined as hostility towards Jews.[2]
Also not all Jews are Israelis, not all Israelis are Jews, not all Israelis or Jews are Zionists, and not all Zionists are Jews or Israelis.
It therefore is anti-Semitic when Jews are blamed for the actions of either Israelis or Zionists the same way it would be anti-Muslim to blame any random Muslim person for the actions of the Saudi government or any other specific group of Arab people.
It's pretty awesome how we've allowed one side of an intra-Semitic conflict to co-opt Semitism so completely that being the other Semitic party to that conflict is anti-Semitic.
The term is a misnomer. You might know the history already - the context is pseudoscientific theories concerning race in German intellectual circles in the late 1800s. Rather than Judenhass (Jew-hatred), Antisemitism is a scientific-sounding word, with an air of rationality and sophistication.
Generally from the start the word meant hating Jews (not Semitic peoples as in those that speak Semitic languages - Jews specifically). If it didn't originally, it certainly came to mean that over time.
Maybe people that speak Semitic languages are Semitic (I don't know - feels like pseudoscience, though there could be a lot of commonality in different ways). That being said, "Antisemitism" means hating Jews. It's not a special prize or anything. More than anything, the terminology is an unhelpful distraction from the more important things around when it comes up. I wish they stuck with "Judenhass".
> More than anything, the terminology is an unhelpful distraction from the more important things around when it comes up. I wish they stuck with "Judenhass".
We can certainly agree on that point. If nothing else, it makes much clearer the implications of characterizing Israeli–Palestinian enmity as a matter of Jew-hatred: no less than the invocation of Godwin's law as a thought-terminating cliche.
> If nothing else, it makes much clearer the implications of characterizing Israeli–Palestinian enmity as a matter of Jew-hatred:
You are basically doing the exact same thing in the opposite direction.
Equating all Jews with Israel is anti-Semitic because Israel does not represent all Jews and isn't exclusively populated by Jews.
Insinuating all anti-Semitism is related to Israel is anti-Semitic because it ignores the hostility and violence that has been directed towards Jews that has nothing to do with either historic or modern politics of The Holy Land.
> Equating all Jews with Israel is anti-Semitic because Israel does not represent all Jews and isn't exclusively populated by Jews.
I think I agree with at least the letter of this claim, but I'm very puzzled at what you mean to say by it. I'm not sure whether we have a real disagreement or are talking past each other.
Throwing the word "anti-Semitism" around in the context of the politics of the Holy Land robs it of meaning. The present Israeli–Palestinian enmity has fundamentally different bases, only tenuously connected to the Western tradition culminating in "anti-Semitism". To call one by the other's name is a rhetorical trick to point at an outward similarity (hostility directed toward a majority-Jewish group) to equate Palestinian grievances with a more familiar form of Jew-hatred, to paint them as illegitimate and thereby dismiss them out of hand. And this has never been such a simple black-and-white conflict.
What's funny is that IHRA's working definition of antisemitism first lines out exactly what you've just said, that Jews != Israel, and then goes to say that criticizing Israel for its actions is antisemitic.
- Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.
- Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
> the lines between many of these words are confusing and often intentionally blurred by people on various sides
This simply isn't true though. The line is intentionally blurred by one side in order to suppress any valid criticism of Israel or Zionism by labelling (libelling) that critique as a criticism of Jews. There is no "various sides" to this blurring of lines.
> It therefore is anti-Semitic when Jews are blamed for the actions of either Israelis or Zionists
Hypothetically it would be but does it happen? This myth that blaming of Jews is happening broadly (not just Israel/Zionists) is exactly the misinformation that's being discussed. Your comment only perpetuates this.
Linking to dictionary definitions is a bit of a strawman; everyone knows the difference, that's not evidence that conflation is actually widespread at all. I've certainly not seen any criticism of Jews.
The only fallacy here is assuming that "democracy" works that simply and efficiently.
Even aside from the fact that Israel is typically rated a "flawed democracy" in most indices due to the lack of press freedom, even it were a so-called "full democracy", no democracy even claims to be representative of constituents in any direct way (even those with relatively broad suffrage like NZ). Their goal is to be a best-of-alternatives approach in contrast to more regressive systems, along with known limitations such as majoritarianism, plutocratic platform access issues, etc.
So yes, it's the government. Some subset of the population may agree with them yes, but they are still very separate entities.
I'm not sure what this insistence on trying to separate the government from the people in Israel brings to the discussion.
By the way Israel has normalized relations with three Arab countries, the last agreement made in 2020. Unfortunately the palistinean peace effort is now close to 20 years, with no real progress there.
About half (?) the voters voted against Netanyahu, and I think even more disagree with taking more land, and that they'd rather want peace and friendliness with the Palestinians instead. So I think it makes sense to separate the Israeli government from ... most of the people.
On top of the sibling's comment on voters, it's also important to consider outside influence & lobbying. The incumbent Israeli establishment's ability to retain power doesn't occur independently of substantial aid from abroad, both pubic[0] and private[1]
If it has been deemed a trusted reporter it is a bug. They are never to be trusted. The whole reason it exists is to get posts removed that doesn't break rules but is not pro-israel.
[T]he Israeli government’s “Cyber Unit” [is] an entity that, among other things, reaches out to major online platforms like Facebook and Twitter with requests that the platforms remove content. It’s one of a number of such agencies around the globe, which are known as Internet Referral Units. Earlier in April, the Israeli Supreme Court gave a green light to the unit’s activities, rejecting a legal challenge that charged the unit with infringing on constitutional rights.
I'm wondering if this "coordinated mass reporting" has been automated, in a botnet kind of a way. This happened to a youtuber I follow recently, who has his channel demonetised for hate speech. A Youtube rep stated that it looked like incorrect flagging by viewers.
When it comes to hot-button geopolitics, is there such a thing as a reverse Hanlon's Razor? Where you should be attributing such "glitches" to malice and not stupidity?
My wild guess is JIDF [1], or a similar organization, is using multiple accounts to flag posts as violating community standards. Once it reaches a certain threshold of “downvotes”, some algorithm by Twitter/Instagram hides the content.
