I like to think we are in a better place than russia for instance with all its propaganda and jailed journalists, but then i see these kind of article come over and over....
Most of the people in the 'free world' goes on mainstream media, like facebook to get their news. These companies are enticed to 'suck up' to the government because at the end they are business, they need to be in good term with ruling class.
you end up with most media complying with the official story pushed by government and friends, and most people believing that because no one has the time to fact check everything.
One could argue that the difference with russia is that someone can actually look for real information, but even in russia people have access to vpn to bypass the censorship.
Another difference would be that you are allowed to express your opinion, whereas in russia you would be put to jail, that's true but only in a very limited way. Since everyone goes on mainstream media and they enforce the government narrative, you can't speak there. you are merely allowed to speak out in your little corner out of reach to anyone, and even then since most people believe the government propaganda, your arguments won't be heard at all.
The more i think about it, the less difference i see.
>Another difference would be that you are allowed to express your opinion, whereas in russia you would be put to jail, that's true but only in a very limited way.
Although not even close in number and punishment the US government is deporting people for speaking against Israel.
I think we do have a much better system because we are aware of these cases, you can speak out about the issue, and our court system can rule against the current admin.
What makes this possible to either the level of Russia or the US is how much the supporters of the regime want it. This is regardless of morality, legality, or the precedent it sets.
> and our court system can rule against the current admin.
That is more and more often not happening recently, because courts are not involved. If they are and explicitly request planes to be turned around and people brought back - they're ignored without repercussions.
Exactly, it's the "they're the same anyway", "both sides" equivalency that allows the buildup of antidemocratic de-politicization and apathy. This is one of the goals of the _there_is_no_truth_ radicalization that is fundamental to Russian political control
The united states has the world’s largest incarcerated population. It currently dwarfs the number incarcerated by the Soviet Union during the 1930s. The USA has the fifth highest incarceration rate on the planet. In the Southeast United States, the incarceration rate of the Black population is 7% (as a point of comparison 2x the incarceration rate of minoritized Uyghur population of China per the World Uyghur Congress figures)
If you are talking about Khalil, he didn't just speak against Israel, it seems like his role in an org which openly supported Hamas may have played a part but didn't matter legally. The legal issue was that he left out facts on his green card application.
I am 100% sure that support of terrorist orgs can invalidate your green card.
> According to recent court filings, President Donald Trump's administration said Khalil failed to disclose when applying for his green card last year that his employment by the Syria Office at the British Embassy in Beirut went "beyond 2022" and that he was a "political affairs officer" for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees from June to November 2023.
> "Regardless of his allegations concerning political speech, Khalil withheld membership in certain organizations and failed to disclose continuing employment by the Syria Office in the British Embassy in Beirut when he submitted his adjustment of status application. It is black-letter law that misrepresentations in this context are not protected speech," the government said in the filing.
Most of these things are not black/white. We should wait for all the facts to come out.
> Although not even close in number and punishment the US government is deporting people for speaking against Israel.
You and I both know that isn't true and repeating that doesn't help anyone but further implant in people's minds that the other side is completely irrational and cannot be reasoned with.
No, the US government is deporting people for supporting terrorist organizations, something that's always been a disqualifying position in US immigration law. You'll get your visa denied, or even your entry denied for holding such positions, let alone maintaining an active student visa or permanent resident visa. That has always been the case and simply enforcing laws already on the books does not change that.
> What makes this possible to either the level of Russia or the US is how much the supporters of the regime want it. This is regardless of morality, legality, or the precedent it sets.
Indeed. The editorial boards of these newsrooms are often staffed with people who attended the same schools and classes as those running the country. The social circles of the two worlds are extremely closely linked.
Of course, this means that the reporting isn't very good at addressing its blind spots–i.e., most of the news in the country, let alone the world, that isn't relevant to the ivy league coastal elites. And I say this as a member of that same class. Most of the political perspectives in my life are completely unrepresented in the opinion columns, which generally tend to pander upwards rather than downwards.
I don't tend to put much weight in freedom of the press so long as that press is floating on the cream of society and asking the government permission to report on what they're doing.
The NYT's Executive Editor Joe Kahn is the son of a billionaire who was on the board of lobby group CAMERA, a group devoted to pressuring US media to be more pro-Israel.
> The editorial boards of these newsrooms are often staffed with people who attended the same schools and classes as those running the country. The social circles of the two worlds are extremely closely linked.
This is a conspiracy theory - they are secretly conspiring. Do you have evidence of this conspiracy actually happening on any scale?
Many attended the same universities on all sides of politics and issues. The universities are big places that have been operating for generations. Ask someone who went to a university - do they know and agree with everyone else who went there? It's absurd.
> most of the news in the country, let alone the world, that isn't relevant to the ivy league coastal elites.
You need to do more than throw around stereotypes. Give us some evidence.
> I don't tend to put much weight in freedom of the press so long as that press is floating on the cream of society and asking the government permission to report on what they're doing.
America's arrested rather a large number of people in recent weeks—university students, mostly—for expressing viewpoints on the I/P conflict. The current Administration is claiming, and no one's yet stopped them, that First Amendment rights don't apply to non-citizens such as international students.
- "You’re not arrested for posting this"
For what it's worth, it's widely reported that ICE is trawling social media to find targets (targeted for their speech/viewpoints). HN itself is one of their known targets.
As someone who came from a pretty authoritarian country- let me assure you that people there do routinely criticize their government, mock them all the time. Governments often do not have the bandwidth to deal with the volume of criticism, and even when they do- they wisely realize that letting people vent a little online is better than complete crackdown. I myself routinely did this in Facebook, where many in my friend list were government employees and (ex-ruling) party members.
I am in fact far more afraid of pro-palestine speech from USA as an immigrant than I was in my home country- and please trust me I am not exaggerating here.
As someone said above, "America's arrested rather a large number of people in recent weeks—university students, mostly—for expressing viewpoints on the I/P conflict. The current Administration is claiming, and no one's yet stopped them, that First Amendment rights don't apply to non-citizens such as international students."
