I am Palestinian. Here’s how Israel silences us on social media • Hacker News Board

Re: I am Palestinian. Here’s how Israel silences us on social media

#11

Post by adventured » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 4:38 AM UTC

grecy wrote: post #7

president wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN should just ban controversial topics. Every time, these threads just devolve into mass flagging and downvoting and many times its usually one-sided depending on the majority view. Not interesting and not fun at all.

Given that HN is regularly read (and commented on) by some of the top minds in world IT, I personally feel it would be a travesty simply not to mention some of the biggest issues and topics facing the world today. I personally feel there's nothing more important than engaging those high profile and influential minds on these big issues if we have any hope of solving or at least improving them.

While I have no issue with controversial posts on HN - high profile, influential tech minds have zero influence over the Israel-Palestine matter. The same is true for many controversial topics.

The President of the United States and Congress barely have any influence over what goes on between Israel and Palestine.

Zuckerberg can't influence the Israel-Palestine context one bit, and he has $100 billion in wealth and controls the world's largest social network. He can't make the slightest of difference, no matter what he believes or wishes were. Zuckerberg is entirely powerless. The same goes for Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Brin, Page, Ellison, Musk and on down the list.

So the 'influential' people on HN? Whatever is less than zero ability to influence this topic, that's the power they possess.

Re: I am Palestinian. Here’s how Israel silences us on social media

#12

Post by ardit33 » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 4:41 AM UTC

truth_ wrote: post #10

This post is totally political. Having very little to do with technology. And the post completely ignores nuances and objectivity. It has already chosen a side. I guess because that's hip in the woke liberal era.

It is about Tech platforms deciding to side with Israel and silencing palestinians in social media. We have had plenty of discussions here about social media censorship (especially during covid and trump era). This is a valid discussion as well as it is about human rights.

If we can talk and about Indian and Nigerian, or Chinese censorship against the Uyghurs and the Tiananmen square masacre, then we can talk about Israeli censorship war against the Palestinians as well.

Also Computer Ethics is part of the Computer Science curriculum in most colleges, and part of technology. We are not going to solve this conflict here, but we should know where censorship in tech is being used to suppress the voice of a whole population. I was born in a communist country (Albania), and censorship in media was used to suppress the voice of the people in order to prop up a brutal regime.

"In addition to using social media to incriminate Palestinians, Israel has also used it to muzzle us. In 2016, Israel’s then-Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked boasted that, in the previous four-month period, Facebook had complied with 95% of Israel’s requests to remove Palestinian content on the vague basis of “incitement.” A year later, Israel tried to push the “Facebook Bill” through the Knesset, legislation which would force Facebook to remove any content designated as “incitement.” "

Re: I am Palestinian. Here’s how Israel silences us on social media

#13

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 4:42 AM UTC

adventured wrote: post #11

grecy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that HN is regularly read (and commented on) by some of the top minds in world IT, I personally feel it would be a travesty simply not to mention some of the biggest issues and topics facing the world today. I personally feel there's nothing more important than engaging those high profile and influential minds on these big issues if we have any hope of solving or at least improving them.

While I have no issue with controversial posts on HN - high profile, influential tech minds have zero influence over the Israel-Palestine matter. The same is true for many controversial topics. The President of the United States and Congress barely have any influence over what goes on between Israel and Palestine. Zuckerberg can't influence the Israel-Palestine context one bit, and he has $100 billion in wealth and c…

[deleted]

Re: I am Palestinian. Here’s how Israel silences us on social media

#14

Post by 2939223 » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 4:42 AM UTC

truth_ wrote: post #10

This post is totally political. Having very little to do with technology. And the post completely ignores nuances and objectivity. It has already chosen a side. I guess because that's hip in the woke liberal era.

It's literally in the title: "social media"

Re: I am Palestinian. Here’s how Israel silences us on social media

#15

Post by throwawayboise » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 4:43 AM UTC

grecy wrote: post #7

president wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN should just ban controversial topics. Every time, these threads just devolve into mass flagging and downvoting and many times its usually one-sided depending on the majority view. Not interesting and not fun at all.

Given that HN is regularly read (and commented on) by some of the top minds in world IT, I personally feel it would be a travesty simply not to mention some of the biggest issues and topics facing the world today. I personally feel there's nothing more important than engaging those high profile and influential minds on these big issues if we have any hope of solving or at least improving them.