JIDF doesn't exist anymore but others have replaced it, eg ACT.il, they use "hasbara" documents that describe how to use logical fallacies and how to twist history to win online arguments. It's a really disgusting document.
The geographic description offered in the article is interesting to me... well, except for Columbia who knows what's going on there - it sounds like this may actually have been a legitimate tool accident since American Indigenous peoples and Palestinians are likely to register as existing in one nation and then frequently border hop in quick succession. If an automatic tool saw tweets from a certain user coming from IP Addresses in Australia and the UK interleaved during the same day it might mark that activity as spoofing - the palestinian border is incredibly complicated so I would be amazed if some users didn't constantly bounce back and forth during a daily commute. Indigenous communities are probably in a similar situation - they might have a cell tower or two marked as being within the rez with several other surrounding ones being marked as being in america proper and, due to hills, trees and whatever - their phone constantly bounces back and forth between the two.
Happened with LinkedIn as well. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-6797910928844230656-... So, as somebody pointed out I guess it's the mass reporting with bunch of humans or bots knowing that the algorithm would trigger. Perhaps like DDoS on Social media posts
I have no idea what actually happened here (maybe a mixture of things), and I know a lot of people don't necessarily think some powerful billionaire deserves any pity, or they may think he's actually involved in censoring things himself, but I kind of feel sympathy for Jack Dorsey. What a mess.
This just goes to demonstrate what might be triggering these false positive auto-moderation, but it shouldn't justify it.
What I mean is that if the model they use for flagging would infer that legit spam (comments to a post by Justin Bieber AFAIK isn't related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) could mean that similar content when applied to relevant content is still spam (or marked for deletion for other reasons).
It's a bit like if google page rank algorithm identified a website being copied by multiple websites and punished the website that was the first to publish that content instead of other way around. If that was the case, it would have obviously been exploited to bury competitors pages.
I think what probably happened is these people (real or bots) posted on every major influencer and liked each other's posts to get them to the top of the posts.
Which is very similar to what a spam bot ring would do.
There is currently also a Palestinian spam campaign on Facebook. Look at recent posts from popular media pages on completely unrelated topics. The comments are flooded with repetitive Palestinian messages.
This is similar to the famous "come to Besiktas!" posts. Or to whenever a Turkish or Egyptian footballer comes to a certain team, you can be sure that said team's social media channels will be inundated by Turkish or Egyptians fans for the duration of the player's stay. In other words it is spamming, but it is not State-sponsored spamming, like it happens with Israel.
Its time to realize that Media companies have been lying their asses off for many years. So many people still believe what their TV tells them. And will grasp for any plausible explanation that still keeps their world view intact. No matter how many twists of logic it may be.
Why do you think Internet media is different? News outlets have political agenda, so do people who comment on reddit or create websites, it's inherently biased.
It’s been interesting to see how the Israel/Palestine conflict falls outside the normal lines of left/right divide. You’d expect most of the lefties to side with the Palestinians since they’re the most analogous to the protected groups these people are usually so concerned with. But it turns out if you’re a leftie who happens to also be Jewish, you’re far more likely to support government violence than your political views might suggest.
Sure, if you subscribe to a broader definition of "government violence" that also probably includes aboriginal North Americans in militias haphazardly shooting arrows at European settlers that had firearms and had occupied their land by force.
The left hates what? The left profess to like indigenous people from where? It's interesting how people make weird sweeping statements like this that mean nothing and have no relation to any definition of left. I guess if you say that someone believes something nonsensical, it makes them look like the unreasonable one?
One of the major groups supporting the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination is 'Jewish lefties'. Alongside Palestinian voices, those who feel
solidarity because of Arab or Muslim identities, and those who work in general against colonialism, Jewish lefties who make a specific point of rejecting the 'community mainstream' of generally supporting Israel are and have always been involved in opposing the excesses of Zionism.
I know some of them and they are very brave people. They are constantly accused of being 'self-hating' and even Nazi sympathizers by more right-wing Jews. It's a pretty big deal if you are Jewish and get accused of being a 'Kapo' by other Jews. And they are often treated with suspicion or worse by other pro-Palestinian activists. Many people expect them to constantly condemn, apologize for or disassociate themselves from Israel's actions, simply because they are Jewish. They also have to contend with the fact that a proportion of their 'allies' are either actual antisemites using Palestine as a pretext, or well-meaning idiots who get caught up in conspiracy theories and racist tropes without understanding how they are connected to antisemitism.
I would say that being leftwing and opposed to the status quo in Israel is one of the major reasons that Jewish people become disillusioned with their community and end up completely rejecting the religious identity. And having to deal with accusations like yours is one of the main things stopping Jewish people who oppose the Israeli occupation from being more involved in activism.
the "caught up in racist tropes" thing reminds me of an incident that occurred at my university. there was a speech by someone involved w/ the Israeli govt & during the Q&A a Palestine activist asked them a question about organ harvesting by Israeli doctors. immediately she was accused of perpetuating the blood libel & a lot of Jewish students got understandably pissed off. but it turned out that her question was in reference to a specific incident where Israeli doctors actually did harvest organs w/o permission from relatives from dead Palestinians as well as Israelis: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/dec/21/israeli-pathol.... I spoke to her afterwards & she hadn't even heard of the blood libel. so there's definitely a need to both educate activists & recognize that innocent misunderstandings occur
The Guardian has recently written a series of articles about social media manipulation but it seems to go under the radar because it doesn't affect rich countries. This issue is very pernicious and deadly, that's why "glitches" is not enough of an explanation. I think it's worth investingating for inside operations.
Social media manipulation (a bad, nefarious thing!) is hard to tell apart form social media moderation (a good, virtuous thing!).
Moderation is not just about removing illegal content (yes, most countries make certain content illegal, and publishing it, punishable). It's also about removing or de-emphasizing legal but unwanted content, various hooliganism, but also things the public sees as unwholesome, and flags as such. This, of course, also differs from country to country.