America is changing. What was true before isn't necessarily true now, and may get worse, depending on election outcomes.
People who have spoken out against the genocidal apartheid regime are being black-bagged in the street by plainclothes officers all across the United States. The gap between the supposedly enlightened West and Russia grows smaller by the day.
Right. We don't have to arrest. We can just disappear anything you say critical of our masters, I mean, our overlords, I mean, our government, I mean, a foreign government, I mean, a foreign government that hacks American companies and sells the hacks to Middle Eastern dictators who breed an ideology that trained people to attack our own country, I mean...
Yea but there's also not much point in critiquing the government here. What we ever been able to do about it except riot? We can endlessly discuss the failures of government and as it stands I don't think we will never see these failures distinguish candidates in the voting booth. Which is confusing, because you'd think the democrats would have wanted to win this time.
Well, Israelis are not abruptly incompetent and culturally allergic to progress, with a predictable habit of grovelling to whichever tyrant comes next — but they certainly do share some methods.
Any difference is going to disappear in only a few years. What matters is the direction the US taking. This happened to Russia about 14 years ago, and it’s happening to the US now.
The western endorsement of the genocide in Gaza has been some of the best PR Putin could ever have hoped for.
It simultaneously underlined the viciousness, the lack of moral credibility and extreme hypocrisy of western leaders in the eyes of the nonaligned world (e.g. the global south), none of whom sanctioned him.
If you are not constantly posting fake and not recieve money from foreign entities you are not being arested at all in Russia. You may get a fine, and that's not always the case.
Not really, I'm Russian currently located in Russia and I can openly say that I hate our government. Though it would obviously be much worse if I actually had a big audience, in which case yeah there may be repercussions
Russia doesn’t just put people in jail for speaking against the government. They weaponise the generational fear of being disappeared by the government. This is not close to what happens in America where you can post anything anywhere and if Facebook deletes it you can always make your own website about it. If you did this in Russia you go to jail. Even if you say things like “it is sad Ukrainian children die in children’s day in Russia” you go to jail. I don’t think you can compare modern USA with modern Russia in this way. USA does plenty of other things that are bad like jailing so many people for petty crimes without pushing much on speech. USA has its own problems and all these comparisons only hide them.
They are now denying visas, and deporting lawful residents, sending them to offshore torture prisons, for social media posts.
For non citizens, regardless of length of time or legality, this is the case right now. For birthright citizens and full citizens it will be the case very soon
> Officers “beat up Kamardin very badly and stuck a dumbbell in his anus,” according to Novaya Gazeta Europe.
2. Bald man claim to power was accompanies with mysterious explosions of apartment buildings after which Chechens were declared enemies and war started.
Some interesting bits from wikipedia:
> Three Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) agents who had planted the devices at Ryazan were arrested by the local police.[6] The next day, FSB director Nikolai Patrushev announced that the incident in Ryazan had been an anti-terror drill and the device found there contained only sugar, and freed the FSB agents involved.[7]
And
> 13 September 1999: Russian Duma speaker Gennadiy Seleznyov makes an announcement about the bombing of an apartment building in the city of Volgodonsk that only takes place three days later
> 16 September 1999: Bombing in Volgodonsk, 17 are killed, 69 injured
None of the NYPD officers didn't have any sentence for this
2. That's an old conspiracy theory, even the Russian opposition (at least the reasonable part of it) doesn't support this theory. There are plenty of publications about it in Russian, and if you will do some effort you will find why
It's still humans being humans, we just have a covert culture while they are more overt. I personally like being tricked/manipulated more than forced. I'd rather get Tom Sawyered into painting a fence than being held at gunpoint.
The college deportations are the government, but I would guess that the Meta compliance has more to do with the fact that Cheryl Sandberg is a politically-connected turbo-Zionist.
I wish we were neutral on this issue. As an American, it is not my business. I am in no position to justly arbitrate between them. But our politicians are whores, our Zionists have deep pockets, and they're not afraid to empty them out for the cause, so it looks like America's taxpayers are all on Team Zionist, whether we like it or not.
Corruption of power is an inherent property of power. It is expected that people in power will get corrupted. The methods of power grabs are also fairly universal.
The difference between a corrupt shithole and free world is not in what the government tries to do, but in how the governed respond.
Well, there is a difference with Russia, actually. One of Palestinian professors, who studied freedom of speech, shaped it this way:
The difference is that people from Russia, Arab countries etc DO know that their media is lying - but also they know the Western media is lying, because they read all that nonsense the westerners write about their countries.
Good for you that you started to realize how corrupt the Western media is.
> Another difference would be that you are allowed to express your opinion, whereas in russia you would be put to jail, that's true but only in a very limited way.
This is more subtle. I have a lot to say about Israel, and I do post occasionally on Facebook, but I tone it down a lot because I have a few high profile people in the industry and academia among my Facebook friends (not actual friends). If I were to post what I really think, this would have serious career repercussions for me. People would brand me as an antisemite (they don't know that my grandfather is Jewish and he practically raised me).
Can you compare this to Russia? Well, I am Russian and I live in the West, so my choice of living here gives an answer to this question. I'd be in jail in Russia if they read my Facebook posts about the war in Ukraine. Yet, I'm now disillusioned about the Western liberalism, all thanks to Gaza war.
There is no difference between US and Russia in terms of free speech. Russia doesn't have promote a narrative of free speech while banning it. US suppresses it, punishes it and effectively deports anyone who criticizes Israel.
Holy cows are holy everywhere, its just that different cows are holy everywhere.
Is Meta really considered “mainstream media”? I always took that phrase to refer to NBC, CBS, NY Post, etc - the big legacy news organizations (print and TV).
The big legacy news organisations would be legacy media.
Social media is not even 20 years old but it’s a tall order to deny it mainstream status since the younger generations get their news from scrolling TikTok and not cracking open the daily broadsheet.
Legacy media has been sourcing from Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit for years. They’re as mainstream as AP and Reuters but without the reputation or the credentials.