The top minds in IT are not going to solve the Israel/Palistinian conflict, any more than politicians and statesmen will prove whether P = NP.

Re: I am Palestinian. Here’s how Israel silences us on social media

#16

Post by chances1077 » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 4:44 AM UTC

truth_ wrote: post #10

This post is totally political. Having very little to do with technology. And the post completely ignores nuances and objectivity. It has already chosen a side. I guess because that's hip in the woke liberal era.

There’s objective collective punishment of Palestinians. That’s a simple fact. I don’t see “this is political” dismissal when people post about other controversial topics, such as Uyghurs and China.

Example posts - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26401715 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26217821 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23739567

Seems more like Israel is believed to be above criticism and there are active campaigns to silence that criticism.

Re: I am Palestinian. Here’s how Israel silences us on social media

#17

Post by ireallydontcar3 » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 4:47 AM UTC

truth_ wrote: post #10

This post is totally political. Having very little to do with technology. And the post completely ignores nuances and objectivity. It has already chosen a side. I guess because that's hip in the woke liberal era.

The post is about technology, but obviously you don’t agree with the subject matter, as evident by your dismissal of it as being “woke liberal”.

That’s a pretty hypocritical statement.

Re: I am Palestinian. Here’s how Israel silences us on social media

#18

Post by truth_ » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 4:53 AM UTC

It shows screenshots of people calling the actions of Israel apartheid. I am not taking anything seriously that calls Israel an "apartheid state". You don't know what apartheid is.

Arabic Muslims and non-Muslims alike has more rights and power in Israel than all other Arab states combined.

People are free to choose leaders via election. Did you know that one of parties in the current Israeli ruling coalition is an Arab Nationalist party?

Women and LGBTQ+ have more rights in Israel than anywhere else in the Arab region.

And people always forget that Hamas regularly uses innocent people as human-shields. When they die, whose fault is it?

Hamas solidified its power by killing intellectuals, police, military personnel, and reporters. Now if you try and protect your citizens from them, are you an apartheid state?

Israel withdrew from Gaza strip after the election. If they were actual colonialists, they would have remained. Then we would not see all this.

Israel wants a two-state solution. Palestine wants nothing but "death-to-Israel". I am not talking about Hamas only. It is also the stance of the moderate faction of the elected leaders in West Bank.

The matter is always nuanced. I am more leaning towards Israel because Hamas launches rockets from school areas, and areas with hospital.

And Hamas and other terrorist sympathizers are masters of propaganda.

Israel is not an apartheid state. Not even close. I know people who lived in Israel. It is a culturally diverse, tolerant land, with an elected government.

I will be leaning towards Palestine if the elected government on West Bank ruled over Gaza and Israel still did the things it is doing.

Protecting your citizens from Islamic terrorists is not being an apartheid state.

You should always remember-

Just because some people are the underdogs, does not mean they are the good guys.

Re: I am Palestinian. Here’s how Israel silences us on social media

#19

Post by aksss » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 4:53 AM UTC

president wrote: post #4

Causality1 wrote: post #3

One of the most chilling maps I've ever seen is the one of Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory. It looks like a cell using lysosomes to kill prey. https://i.imgur.com/v1lNHEY.jpg @dang Care to weigh in on this submission? Seems to be a lot of flagging/vouching going on.

HN should just ban controversial topics. Every time, these threads just devolve into mass flagging and downvoting and many times its usually one-sided depending on the majority view. Not interesting and not fun at all.

The problem is seen in other platforms though - who decides?

Re: I am Palestinian. Here’s how Israel silences us on social media

#20

Post by lovelearning » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 4:57 AM UTC

adventured wrote: post #11

grecy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that HN is regularly read (and commented on) by some of the top minds in world IT, I personally feel it would be a travesty simply not to mention some of the biggest issues and topics facing the world today. I personally feel there's nothing more important than engaging those high profile and influential minds on these big issues if we have any hope of solving or at least improving them.

While I have no issue with controversial posts on HN - high profile, influential tech minds have zero influence over the Israel-Palestine matter. The same is true for many controversial topics. The President of the United States and Congress barely have any influence over what goes on between Israel and Palestine. Zuckerberg can't influence the Israel-Palestine context one bit, and he has $100 billion in wealth and c…

The ability to shape opinions of voters and funding should be seen as a kind of influence. In the US context, perhaps the plight of Palestinian victims of property theft will influence some ethical capitalists to scale back their uncritical moral or financial support to Israeli nationalist organizations.