Israel / Arab conflict is one of the worst in this regard. One half of it will tell you about terrible oppressors who capture land, bring military force, and keep peaceful people under a blockade. And they'd be correct. The other side will tell about terrible oppressors who rain rockets on peaceful cities, engage in acts of terror, and proclaim the need to eradicate the other side. They'd also be right.
There is no way to make it peaceful and nice on Twitter when it is not peaceful and nice in the real life, for last like 60 years. There's no way any algorithm would look "fair" to people leaning either side, or even to people not caring enough to take sides.
Sorry, this is an intrusion of ugly reality which technical means cannot conceal. In this regard, there's no good, fair, nice, etc solution for Twitter, or any other social media.
> The other side will tell about terrible oppressors who rain rockets on peaceful cities, engage in acts of terror, and proclaim the need to eradicate the other side. They'd also be right.
No, they really wouldn't. An occupied people cannot be considered "oppressors"--they are the ones being oppressed. Palestinian casualties over the last few decades are roughly 10x Israeli casualties. Israel is a nuclear-armed state backed by the US government. The Palestinians don't even have a formal military.
Trying to put equal blame on the Palestinians is just providing cover for the Israeli's on-going genocide of Palestinians.
> Palestinian casualties over the last few decades are roughly 10x Israeli casualties.
That's because Israel is better at defending from attacks by Hamas and also prioritizes the defense higher than Hamas. Saying that one side has fewer casualties, implying that they are "the bad ones", is smoke and mirrors.
When Hamas shoots missiles at Israel, Israelis have bunkers to hide in. When the Israeli military bombs the Gaza Strip, there are no bunkers for the people there to hide in - Israel has made sure of that by blocking imports of concrete and steel so there is literally no way to build them. Blaming this on Hamas not having prioritized defense higher is the foulest, evillest kind of victim blaming.
Hamas gets missiles and all sort of weapons, but they can't get steel? Magic. Then they place the missile batteries next to hospitals, schools and mosques. That shows their commitment to ~defending Palestinians~ attacking Israelis.
Meanwhile we should blame Israel for building effective missile defense systems...
> Trying to put equal blame on the Palestinians is just providing cover for the Israeli's on-going genocide of Palestinians.
People really like to throw the word genocide around, but I really can't see how it's applicable here. The population has been steadily growing for many many years now[0]. If you consider this genocide, it must be the least effective genocide in recorded history.
Considering the huge imbalance of military power, it seems entirely reasonable that if Israel wanted to commit genocide, they could do it. Why waste all this money on targetted air strikes when you could just indiscriminately drop bombs? They say that each Iron Dome counter missle costs ~40k, instead of investing in counter missles, why not just use that to flatten Gazza and the West Bank?
There are many statements you can make about Israel and it's treatment of Palestinians, but trying to claim that they are committing genocide seems very disingenuous to me.
252 comments
[ 23.3 ms ] story [ 289 ms ] threadAlso, can an algorithm be Zionist?
The Jewish CEO of Facebook/Instagram not participating in the gaslighting of everyone that questions Israeli judicial processes and outcomes?
Thats literally what is happening! We perceive one reality and they say thats not valid, the exact thing you think is happening is a glitch!
For a concrete example, imagine that a company was prioritizing investigation of moderator actions based on the average emotional reaction of twelve or so people on an accountability board, when presented with each case. If the accountability board has any biases that don't average to zero across the dozen, the diverse stream of injustices will get corrected more in one direction than another, and the result will be injustice even in the absence of any individual with bad intentions.
That's an unbacked claim, but reality says otherwise [1].
[1]: https://youtu.be/XR8YSRcuVLE
Somehow it was not an accident when users were tweeting 'hammer' a few months back and getting suspended but this somehow falls under a 'glitch' (Yeah right).
Perhaps, another 'accidental glitch' once again by those who give no explanation of how it happened other than a vague description of the 'issue'.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27127997
I guess we're not out of trouble yet
[1] https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/1392175039181623301
Who determines this? If I ask my Jewish friends, they'll say Palestine is inciting violence. If I ask my Palestinian friends, they'll say Israel is. Who should Twitter ban?
1. ban people for threatening violence
2. what if both sides are?
3. then consider which side is killing people
4. count up how many people each side is killing, and only ban sides with a large number
and that's what doesn't make sense to me.
Well unless you have specific evidence, that seems to be a reality we don't live in, so not really something we need to worry about. The point of the GP was to point out the power differential. That seems to remain the consant even in your hypothetical world.
More important than the actual facts of the case is this: HOW is a legal dispute, which is working its way through a civil court system -- the same court system that ruled in favor of these Palestinian families in the 1980s -- an "incitement to violence?" I am genuinely curious to know what the argument is here.
Let us also remember that the ruling regime is accused of committing the crime of Apartheid. [1]
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-56898864
Based on a recent statement from the UN, I don't believe Israel has this right (https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/05/1091492). My inclination to evaluate the situation purely on the facts of the dispute implies that Israel does. Regardless of how long ago this all came to be, Israel remains an occupying power in the eyes of International Law. The laws and courts of Israel should not apply here.
[Edit: I did not downvote you.]
My understanding from the UN link that I shared is that international law applies here as Israel is an occupying power. I am not sure whether there is an international court to hear this dispute and rule according to the applicable international law. If there isn’t, though, I can’t bring myself to justify that Israel has the right to apply its laws and courts in order for there to be some system of law and order. Even if the PA is in effect ceding this responsibility to Israel through incompetence, applying Israeli law and adjudicating in Israeli courts sets a precedent that any occupying nation can do this in land that is not internationally recognized as their own so long as there is no functioning law and court system in that land. To me accepting this as precedent feels like a slippery slope toward an invitation for nations to engage in annexation and colonialism.
(For the lazy people who would rather listen to a random stranger on the Internet: Hamas is the political party that current controls the Gaza Strip and is widely recognized to be a terrorist organization. Among other things, the first actions Hamas took after seizing power in the Gaza Strip included killing leaders from other Palestinian political parties. The Egyptian government has repeatedly closed the border with the Gaza Strip in response to Hamas using that border to import rockets and for trying to use Egyptian territory to fire rockets into Israel. The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank has sanctioned Hamas by refusing to pay for various things in the Gaza Strip. Obviously the Israelis have no patience for Hamas, but let's not pretend that this is the typical Zionists-vs-Palestinians dispute.)