It's mainstream, it's media, people read their news on it, so yes. But I'd rather trust NPR, BBC, the Guardian or some other legacy news outlet, because these unscrupulous tech bros will skew the narrarive by silencing some sources while brainwashing people with whatever suits them best.
I don't think this is necessarily an issue of censorship so much as it is highlighting that Facebook is clearly a fucking news publisher and should be treated as such under the law.
It's time to revoke section 230 for any social media network that amplifies or buries content with a non-transparent process.
In this case it isn't even merely an algorithm designed by humans. They have LITERAL human editors choosing which stories to put on the front page, just like the NYT, and they should be held liable for the content on their platforms just like legacy media is.
Anna Politkovskaya – Investigative journalist and critic of the Chechen war, shot in Moscow (2006).
Alexander Litvinenko – Ex-FSB officer poisoned with polonium in London (2006).
Stanislav Markelov & Anastasia Baburova – Human rights lawyer and journalist, shot in Moscow (2009).
Boris Nemtsov – Opposition leader, shot near the Kremlin (2015).
Denis Voronenkov – Former Russian MP, shot in Kyiv (2017).
Nikolai Andrushchenko – Journalist, beaten to death in St. Petersburg (2017).
Alexei Navalny – Opposition leader, died in prison after previous poisoning (2024).
---
The difference is that they murder their political opponents for show to make their people be afraid of dissent.
You comparing it with some (disgusting, vile) social media company (which would improve the world immensely if it disappeared) is completely inappropriate.
"We're not as bad as them" is a poor argument. Particularly while America quickly slides in that direction. Just take a look at the deportation of Venezuelans especially the case of the wrongly deported man that the government conveniently "can't find". That's a story comparable to the stories Americans tell about Russia and China.
I think OP is more using this incident along with many others. Things similar to in February when the President signed executive orders that imposed sanctions on American law firms and lawyers which included suspension of security clearances, termination of government contracts, and restrictions preventing firm employees from accessing federal buildings. (https://www.justsecurity.org/110109/president-cannot-issue-a...)
I have no idea how to talk equality to speak of whether they are comparable or not, but I do think people are seeing a different atmosphere.
Trump is barely, like, 90? days into his presidency and his gestapo is already kidnapping people and shipping them to torture camps contrary to the court orders.
Putler is an established dicktator with a long list of killing his own citizens with impunity.
Give trump a couple of years. He can't do it overnight, he needs to cook the Americans slowly. Hitler didn't turn the Germans into Nazis overnight either.
Sadly, that situation is also contorted to legitimize the spread verifiably false information by certain current political cults, led by a Turnip, that claim it is another party controlling media because they believe that they have the secret access to the “truth” that is being “blocked” on all other sources of media, and point to other suppressed stories (even if completely unrelated or blocked due to being outright lies) as proof. Look at attempts to curtail the spread of completely false vaccine information that is now being used as proof of something nefarious (even while more nefarious activity is being perpetrated). Some people took notes from other Dictators’ control of media long ago and have been working toward it for many years via press-related misinformation to cause a loss of confidence. You would think the press would fight back harder against being de-legitimized, using stronger wording and calling lying what it is, but when your purse strings are being controlled by the same businesses that see opportunities to advantage themselves, it’s not surprising.
Facebook is in the 'mainstream media'? That's a first in my experience. 'Mainstream media' usually describes established journalism organizations such as CNN, Fox, the NY Times, the WSJ. Facebook is universally grouped with 'social media' in my experience.
> Most of the people in the 'free world' goes on mainstream media
In fact, most people go on social media. The 'mainstream media' is losing audience rapidly.
> you end up with most media complying with the official story pushed by government and friends
I'm a bit confused here. Facebook complying with ... which government? The Israeli government has very little power over Facebook - Israel is a tiny market.
Meanwhile, Trump has been calling the 'mainstream media', the 'enemy of the people' - because they constantly report what he doesn't like.
Since the November election, many have shockingly capitulated but many remain. The NYT, for example, publishes negative news and criticisms of Trump and Israel daily.
> The more i think about it, the less difference i see.
You haven't established much of anything. Much of the comment doesn't make sense. Where is the Russian NYT? Which American journalists are in jail?
So when the government pointed to the disproportionate support for Palestine on TikTok vs Instagram, it was actually because Instagram was suppressing it. It is ironic.
Exactly. China demands Apple Maps be ran on Chinese servers by Chinese workers. I would expect current U.S. administration to be frustrated with these imbalances as surveillance state measures increase. These imbalances were less important when there was less interest in information and truth suppression.
And conversely, another reason why Trump's tariffs on China are a bone-headed move. They are not going to sell TikTok while the tariffs last, and the popular demand for it makes banning it a non-starter.
While this may be part of the story, it's certainly not the full picture. We know that the CCP is actively manipulating the algorithm on Tiktok to further their agenda on multiple other geopolitical issues—something we have ample evidence for. I don't know if there is a smoking gun on this one topic in particular, but the CCP's goal has always been to divide the American audience; and we know that older Americans skew pro-Israel whilst younger Americans are more oriented towards being pro-Palestinian. If someone looked in the right places, they would more likely than not find evidence of algorithm manipulation to favor a Palestinian bend.
Can you share some of that evidence? My impression from the SCOTUS case is that the government only alleged it could happen, not that it was happening. So I’m a bit surprised to see someone so confidently assert it is happening.
> more likely than not find evidence of algorithm manipulation
I think a lot of people have been looking. For years. Yet you admit there is no smoking gun. Perhaps if we look in the right place we will find Russell’s teapot orbiting Jupiter as well. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot
So, we have proof of a strong algorithm manipulation by Israel on the entire family of main US social media (those used by the older segment of the population); and yet you still manage to point your finger to a hypothetical, unproved manipulation of the algorithm on the competitors' social media to explain the difference in attitude between generations? But you have the answer here, there has been manipulation of the social media consumed by the older segment!
So what if they do this though? Big so what? Americans are allowed to read any journal and any news, even those explicitly owned and edited by foreign adversaries that they want. This is a tried and true first amendment right. And I get that forcing China to divest TikTok isn't legally an act against the 1st Amendment, but functionally it is. Why can't Americans see a CCP-biased view of Palestine if they want to? If I want to watch CCP propaganda all day, or Press TV, or Russia Today, that's my right as an American. Part of the reason there's interest to see that at all and 0 interest in watching a CCP revisionist history of the Korean War is because Israel can only bomb so many WCK aid workers, Red Cross aid workers, ambulances with the sirens on, in full video, etc. before people become curious about why this isn't a big deal for our govt.
Not true at all. Talk to the average American, not an extremist of either side, and they want Israel to defend themselves and stop demanding billions from us then talking down to us and telling themselves we are easy to trick into giving them full support and money whenever they want
The missing part of this article: are the requests valid? Are they actually incitements to terrorism and violence or is it just a clamp down on criticism? The headline of the article implies the latter but the body does not provide any evidence for that.
Like there is a war going on, a pretty nasty one at that. I would expect there to be quite a lot of incitement to violence related to that. I would expect the israeli government to be mostly concerned with incitements of violence against its citizens. In the context of this conflict i would expect such incitements to be mostly be made by the demographics cited in the article due to the nature of the conflict. The article seems like it could be entirely consistent with take downs being used appropriately. It needs more then this to prove its headline.
Heck, from this post we dont even know relative numbers. How does this compare against take down requests from other groups?
If you have valid rules but in practice only enforce them against a single group, then in some sense you are asking the wrong question.
In other words, for people who assume rule enforcement is supposed to be fair, they see unfair enforcement as hypocrisy. However, if you just see enforcement as another tool to wield against enemies, hypocrisy is irrelevant. What matters is power. It’s my basketball, I make the rules.
> If you have valid rules but in practice only enforce them against a single group
I'd agree. Is there any evidence that that is happening here? The article reports on israeli take down requests but does not report on take down requests from other groups. Meta could very well be using the same rules against pro-israel groups, we just dont know because the leak didn't include that information.
The article does mention it, but I agree that the story is incomplete without a clearer idea (including examples) of what is being censored.
> "A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report investigating Meta’s moderation of pro-Palestine content post-October 7th found that, of 1,050 posts HRW documented as taken-down or suppressed on Facebook or Instagram, 1,049 involved peaceful content in support of Palestine, while just one post was content in support of Israel."
However that study is using a different data set afaik. There is no indication that the things being requested taken down by Israel are the same as those being studied by HRW.
Its also really difficult to draw any conclusions from the HRW study due to selection bias issues. The sample was sent in by users instead of being chosen randomly from censored posts. Even assuming you agree with HRW's assesment that the posts were peaceful, there is no way to tell from the study if this represents the 0.00001% most "peaceful" of all censored posts or if its the average censored post, and i think that makes a big difference when evaluating this situation. The experimental design of the HRW study is just rather poor, and i think you could use such a design to come to basically any conclusion you want.
> The missing part of this article: are the requests valid?
They are enforced with neither human nor AI review, so the reality is that we don't know. They are enforced by virtue of who submits them, with no question on whether they are valid or not.
Having heard from friends the kind of censorship they face on the topic on Facebook and Instagram when discussing the topics at hand, I know of plenty of situations where people were censored without breaking any rules. They're a small sample of course.
Ask anyone who works at Meta if they are valid, and they themselves will tell you, they don't really know. That should let you know how easy it would be for Israel to wield this tool in their favor. If they actually are doing it unfairly or not, we can never know since these posts are automatically taken down without human review.
From the lost of countries and knowing how rampant antisemitism is in these countries I suspect majority of the request are valid and express support and urge for terrorism.
Depends what you consider "incitement". The IL government seems to go by "whoever is not for us is against us" logic:
> A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report investigating Meta’s moderation of pro-Palestine content post-October 7th found that, of 1,050 posts HRW documented as taken-down or suppressed on Facebook or Instagram, 1,049 involved peaceful content in support of Palestine, while just one post was content in support of Israel.
> Like there is a war going on, a pretty nasty one at that.
Sorry, but this is already part if the narrative. (Or rather the implication is that this would justify everything because wars seemingly have different rules. But if course only for one side) It's a "war" were one side inflicts 100 times as many casualties on one side than the other and still has no intention of stopping.
I would think that anyone advocating for or cheering the death of civilians would be valid reason for removal. Criticizing Israeli policy, being supportive of Palestinians in general, or contradicting Netanyahu's talking points: not a valid reason for removal.
I guess as "violating facebook terms of use". At some point i don't think what the standard is matters that much as long as its equally enforced against everyone.
Generally though i do think its legit for facebook to take down posts advocating for violence and terrorism. Devil is in the details.
right, if you, for example, wear uniform, and if you, for example, have not started the war and didnt cause the genocide by not wearing uniform, by using civilians as human shields, and by stealing the humanitarian aid and reselling it to poor displaced civilians, that you then cynically enlist to die for your cause, because there is no other source of cash to feed your families.
you should also consider the sequence of events before using such grave accusations.
Not a surprise. I remember last year seeing that posts to https://www.birdsofgaza.com/ were being blocked, and it's hard to think of a more innocuous way of speaking out.
It’s not only about suppression; it’s about cultivating fear around expressing your opinions.
There are groups actively working to have individuals fired for voicing support for Palestine.
For instance, a woman wrote “Freedom for Palestine” in Gaelic on LinkedIn, prompting a group of Israelis in a WhatsApp chat to actively coordinate efforts to get her fired.
The General Manager of Wix, Batsheva (Levine) Moshe, responded in a WhatsApp chat saying:
“Hi yes we know. Being taken care of since it was published. I believe there will be an announcement soon regarding our reaction.”
do you feel like it is “Israel’s war on Gaza”? Does that represent reality fully? Is that what children should be taught, that there is a demonic people that kills children? You don’t see any problem with omitting the massacre of israeli civilians, the captured hostages and many thousands of rocket launches towards densely populated civilian communities? is that how we achieve peace in your view?