The not so much "random stranger" above is clearly taking the Netanyahu regime side and discrediting any humanity from the reaction that the other side is taking.
Yitzhak Segev, once the Israeli military governor of Gaza, funded Ahmed Yassin and encouraged antagonism in him against secular Palestinian political forces.
It's funny for Israel to fund the founding of Hamas, encourage Muslim religious antagonism against more internationally appealing secular Palestinian figures, and then turn around and whinge about the people that they bankrolled. Hamas was bankrolled by Israel and its no secret.
Working people around the world know this and stand in support of Ahmad Sa'adat and other Palestinians to live free of the barbarism and tyranny Zionism is inflicting on them right now.
Instead of blaming Israel for all that is wrong why don't you demand the liberation of the Gaza strip from Hamas, why don't you demand a better lives for the Palestinians in the refuges camps in Lebanon and Jorden where they are treaded as second class citizens. Where are all those big Arab countries who stand by the Palestinians but don't really want to make their lives better but to perpetuates their suffering so they'll have someone to blame.
Refugees should return to their homeland, in case you don't know how to let them get the normal life of a citizen.
International laws put all the responsibility on the colonizer's shoulder (i.e. The Netanyahu regime). So please stop spreading more red herrings.
When Egypt was in control of Gaza were the Gazans citizens? No
When Jorden ruled east Jerusalem and the west bank were they citizens? No
Did they mistreat them? Yes
Did they try and hold the peace and avoid conflict? No
Was there an International cry for Palestinians self determination? No
Did they encourage violence and throwing Jews to the sea? Yes
I'm not saying Israel is an angel who did nothing wrong, horrible things did happen, and could have done things better but this should not all be on Israel shoulders.
The bottom line is that the world doesn't really want to get involved, they don't want to solve the conflict, the Arabs don't want to look weak and ashamed and the Israeli side doesn't want to make hard concessions.
It's also quite difficult to actually solidly connect accounts with real-world persons - and equally difficult to find reliable streams on who has committed violent crimes (ones that aren't likely to be poisoned by political silencing) and integrate that into your system.
Social media has definitely made this problem on their own, but it isn't surprising to me that they're all struggling to weave a line between becoming tools of political repression and being full to the brim with extremism.
Inciting violence is a broad definition. There are two sides at war, each one using what they have at hand to fight the other side, however when we see regular well equipped troops our brain thinks "Army", while when there are random masked citizens with AK47s, we immediately think "Terrorists", also thanks to well crafted western propaganda. As Peter Ustinov said: "terrorism is the war of the poor, war is the terrorism of the rich"; I see two sides battling, but one side just follows orders while the other defends their homes, therefore I am 100% with the Palestinians.
Or if you are on the side of Hamas should Twitter remove all the Iron Dome videos showing interception of rockets deliberately fired at civilians by Hamas?
I feel like this is similar to a false dichotomy. The GP is pointing out a difference in resources and thus power. It doesn't mean one does not empathize with anyone suffering. That's just not something that follows. Any case of someone who is having their home, workplace and life destroyed is an absolute tragedy. I don't think that distracts from GPs point at all which has to do with power dynamics and the media's presentation of events.
> Or if you are on the side of Hamas should Twitter remove all the Iron Dome videos showing interception of rockets deliberately fired at civilians by Hamas?
Why would they do this? I don't understand the relevance.
You’re right, civilians should be off limits. But don’t forget that many of those civilians are trained soldiers and could be deployed in a matter of days.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_...
No, that will not satisfy me because they are shooting for maximum civilian casualties not military targets, what's the purpose of firing into Tel-Aviv, Rishon, Ashkelon, Jerusalem? It's to create terror.
Imagine a much more powerful group was occupying your area, and you didn't have the technology to target your strikes carefully against only military targets. Should you simply roll over and allow their occupation to continue?
I'm not saying that Israel isn't in the West bank, it is. Are their life better than the ones in Gaza? Absolutely yes. Why? Because https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Defensive_Shield and that there is corporation between the PA defense forces and Israel. Do they live normal life? No. Israel stand is that peace will be met with peace Israel is rarely the aggressor.
"Palestine is firing into cities because it has no other means to defend itself" this isn't self-defenses that's terrorism. You want to fire at military checkpoints, at soldiers at military vehicles and compounds fine, it's an armed conflict. If by your standards anything goes then don't hold Israel to a different value.
If I was under occupation I would target the military, I would target the the ones that are in my city I wouldn't go to a busy shopping center and blow myself up. I wouldn't fire rockets to kills as many people as I can, I wouldn't add ball bearings to create maximum affect.
>>>...Israel is rarely the aggressor.
This completely depends on whether you consider military occupation aggression. I certainly would. If Israel stopped occupying Gaza and the West Bank and removed the settlements, then it would be a very different situation. As long as they're occupying Palestine, I don't know how you can see them as not being aggressors.
>>>If I was under occupation I would target the military
I suggest that if you were under military occupation, and you saw fellow civilians injured (or killed) and their homes destroyed, you might consider any methods that could stop that acceptable.
Maybe show us an example by ending the illegal occupation of Canada and return to which ever country your family came from and give it back to the poor natives who suffer immensely under the Canadian occupation.
1) No modern Palestinian group (not even Hamas) is pushing the "kill all Jews" idea, thankfully. The majority seem to want a two state solution with Israel continuing to exist. And again, Israel is occupying territory; why isn't the onus on them to stop doing that?
2) What does it matter if it's religious or not? Call it religious or political or economic, what does that change?
3) And which of the countries my ancestors left ~150 years ago, that I don't have citizenship in, that (in some cases) don't exist any longer, should I return to, exactly? It was wrong for my ancestors to colonize and occupy Canada; we should take steps to undo that harm in the ways we can. I don't think that's the same situation as asking settlers who actively started occupying an area in the West Bank in the last five/ten/fifteen years to move back into Israel.