Do you think ignoring Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine is ignoring reality? Do you think that immigrants taken in during WWII should have ethnically cleansed the natives? Do you think that settlers in Westbank terrorising Palestinians every day is any different from the settlers in 1940s?
Do you think that a militarized society like Israel with compulsory military service can be treated as civilians or like the US defined enemy combatants? Do you think that rocket launches are just testing the effectiveness of missile shields? Do you think 20k Pound bombs are less lethal than tiny rockets?
Do you think that holding 10k palestinians in prisons , most without charges and degrading their humanity at every checkpost was happening since 20 years or did it start just now?
Do you think that playing victim works every time?
I am part of a neighborhood group where I grew up in Bangladesh and lived until 5th grade in the 90s.
The group admin this morning let us know via Facebook post that he has received warnings frm Facebook. The group is "at a risk of being suspended" because way too many posts relating to "dangerous organization and individuals" have been removed. He wants everyone to be extra careful when posting about p*l*s*i*e, I*r*e*, g*z*, j*w* etc. He used asterisks himself just to be extra careful himself.
Not to mention my country is dealing with rohingya crisis, which was fueled by Facebook and WhatsApp misinformation campaigns, and Facebook had 2 moderators for the whole country of Myanmar and refused to do anything about said misinformation campaigns. But they sure make exceptions for I*r*e*.
> Not to mention my country is dealing with rohingya crisis, which was fueled by Facebook and WhatsApp misinformation campaigns, and Facebook had 2 moderators for the whole country of Myanmar and refused to do anything about said misinformation campaigns. But they sure make exceptions for Ire*
Every pro Palestinian protestor has experienced some form of awareness suppression and content removal. They have known this was a thing long before anyone else did.
Same thing happened during 9/11. Muslims saw suppression, bullying by the police and no one covered it. Then the tables turned on maga republicans after j6.
I’m too stupid to navigate this topic in anything other than a crude and adolescent way, however I think it could be tricky for pro-palestinians because they can fall easily into the trap of using party slogans used by proscribed organisations.
My understanding of Hamas is that they are not considered a legitimate army, but if they were they would be guilty of an insurmountable number of war crimes (not unlike the IDF as many would say). Showing support for such things is beyond reasonable accepted discourse in my home country.
It sounds like you're using the fact that the posts aren't available for you to view to evaluate as a weakness of the reporting on this suppression campaign, but of course they're not available because of the suppression campaign.
Surely the burden should be on the censors to establish clearly that something is in fact incitement to violence, rather than on external reporters to magically show that content which has been taken down is not incitement?
Generally i hold the burden to prove wrong-doing is on the party allegging wrong-doing. Otherwise we get in a situation where it can be effectively impossible for the accused to prove their innocence, as it is much more difficult to prove a negative than a positive.
Since nobody here has actually read the article, it states that the reason the posts were taken down was "prohibits incitement to terrorism praise for acts of terrorism and identification or support of terror organizations." This type of speech (incitement) is illegal in the United States and support is very borderline depending on the type and meaning of "support". Now, if the reason doesnt match the actual content removed that should definitely be addressed which is your point, but I think that the reason is valid.
On the one hand there are comments from users that want to “turn Gaza into a parking lot” or worse and were not removed because they don’t violate the community guidelines.
On the other hand there are people posting educational explainers about Palestinian human rights censored under hate speech or dangerous individuals rules.
The HRW report[1] goes into details, at least on the 1050 takedowns they documented
> A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report investigating Meta’s moderation of pro-Palestine content post-October 7th found that, of 1,050 posts HRW documented as taken-down or suppressed on Facebook or Instagram, 1,049 involved peaceful content in support of Palestine, while just one post was content in support of Israel."
> Human Rights Watch also found repeated inaccurate application of the “adult nudity and sexual activity” policy for content related to Palestine. In every one of the cases, we reviewed where this policy was invoked, the content included images of dead Palestinians over ruins in Gaza that were clothed, not naked. For example, multiple users reported their Instagram stories being removed under this policy when they posted the same image of a Palestinian father in Gaza who was killed while he was holding his clothed daughter, who was also killed.
> While “hate speech,” “bullying and harassment,” and “violence and incitement” policies[74] were less commonly invoked in the cases Human Rights Watch documented, the handful of cases where they were applied stood out as erroneous. For example, a Facebook user post that said, “How can anyone justify supporting the killing of babies and innocent civilians…” was removed under Community Standards on “bullying and harassment.”[75] Another user posted an image on Instagram of a dead child in a hospital in Gaza with the comment, “Israel bombs the Baptist Hospital in Gaza City killing over 500…” which was removed under Community Guidelines on “violence and incitement.”[76]
This is exactly why I want to see the posts, because I don't really trust 3rd parties to accurately classify "peaceful content in support of Palestine". It's possible Facebook is wrong. It's also possible that it's filled with content that is peaceful in only the most shallow, ignorant reading possible. e.g. (paraphrasing from my facebook feed last year, on a post which was not taken down): "I'm planning a celebration on October 7th in support of my Palestinian friends, who wants to join me :)"
HRW is a "complicated" organization. It took money from Saudis in return for not advocating for LGBT rights in the middle east [1]. It agreed to take money from the Qatari government, a government that also supports Hamas [2][3] and is involved in corruption cases and buying of politicians all over the world.
The article mentions requests to remove posts quoting Ghassan Kanafani. The article introduces Kanafani as a literary figure, but then discusses his involvement in the PFLP. I don't know if they want the reader to form a particular judgement about this, or if they're just reporting the facts.
One off test, but for this guy, with large BSky and Twitter accounts, made the same pro-UA post on both, the post on Twitter was suppressed for about 12 hours, until it was spammed by hate bots, and then was made widely visible. The BSky post had lots of responses, starting from the moment of posting, almost wholly pro-UA.
I just re-read the article, and there’s no evidence of wrong doing. There’s a bunch of circumstantial stuff that people are choosing to feed into their narrative.