Let's look at this another way. How do you think this whole mess should be resolved, ideally? I think a two-state solution is really the only way. What would you like to see?
2) It matters because even if you believe the occupation is wrong you need to understand the reason for it, the hostilities didn't not start in 47 and not in 67. Hell the PLO was founded in 64 to liberate Palestine by force.
3) It's the same situation, it's just it was hundreds of years ago going back to the 16th century. By that logic lets wait 100-200 years and then there will a statute of limitation? The only reason this is a thing is because news media, tv and radio which distort reality into small chunks to be feed to the masses. If this was Muslims conquering other Muslims that's fine but when it's Jews? Oy vey that won't do. You have to understand that it's not the settlements in the west bank, they consider every Jew a settler and want them to go back to Europe or Russia. What about the 850K Jews who were expelled from Arab countries?
Ideally? Palestinians stop all hostilities. Denounce violence. Disarm. Recognize Israel right to exists. Israel stop building more settlements. Israel sees that they hold on to their word, ease road blocks, ease the blockade. Help them have a sea port and airport (which Israel already agreed to do but was declined), connect the gaza and west bank somehow. Both sides agree on borders with land and population exchange, Israel retains security controls, Israel and the Palestinians reduce friction to a minimum but there is a joined council with daily meeting with cooperation on security, economics, health and holy sites.
A non ideal solution is that neither side agrees to anything, all the settlers go back to Israel and the west bank and gaza become a nature reserve because no one can play nicely.
People aren't that much religious in Palestine, at least not the younger generations. Things change, generations come and go.
But I can understand if you think people are, because of so much silly things to read on Facebook etc.
However a 2-3 hours bus trip to get to the University (can be in total 4-5 h in the bus, per day), when normally it'd been 20? minutes by train (on a railroad that hasn't yet been built), doesn't make Israel and the checkpoints popular.
How else do you propose they quell the proliferation of arms that they know will eventually be fired into populated areas of Israel out of pure hatred, killing innocent civilians? They certainly don't run checkpoints because they're fun.
Indeed among both the Israelis and Palestinians, there's a small percentage violent men (mostly men), for example, a small fraction of the people in IDF shot a thousand people in Gaza some years ago (about 100 died, don't remember exactly).
And a small fraction of the Palestinian men in Gaza fire rockets against civilians (although they pretend they target military but they don't) and I think eventually some people like them would blow bombs if they could get past the barrier. And that would restart a circle of violence, bad for everyone.
> How else do you propose they quell the proliferation of arms
That might take about a generation.
Examples: Stop doing bad things to one's neighbor: Don't send soldiers with weapons to the West Bank, building settlements and taking other people's land, forcing them to leave. You can websearch for "Breaking the silence IDF" maybe combined with "male soldier Gaza" or "female border police" to find out other things individuals in IDF or the border police sometimes do, that can create and keep alive such hatred you mention. (And maybe is that kind of hatred, just this time from some Israelis against Palestinians.)
And do kind things to one's neighbor: Share the Covid-19 vaccine with the Palestinians: Reverse time and give it to high risk group in Palestine, instead of first to low risk groups in Israel. Support women in Palestine who start their own businesses -- women are generally more peaceful and the more influence they have, the better.
And about the barriers: More buses, more checkpoints, and more staff in each checkpoint, so takes less time to pass the checkpoints. To respect other people's time.
There're probably 100s of things to stop doing, and 1 000s of things one could start doing, to create peace and friendship. Then, continue like that, for one (maybe two) generations, and it'll be fine.
(Plus doing kind things to the people in nearby Arab countries, so it'll be harder for dictators or corrupted politicians there, to say bad things about Israel -- which they apparently do a bit much, maybe to divert attention from problems in their own countries. For example, share the covid vaccine with the people in Lebanon.)
However I think Netanyahu and Hamas or Jihad group leaders, need conflict, to get more votes and stay in power. Isn't Netanyahu popular partly because many voters think he's saving them from danger. Too many of the voters don't realize that he is part of creating the danger. And the same goes for Hamas and jihad groups. And they'll want to continue taking land, and firing rockets, doing the opposite to what I mentioned above.
Those who do that, make Netanyahu stronger -- I think many people vote for him because they think he's better at stopping such things. (When in fact he encourages it by eg using military to take more land)
By firing rockets, they are Netanyahu's best recruiters for the elections.
Please don't say that "Palestinians" fire rockets? It's a small fraction, one in a thousand or less? who does that.
> firing into cities because it has no other means
That's like, "we cannot reach the military so let's stab a bunch of school children instead". Doesn't solve any problems, doesn't make a good impression
(And btw I think it'd be a bad and sad idea to fire rockets at military too. It's just ordinary people, there's general conscription in Israel. Now when I've said that I suppose I have to mention that I don't like violent settlers (those who are) and talking land from others.)
I didn't know that the commanders in IDF were doing that just now -- they've killed 40 Palestinian children and 139 adults, and comparing 40 with 139 indicates that most (almost all?) adults were civilians.
Those "let's stab a bunch of school children" type of people -- some of them are military commanders in IDF, and gives orders about those reckless bombings (of Gaza). That makes Hamas and jihad groups more popular in Gaza. (Whilst the rockets being fired makes Netanyahu more popular in Israel.)
In a war there are potentially no good people; war makes everyone capable of committing atrocities if there is a higher motivation. During WWII the insurgents in my country did nasty things as well, but the ultimate goal was to fight against the Nazi, which were a greater evil, heavily armed and more numerous. In such a situation you don't think twice but rather throw at the enemy every weapon you have. That's why I don't judge Palestinians if they also do bad things as I'm pretty sure that if they could they would rather hit an armed tank rather than a car with a family inside, but as the Ustinov line says, terrorism is the war of the poor, and they are just fighting with what they have at hand, also with no control on how events are reported.
Regarding who started it, there are well known maps that give an idea on who invaded who. Example: https://wikispooks.com/w/images/8/86/Palestinian_land_loss.j... This is not the only one, and minor inaccuracies, if any, don't invalidate the trend that is shown there.
Feel free to dissect each and every sentence of my post in order to find six lines to hang me Richelieu style, but be aware that the more effort you put in this the more you reveal to be a lot more biased than I am.
There won't be any more replies by me on this subject. Now back to technical stuff.
Hundreds of thousands upvoted a fake hitler quote… will they get banned for inciting violence? Hopefully…?
This precedent was set in the late 2000s when Facebook, Google, and Twitter started massive campaigns to investigate, report and remove Islamic extremist content on their platforms. A lot of legitimate non-extremist Islamic content and users got caught up in the censorship.
Found it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26117559
People who think of centralised social media as an empowerement of voice of minority dissent have made a grave mistake. It's only contingently supportive as long as the position of the minority voices isn't in conflict with political or economic interests of the powers that be. And big anything be it government, business and so on is always run by people who come from the same power-centres that minorities are trying to speak up against.
Normally, consensus reporting is a good sign that something is undesirable. In this case it has clearly been weaponized. This is a TUNING problem and it seems like social media companies have to find a way to balance on this
OK -- to play nice, let's say it's a tuning problem.
Why didn't this 'tuning problem' get fixed the first few times politically motivated messages got 'disappeared'?
At what point does the responsibility lie on those massaging the tuning methods?
my personal view is that social media is heavily gamed by the three-letter-agencies and all of their equivalents abroad. The existence of internal 'squads' within most of these groups that focus on social media networks reinforces that personal view -- if it wasn't an important battle ground then why form squadrons to seize and control it?
I don't think anyone expects Twitter or other social media companies to get this perfect. The nature of the problem means there will always be edge cases, debatable calls, and algorithms automatically doing unfortunate things. I do think there is a reasonable expectation for these companies to both do more and make progress.
That's exactly what nearly everyone expects, for exactly their own individual definition of perfect.
This is the result of letting cooperations own communication channels, something we were escaping until smartphone apps became popular.
Meaning a lot of "moderators" are conditioned to be anti-modi and anti-hindu and pro communist or Islamic inspite of India's tragic history with both.
> anti-modi and anti-hindu and pro communist or Islamic
You can be anti modi without being Anti Hindu. Lot of educated people are pretty rational. Opposing Hindu votebank politics is not anti Hindu. (Of course there are a bunch of liberal arts graduates posing as liberals but being actually anti Hindu, but no way they constitute the majority of "English educated elite".)
your comment sounds like a collection of all insults that extreme right wingers throw around a lot.
Sounds like you grew up in an upper caste household with all those conspiracy theories of India being suppressed from being a superpower by outside powers and colonial tendencies. I know this happens because I grew up in similar environment. :(
Unlike Nazis, colonialism did not face trial, so it continues on in its many old ways.
I grew up in a Brahmin household, and that's part of why I came to dislike and question all religions. I am not some pseudo liberal like you'd like to dismiss of (If you read my comment carefully, you will observe I have bashed them too).
The biggest problem is elitist attitude among ourselves. We should accept we were not some innately superior civilization that somehow got looted and screwed by colonialists, and that we have things to learn from outside as well. That's what the right wingers in India would never get.
Savarkar must be crying in the heaven seeing all nonsense "right wingers" perpetrate today.
You as well as the leftists are part of this elite.
You really need to read my first comment carefully before using your libed powered psychoanalyst powers.
It is the western, Islamic and communist countries that want to export their ideology, not us.
Your first comment was just a blanket name calling lumping everyone you disagree with as anti Hindu anti Modi and COMMUNIST [sic].
Before talking about liberal education, realize your faction of extreme nationalists is busy perpetrating nonsense about vedic indians having invented all science and whatnot. I call out anything I perceive as biased, no matter right or left wing.
> You as well as the leftists are part of this elite.
Assume everyone you disagree with is elite, conveniently ignoring the 2000 years of religious elitism, ultimately leading to rise of a lazy preisthood to prominence, in midst of which we lost half of the country to invaders. If the europeans you hate so much did not colonize us, we would be under even more shitty religious rulers for more years.
Hating colonialists is just a trend among right wingers, conveniently ignoring that was the game then. You can't paste history with black and white.
We cannot play victim card here, brother.
> It is the western, Islamic and communist countries that want to export their ideology, not us.
Sort of, because our Rightwing ideology is not concerned about every nation. Otherwise you guys would be trying to propagate it as well. Not to mention you speak as if all these are united conspiracy to suppress some "superpower India".
Every fucking religion tried to spread itself. Even Vedic religion spread itself to South India through Brahmin migrations. Communism and western wokeism are just that - some kind of religions thinking everything can be painted black or white. We need to be aware of them, but thinking they are a unified conspiracy against Indian corrupt incumbents who claim themselves to be "Dharma Rakshakas" is stupid beyond imagination.
The colonialism narrative of every native civilization is to demonize them. The fact that you believe it is that you have accepted the white man's burden line, hook and sinker.
If you can not be helpful at least stop being a Macauly's sepoy.
Every civilization is built on a unifying grand narrative, real or imagined. There is nothing in the Hindutva grand narrative that involves wiping out other civilizations or dominating/enslaving them.
I see no harm in indulging in it. Especially when every other alternative involves wiping us out.
And stop bragging about your Brahmin background. 90% of Brahmins will sell their identity for a dollar and munch on beef burgers given a chance.
Identity and culture is the only valuable thing that 90% of poor Indians inherit from their ancestors and it is important for them to preserve it.
Every civilization does that. They write history from their viewpoint. But at least they don't rely on sources of dubious credibility to reinforce their points. The grand hindutva narrative is often dubious and science-defying.
> I see no harm in indulging in it. Especially when every other alternative involves wiping us out.
You don't have to buy into a political narrative. You can just try to see objective truth.
> And stop bragging about your Brahmin background. 90% of Brahmins will sell their identity for a dollar and munch on beef burgers given a chance.