Facebook has some rules and community guidelines, the Israeli government recognized some posts that violate those and asked for them to be taken down, and Facebook complied in accordance to their own rules.
The article doesn't even prove that anything is dirty. It's just carefully insinuating that these takedown requests are wrong, without actually showing any proof of this.
Readit News
Most of the people in the 'free world' goes on mainstream media, like facebook to get their news. These companies are enticed to 'suck up' to the government because at the end they are business, they need to be in good term with ruling class.
you end up with most media complying with the official story pushed by government and friends, and most people believing that because no one has the time to fact check everything.
One could argue that the difference with russia is that someone can actually look for real information, but even in russia people have access to vpn to bypass the censorship.
Another difference would be that you are allowed to express your opinion, whereas in russia you would be put to jail, that's true but only in a very limited way. Since everyone goes on mainstream media and they enforce the government narrative, you can't speak there. you are merely allowed to speak out in your little corner out of reach to anyone, and even then since most people believe the government propaganda, your arguments won't be heard at all.
The more i think about it, the less difference i see.
Although not even close in number and punishment the US government is deporting people for speaking against Israel.
I think we do have a much better system because we are aware of these cases, you can speak out about the issue, and our court system can rule against the current admin.
What makes this possible to either the level of Russia or the US is how much the supporters of the regime want it. This is regardless of morality, legality, or the precedent it sets.
That is more and more often not happening recently, because courts are not involved. If they are and explicitly request planes to be turned around and people brought back - they're ignored without repercussions.
I agree it’s better that we don’t yet see individuals directly punished at scale for dissent.
But if this is all we settle for we’re like dogs fighting for scraps.
I am 100% sure that support of terrorist orgs can invalidate your green card.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-administration-claims-palest...
> According to recent court filings, President Donald Trump's administration said Khalil failed to disclose when applying for his green card last year that his employment by the Syria Office at the British Embassy in Beirut went "beyond 2022" and that he was a "political affairs officer" for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees from June to November 2023.
> "Regardless of his allegations concerning political speech, Khalil withheld membership in certain organizations and failed to disclose continuing employment by the Syria Office in the British Embassy in Beirut when he submitted his adjustment of status application. It is black-letter law that misrepresentations in this context are not protected speech," the government said in the filing.
Most of these things are not black/white. We should wait for all the facts to come out.
You and I both know that isn't true and repeating that doesn't help anyone but further implant in people's minds that the other side is completely irrational and cannot be reasoned with.
No, the US government is deporting people for supporting terrorist organizations, something that's always been a disqualifying position in US immigration law. You'll get your visa denied, or even your entry denied for holding such positions, let alone maintaining an active student visa or permanent resident visa. That has always been the case and simply enforcing laws already on the books does not change that.
> What makes this possible to either the level of Russia or the US is how much the supporters of the regime want it. This is regardless of morality, legality, or the precedent it sets.
Equating Russia and the US is an extreme take.
Of course, this means that the reporting isn't very good at addressing its blind spots–i.e., most of the news in the country, let alone the world, that isn't relevant to the ivy league coastal elites. And I say this as a member of that same class. Most of the political perspectives in my life are completely unrepresented in the opinion columns, which generally tend to pander upwards rather than downwards.
I don't tend to put much weight in freedom of the press so long as that press is floating on the cream of society and asking the government permission to report on what they're doing.
https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/bbc-civil-war-gaza-israel-bia...
How much are they going to tolerate narratives that go against their financial interests?
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This is a conspiracy theory - they are secretly conspiring. Do you have evidence of this conspiracy actually happening on any scale?
Many attended the same universities on all sides of politics and issues. The universities are big places that have been operating for generations. Ask someone who went to a university - do they know and agree with everyone else who went there? It's absurd.
> most of the news in the country, let alone the world, that isn't relevant to the ivy league coastal elites.
You need to do more than throw around stereotypes. Give us some evidence.
> I don't tend to put much weight in freedom of the press so long as that press is floating on the cream of society and asking the government permission to report on what they're doing.
Who asked permission?
https://rsf.org/en/country/russia
- "You’re not arrested for posting this"
For what it's worth, it's widely reported that ICE is trawling social media to find targets (targeted for their speech/viewpoints). HN itself is one of their known targets.
I am in fact far more afraid of pro-palestine speech from USA as an immigrant than I was in my home country- and please trust me I am not exaggerating here.
Michigan-based attorney Amir Makled [a US citizen] was detained by federal immigration agents while returning home from a family vacation
https://www.npr.org/2025/04/09/nx-s1-5357455/attorney-detain...
And Israel, where a history teacher was arrested for making a post on Facebook:
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/22/meir_baruchin
America is changing. What was true before isn't necessarily true now, and may get worse, depending on election outcomes.
https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/54123/were-over...
(many links in the responses and comments, eg: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/arrests-for-offensive-... - " 625 arrests were made for alleged section 127 offences in 2010 " just in london)
I don’t understand why we keep forgetting that authoritarianism is a slippery slope.
The western endorsement of the genocide in Gaza has been some of the best PR Putin could ever have hoped for.
It simultaneously underlined the viciousness, the lack of moral credibility and extreme hypocrisy of western leaders in the eyes of the nonaligned world (e.g. the global south), none of whom sanctioned him.
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Your funds might be cut off though: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/07/trump-...
Or your president might declare a wartime law to deport all the immigrants: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp34ylep987o
Or you, a honors student (but not a citizen) might find yourself in an unmarked van if you dared to question the powers that be. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czrn57340xlo
Sure it happens to immigrants only for now, brings memory to this poem:
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
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For non citizens, regardless of length of time or legality, this is the case right now. For birthright citizens and full citizens it will be the case very soon
This was so, is so and will always be so, everywhere.
But but but… details matter. A lot.
The west has traditions how and when to apply power, which is distinctly different from Russia.
I hand-pick two illustrations of Russia:
1. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/09/27/moscow-police-accu...
> Officers “beat up Kamardin very badly and stuck a dumbbell in his anus,” according to Novaya Gazeta Europe.
2. Bald man claim to power was accompanies with mysterious explosions of apartment buildings after which Chechens were declared enemies and war started.
Some interesting bits from wikipedia:
> Three Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) agents who had planted the devices at Ryazan were arrested by the local police.[6] The next day, FSB director Nikolai Patrushev announced that the incident in Ryazan had been an anti-terror drill and the device found there contained only sugar, and freed the FSB agents involved.[7]
And
> 13 September 1999: Russian Duma speaker Gennadiy Seleznyov makes an announcement about the bombing of an apartment building in the city of Volgodonsk that only takes place three days later
> 16 September 1999: Bombing in Volgodonsk, 17 are killed, 69 injured
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Russian_apartment_bombi...
cherry-picked, actually
1. Almost exactly the same incident happened in the USA, NYPD sodomized Michael Mineo: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prospect_Park_alleged_police...
None of the NYPD officers didn't have any sentence for this
2. That's an old conspiracy theory, even the Russian opposition (at least the reasonable part of it) doesn't support this theory. There are plenty of publications about it in Russian, and if you will do some effort you will find why
I wish we were neutral on this issue. As an American, it is not my business. I am in no position to justly arbitrate between them. But our politicians are whores, our Zionists have deep pockets, and they're not afraid to empty them out for the cause, so it looks like America's taxpayers are all on Team Zionist, whether we like it or not.
The difference between a corrupt shithole and free world is not in what the government tries to do, but in how the governed respond.
Good for you that you started to realize how corrupt the Western media is.
This is more subtle. I have a lot to say about Israel, and I do post occasionally on Facebook, but I tone it down a lot because I have a few high profile people in the industry and academia among my Facebook friends (not actual friends). If I were to post what I really think, this would have serious career repercussions for me. People would brand me as an antisemite (they don't know that my grandfather is Jewish and he practically raised me).
Can you compare this to Russia? Well, I am Russian and I live in the West, so my choice of living here gives an answer to this question. I'd be in jail in Russia if they read my Facebook posts about the war in Ukraine. Yet, I'm now disillusioned about the Western liberalism, all thanks to Gaza war.
You might consider trying not to view the world entirely in black and white then.
This sort of sentiment is not particularly productive especially in times like this..
Holy cows are holy everywhere, its just that different cows are holy everywhere.
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Social media is not even 20 years old but it’s a tall order to deny it mainstream status since the younger generations get their news from scrolling TikTok and not cracking open the daily broadsheet.
Legacy media has been sourcing from Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit for years. They’re as mainstream as AP and Reuters but without the reputation or the credentials.
It's time to revoke section 230 for any social media network that amplifies or buries content with a non-transparent process.
In this case it isn't even merely an algorithm designed by humans. They have LITERAL human editors choosing which stories to put on the front page, just like the NYT, and they should be held liable for the content on their platforms just like legacy media is.
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Stanislav Markelov & Anastasia Baburova – Human rights lawyer and journalist, shot in Moscow (2009).
Boris Nemtsov – Opposition leader, shot near the Kremlin (2015).
Denis Voronenkov – Former Russian MP, shot in Kyiv (2017).
Nikolai Andrushchenko – Journalist, beaten to death in St. Petersburg (2017).
Alexei Navalny – Opposition leader, died in prison after previous poisoning (2024).
---
The difference is that they murder their political opponents for show to make their people be afraid of dissent.
You comparing it with some (disgusting, vile) social media company (which would improve the world immensely if it disappeared) is completely inappropriate.
I have no idea how to talk equality to speak of whether they are comparable or not, but I do think people are seeing a different atmosphere.
Putler is an established dicktator with a long list of killing his own citizens with impunity.
Give trump a couple of years. He can't do it overnight, he needs to cook the Americans slowly. Hitler didn't turn the Germans into Nazis overnight either.
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> mainstream media, like facebook
Facebook is in the 'mainstream media'? That's a first in my experience. 'Mainstream media' usually describes established journalism organizations such as CNN, Fox, the NY Times, the WSJ. Facebook is universally grouped with 'social media' in my experience.
> Most of the people in the 'free world' goes on mainstream media
In fact, most people go on social media. The 'mainstream media' is losing audience rapidly.
> you end up with most media complying with the official story pushed by government and friends
I'm a bit confused here. Facebook complying with ... which government? The Israeli government has very little power over Facebook - Israel is a tiny market.
Meanwhile, Trump has been calling the 'mainstream media', the 'enemy of the people' - because they constantly report what he doesn't like.
Since the November election, many have shockingly capitulated but many remain. The NYT, for example, publishes negative news and criticisms of Trump and Israel daily.
> The more i think about it, the less difference i see.
You haven't established much of anything. Much of the comment doesn't make sense. Where is the Russian NYT? Which American journalists are in jail?
https://x.com/hawleymo/status/1717505662601609401
Can you share some of that evidence? My impression from the SCOTUS case is that the government only alleged it could happen, not that it was happening. So I’m a bit surprised to see someone so confidently assert it is happening.
> more likely than not find evidence of algorithm manipulation
I think a lot of people have been looking. For years. Yet you admit there is no smoking gun. Perhaps if we look in the right place we will find Russell’s teapot orbiting Jupiter as well. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot
Please show this "ample evidence" because it seems you (or "we" - whoever that is) have something the rest of the world doesn't.
we should be looking to stop all manipulation, whether from a state or billionaires. this kind of manipulation is awful no matter what the source is.
i have a hard time understanding why so many are terrified of tiktok yet turn around and seem eager to suck from twitter or facebook’s firehose.
Regarding your specific claim, here’s the most recent poll I could find. In june, 61% of Americans opposed sending military support: https://theintercept.com/2024/09/10/polls-arms-embargo-israe...
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Like there is a war going on, a pretty nasty one at that. I would expect there to be quite a lot of incitement to violence related to that. I would expect the israeli government to be mostly concerned with incitements of violence against its citizens. In the context of this conflict i would expect such incitements to be mostly be made by the demographics cited in the article due to the nature of the conflict. The article seems like it could be entirely consistent with take downs being used appropriately. It needs more then this to prove its headline.