I did not brag about it. I told growing up in a Brahmin household made me realize we are also a stupid outdated religion, like all other religions. I also despised lazy preisthood in last comment.
And what's wrong with eating beef? It was just a tradition not to eat it due to religious reasons. You can follow good & reasonable things from Indian culture and be an atheist, Savarkar was.
The Brahman was supposed to be intellectual, even having an authority over the ruler class, being the face and brain of the society. What did __most__ Brahmins over the history do? Being lazy preists who did not contribute anything to society. Of course there are exceptions, but most did not value intellectual rigour, rather continued as religion preachers doing mystic rituals which position reinforced their wellbeing. If anything I am guilty of being born brahmin.
> Identity and culture is the only valuable thing that 90% of poor Indians inherit from their ancestors and it is important for them to preserve it.
It's also important to see what's good and what's bad for the current era. Even our sacred books say what's Dharma changes with time.
I generally don't argue with people indoctrinated with right or left wing philosophy and see everything as black and white. But on this site, it's disappointing to see someone repeating all the usual rightwing insults at the people they disagree with.
We are a decolonising nation, Modi is the first significant power shift away from the Lyuteans.
Our education is so full of leftist propaganda and whitewashed history.
For all your fears of pseudoscience, I am yet to see evidence of Modi pushing for it.
If you think "beef" is a religious issue and not a civilizational issue, I do not think you know enough about India to have an opinion. Just like Raul Vinci.
If you selectively attack Hindus or Hindu vote bank that makes you anti-hindu.
https://youtu.be/4Mk1ziy0egw
In that sense, the "glitch" is that the removal algorithms are susceptible to being gamed.
I think both are occurring in social media networks to some extent
More context: https://www.vice.com/en/article/qj8b4x/twitter-said-it-restr...
The censored tweets were _hand edited_.
https://www.wired.com/story/twitter-insiders-saudi-arabia-sp...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/former-twit...
To what extent, and if leadership knows and directs it are real questions.
Israeli, Jewish, and zionist are not all different words for the same thing.
Yeah, I wonder why is that. It's not like they have any valid reason to be against Israel, like having their land being taken away from them in what is basically a lebensraum, so it's surely has to be just some kind of irrational hatred towards Jews.
I will concede that this is a common framing of the facts from the Palestinian side. It's not nearly as easy to describe it as 'neutral' however, or to ascertain with any certainty what counts as any "valid reason" as opposed to "irrational hate".
But you have neglected to describe those other perspectives.
Do they exist? What other way could one possibly frame this?
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_citizens_of_Israel
>> According to a 2017 survey by University of Haifa professor Sammy Smooha, 16% of the Arab population prefers the term "Israeli Arab", while the largest and fastest growing proportion prefers "Palestinian in Israel", and 17% prefer "Palestinian Arab"
All cultural and ethnic identities are synthetic. Whether we choose to accept a definition of Palestinian identity "in opposition to Israel" or not, we are not simply reading off a list, but creating new language. The area that became Israel and Palestine was partitioned between the Sanjuk of Jerusalem and the Vilayet of Beirut under the Ottomans, and the local and regional cultures and identities formed then were not in opposition to anything. To build a future, we are better off taking the good things from the past, rather than the bad ones.
This is a situation prior generations of Israelis created in the midst of Palestinians who preferred not to be evicted and harassed from their homeland. This isn't some impossible situation in which Palestinians instinctively hate Israelis with no specific grievances. Moreover, Israel's idea of "durable peace" as proposed in agreements seems to be highly conditional on keeping the land they occupy, in excess of what is recognized by the Palestinians or even by international agreements.
The problem is that the lines between many of these words are confusing and often intentionally blurred by people on various sides.
While the definition of Semite includes Arabs and other people[1], anti-Semite is specifically defined as hostility towards Jews.[2]
Also not all Jews are Israelis, not all Israelis are Jews, not all Israelis or Jews are Zionists, and not all Zionists are Jews or Israelis.
It therefore is anti-Semitic when Jews are blamed for the actions of either Israelis or Zionists the same way it would be anti-Muslim to blame any random Muslim person for the actions of the Saudi government or any other specific group of Arab people.
[1] - https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Semite
[2] - https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anti-Semite
Generally from the start the word meant hating Jews (not Semitic peoples as in those that speak Semitic languages - Jews specifically). If it didn't originally, it certainly came to mean that over time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism#Etymology
Maybe people that speak Semitic languages are Semitic (I don't know - feels like pseudoscience, though there could be a lot of commonality in different ways). That being said, "Antisemitism" means hating Jews. It's not a special prize or anything. More than anything, the terminology is an unhelpful distraction from the more important things around when it comes up. I wish they stuck with "Judenhass".
We can certainly agree on that point. If nothing else, it makes much clearer the implications of characterizing Israeli–Palestinian enmity as a matter of Jew-hatred: no less than the invocation of Godwin's law as a thought-terminating cliche.
You are basically doing the exact same thing in the opposite direction.
Equating all Jews with Israel is anti-Semitic because Israel does not represent all Jews and isn't exclusively populated by Jews.
Insinuating all anti-Semitism is related to Israel is anti-Semitic because it ignores the hostility and violence that has been directed towards Jews that has nothing to do with either historic or modern politics of The Holy Land.
> Equating all Jews with Israel is anti-Semitic because Israel does not represent all Jews and isn't exclusively populated by Jews.
I think I agree with at least the letter of this claim, but I'm very puzzled at what you mean to say by it. I'm not sure whether we have a real disagreement or are talking past each other.
Throwing the word "anti-Semitism" around in the context of the politics of the Holy Land robs it of meaning. The present Israeli–Palestinian enmity has fundamentally different bases, only tenuously connected to the Western tradition culminating in "anti-Semitism". To call one by the other's name is a rhetorical trick to point at an outward similarity (hostility directed toward a majority-Jewish group) to equate Palestinian grievances with a more familiar form of Jew-hatred, to paint them as illegitimate and thereby dismiss them out of hand. And this has never been such a simple black-and-white conflict.