Heck, from this post we dont even know relative numbers. How does this compare against take down requests from other groups?
In other words, for people who assume rule enforcement is supposed to be fair, they see unfair enforcement as hypocrisy. However, if you just see enforcement as another tool to wield against enemies, hypocrisy is irrelevant. What matters is power. It’s my basketball, I make the rules.
I'd agree. Is there any evidence that that is happening here? The article reports on israeli take down requests but does not report on take down requests from other groups. Meta could very well be using the same rules against pro-israel groups, we just dont know because the leak didn't include that information.
> "A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report investigating Meta’s moderation of pro-Palestine content post-October 7th found that, of 1,050 posts HRW documented as taken-down or suppressed on Facebook or Instagram, 1,049 involved peaceful content in support of Palestine, while just one post was content in support of Israel."
Its also really difficult to draw any conclusions from the HRW study due to selection bias issues. The sample was sent in by users instead of being chosen randomly from censored posts. Even assuming you agree with HRW's assesment that the posts were peaceful, there is no way to tell from the study if this represents the 0.00001% most "peaceful" of all censored posts or if its the average censored post, and i think that makes a big difference when evaluating this situation. The experimental design of the HRW study is just rather poor, and i think you could use such a design to come to basically any conclusion you want.
They are enforced with neither human nor AI review, so the reality is that we don't know. They are enforced by virtue of who submits them, with no question on whether they are valid or not.
Having heard from friends the kind of censorship they face on the topic on Facebook and Instagram when discussing the topics at hand, I know of plenty of situations where people were censored without breaking any rules. They're a small sample of course.
> A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report investigating Meta’s moderation of pro-Palestine content post-October 7th found that, of 1,050 posts HRW documented as taken-down or suppressed on Facebook or Instagram, 1,049 involved peaceful content in support of Palestine, while just one post was content in support of Israel.
> Like there is a war going on, a pretty nasty one at that.
Sorry, but this is already part if the narrative. (Or rather the implication is that this would justify everything because wars seemingly have different rules. But if course only for one side) It's a "war" were one side inflicts 100 times as many casualties on one side than the other and still has no intention of stopping.
Generally though i do think its legit for facebook to take down posts advocating for violence and terrorism. Devil is in the details.
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you should also consider the sequence of events before using such grave accusations.
For instance, a woman wrote “Freedom for Palestine” in Gaelic on LinkedIn, prompting a group of Israelis in a WhatsApp chat to actively coordinate efforts to get her fired.
The General Manager of Wix, Batsheva (Levine) Moshe, responded in a WhatsApp chat saying:
“Hi yes we know. Being taken care of since it was published. I believe there will be an announcement soon regarding our reaction.”
Wix were orderd to pay €35K for unfair dismissal.
ref(s):
https://jackpoulson.substack.com/p/inside-the-pro-israel-inf...
https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/israeli-tech-firm-ordere...
No, I didn't write the text on that website. I'd describe it as Israel's genocide in Gaza.
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Do you think that playing victim works every time?
The group admin this morning let us know via Facebook post that he has received warnings frm Facebook. The group is "at a risk of being suspended" because way too many posts relating to "dangerous organization and individuals" have been removed. He wants everyone to be extra careful when posting about p*l*s*i*e, I*r*e*, g*z*, j*w* etc. He used asterisks himself just to be extra careful himself.
Not to mention my country is dealing with rohingya crisis, which was fueled by Facebook and WhatsApp misinformation campaigns, and Facebook had 2 moderators for the whole country of Myanmar and refused to do anything about said misinformation campaigns. But they sure make exceptions for I*r*e*.
They’ll do anything but leave.
Not sure why you're downvoted. This is all true.
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Same thing happened during 9/11. Muslims saw suppression, bullying by the police and no one covered it. Then the tables turned on maga republicans after j6.
My understanding of Hamas is that they are not considered a legitimate army, but if they were they would be guilty of an insurmountable number of war crimes (not unlike the IDF as many would say). Showing support for such things is beyond reasonable accepted discourse in my home country.
Surely the burden should be on the censors to establish clearly that something is in fact incitement to violence, rather than on external reporters to magically show that content which has been taken down is not incitement?
It has been since restored, after a predictable twitter storm.
On the one hand there are comments from users that want to “turn Gaza into a parking lot” or worse and were not removed because they don’t violate the community guidelines.
On the other hand there are people posting educational explainers about Palestinian human rights censored under hate speech or dangerous individuals rules.
> A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report investigating Meta’s moderation of pro-Palestine content post-October 7th found that, of 1,050 posts HRW documented as taken-down or suppressed on Facebook or Instagram, 1,049 involved peaceful content in support of Palestine, while just one post was content in support of Israel."
[1] https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/12/21/metas-broken-promises/...
> While “hate speech,” “bullying and harassment,” and “violence and incitement” policies[74] were less commonly invoked in the cases Human Rights Watch documented, the handful of cases where they were applied stood out as erroneous. For example, a Facebook user post that said, “How can anyone justify supporting the killing of babies and innocent civilians…” was removed under Community Standards on “bullying and harassment.”[75] Another user posted an image on Instagram of a dead child in a hospital in Gaza with the comment, “Israel bombs the Baptist Hospital in Gaza City killing over 500…” which was removed under Community Guidelines on “violence and incitement.”[76]
[1] https://theintercept.com/2020/03/02/human-rights-watch-took-...
[2] https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/middle-east/1700763578-human-...
[3] https://www.memri.org/reports/raven-project-leaks-alleged-qa...
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https://bsky.app/profile/willhaycardiff.bsky.social/post/3lk...
On the face of it, Twitter itself is suppressing in line with Donald/Elon's agenda, and running hate/love bots.
Also saw another BSky poster showing a horrific anti-immigration post on Twitter getting spammed by love-bots.
Facebook has some rules and community guidelines, the Israeli government recognized some posts that violate those and asked for them to be taken down, and Facebook complied in accordance to their own rules.