This simply isn't true though. The line is intentionally blurred by one side in order to suppress any valid criticism of Israel or Zionism by labelling (libelling) that critique as a criticism of Jews. There is no "various sides" to this blurring of lines.
> It therefore is anti-Semitic when Jews are blamed for the actions of either Israelis or Zionists
Hypothetically it would be but does it happen? This myth that blaming of Jews is happening broadly (not just Israel/Zionists) is exactly the misinformation that's being discussed. Your comment only perpetuates this.
Linking to dictionary definitions is a bit of a strawman; everyone knows the difference, that's not evidence that conflation is actually widespread at all. I've certainly not seen any criticism of Jews.
The conflict is with Israeli Jews which is the largest ethnic group in Israel.
Even aside from the fact that Israel is typically rated a "flawed democracy" in most indices due to the lack of press freedom, even it were a so-called "full democracy", no democracy even claims to be representative of constituents in any direct way (even those with relatively broad suffrage like NZ). Their goal is to be a best-of-alternatives approach in contrast to more regressive systems, along with known limitations such as majoritarianism, plutocratic platform access issues, etc.
So yes, it's the government. Some subset of the population may agree with them yes, but they are still very separate entities.
By the way Israel has normalized relations with three Arab countries, the last agreement made in 2020. Unfortunately the palistinean peace effort is now close to 20 years, with no real progress there.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93United_Arab_E...
[0] https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/total-u-s-foreign-aid-t...
[1] https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/charitable-giving
If it has been given the "trusted reporter" status that similar organizations have it could certainly be abused at times like this.
Hilter says what?
[T]he Israeli government’s “Cyber Unit” [is] an entity that, among other things, reaches out to major online platforms like Facebook and Twitter with requests that the platforms remove content. It’s one of a number of such agencies around the globe, which are known as Internet Referral Units. Earlier in April, the Israeli Supreme Court gave a green light to the unit’s activities, rejecting a legal challenge that charged the unit with infringing on constitutional rights.
one doesn't have to be part of some government-sponsored conspiracy group for this, as some allege here
1 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Internet_Defense_Forc...
https://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newsw...
For example, look at the top comments on any Justin Bieber post lately: https://www.instagram.com/p/COwqsQRH3Rj/
This probably happening all over the internet and these posts got swept up with the latest bot catching algorithms.
What I mean is that if the model they use for flagging would infer that legit spam (comments to a post by Justin Bieber AFAIK isn't related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) could mean that similar content when applied to relevant content is still spam (or marked for deletion for other reasons).
It's a bit like if google page rank algorithm identified a website being copied by multiple websites and punished the website that was the first to publish that content instead of other way around. If that was the case, it would have obviously been exploited to bury competitors pages.
Which is very similar to what a spam bot ring would do.
Now, the rich and powerful gamed the system to continue the oppression.
https://twitter.com/jvplive https://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/
I know some of them and they are very brave people. They are constantly accused of being 'self-hating' and even Nazi sympathizers by more right-wing Jews. It's a pretty big deal if you are Jewish and get accused of being a 'Kapo' by other Jews. And they are often treated with suspicion or worse by other pro-Palestinian activists. Many people expect them to constantly condemn, apologize for or disassociate themselves from Israel's actions, simply because they are Jewish. They also have to contend with the fact that a proportion of their 'allies' are either actual antisemites using Palestine as a pretext, or well-meaning idiots who get caught up in conspiracy theories and racist tropes without understanding how they are connected to antisemitism.
I would say that being leftwing and opposed to the status quo in Israel is one of the major reasons that Jewish people become disillusioned with their community and end up completely rejecting the religious identity. And having to deal with accusations like yours is one of the main things stopping Jewish people who oppose the Israeli occupation from being more involved in activism.
> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/apr/13/facebook-...
Social media will continue to be important for societies, but the commercial ones failed to the point of being dangerous. We need to decentralize that
Moderation is not just about removing illegal content (yes, most countries make certain content illegal, and publishing it, punishable). It's also about removing or de-emphasizing legal but unwanted content, various hooliganism, but also things the public sees as unwholesome, and flags as such. This, of course, also differs from country to country.
Israel / Arab conflict is one of the worst in this regard. One half of it will tell you about terrible oppressors who capture land, bring military force, and keep peaceful people under a blockade. And they'd be correct. The other side will tell about terrible oppressors who rain rockets on peaceful cities, engage in acts of terror, and proclaim the need to eradicate the other side. They'd also be right.
There is no way to make it peaceful and nice on Twitter when it is not peaceful and nice in the real life, for last like 60 years. There's no way any algorithm would look "fair" to people leaning either side, or even to people not caring enough to take sides.
Sorry, this is an intrusion of ugly reality which technical means cannot conceal. In this regard, there's no good, fair, nice, etc solution for Twitter, or any other social media.
No, they really wouldn't. An occupied people cannot be considered "oppressors"--they are the ones being oppressed. Palestinian casualties over the last few decades are roughly 10x Israeli casualties. Israel is a nuclear-armed state backed by the US government. The Palestinians don't even have a formal military.
Trying to put equal blame on the Palestinians is just providing cover for the Israeli's on-going genocide of Palestinians.
That's because Israel is better at defending from attacks by Hamas and also prioritizes the defense higher than Hamas. Saying that one side has fewer casualties, implying that they are "the bad ones", is smoke and mirrors.
Meanwhile we should blame Israel for building effective missile defense systems...
People really like to throw the word genocide around, but I really can't see how it's applicable here. The population has been steadily growing for many many years now[0]. If you consider this genocide, it must be the least effective genocide in recorded history.
Considering the huge imbalance of military power, it seems entirely reasonable that if Israel wanted to commit genocide, they could do it. Why waste all this money on targetted air strikes when you could just indiscriminately drop bombs? They say that each Iron Dome counter missle costs ~40k, instead of investing in counter missles, why not just use that to flatten Gazza and the West Bank?
There are many statements you can make about Israel and it's treatment of Palestinians, but trying to claim that they are committing genocide seems very disingenuous to me.
[0] https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/state-of-pale...
It has not been fixed.
It's simply censorship not a glitch.