The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media • Hacker News Board

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#31

Post by notsureaboutpg » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 9:29 PM UTC

azifali wrote: post #21

As a progressive Muslim - I believe both Israel and Palestine have the right to exist, and thrive. Unfortunately, it looks like the state of Israel has now become a needless oppressor and are content building an apartheid state without learning from the past.

What does being a "progressive" Muslim have to do with it?

Also, do you mean you are affiliated with Muslims for Progressive Values? Otherwise I don't know what makes you "progressive". Do you not believe the Quran is the word of God or something?

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#32

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 9:29 PM UTC

crooked-v wrote: post #27

underseacables wrote: post #16

Quoted post unavailable.

Peace is unlikely as long as settlers continue to claim Palestinean land and force them out of their own homes, considering what an obvious mockery this makes of any kind of negotiations even for those Palestineans who do actively want peace.

[deleted]

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#33

Post by Animats » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 9:30 PM UTC

A few years ago, criticism of Israel's policies started being called anti-antisemitism.[1] That made it OK to censor criticism of Israel. Israel's policies got more divisive under 12 years of Netanyahu, and there's more reason to be critical of them. Those two trends are in collision.

[1] https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/criticism-of-israel-is-anti-...

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#34

Post by luffapi » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 9:30 PM UTC

mikevm wrote: post #30

dang wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I changed it the same way we change every such title which relies on linkbait tropes (which is what "I am $X. Here's how $Y" is). Linkbait tropes make HN threads worse. Editing them is standard moderation practice ( https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... ), and is also in the site guidelines (" Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize. " - https:/…

dang, why are such posts even allowed? It's posted by an anonymous user who's just created his account, and the content his highly one-sided and prone to create political flame wars.

You’re calling on a platform moderator to silence Palestinian voices. It’s the exact problem the OP is talking about.

Censorship in social media is definitely on topic for HN.

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#35

Post by dang » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 9:30 PM UTC

mikevm wrote: post #30

dang wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I changed it the same way we change every such title which relies on linkbait tropes (which is what "I am $X. Here's how $Y" is). Linkbait tropes make HN threads worse. Editing them is standard moderation practice ( https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... ), and is also in the site guidelines (" Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize. " - https:/…

dang, why are such posts even allowed? It's posted by an anonymous user who's just created his account, and the content his highly one-sided and prone to create political flame wars.

Some posts with political overlap are on-topic for HN. Exactly how we handle that is a complex question, but also one that has been well-worked-out over the years. Here are some detailed explanations:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21607844

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902490

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so....

The current post was obviously submitted because https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27638871 got flagged. I'm currently trying to decide whether to restore the earlier submission instead of this one, which is what we'd normally do, or whether that thread is unsalvageable. Not clear. Edit: that thread looks pretty unsalvageable.

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#36

Post by tiku » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 9:30 PM UTC

Funny to see how a lot of comments get silenced/flagged here. In a topic about social media silencing. The irony.

This is how it works on all social media, people are offended and they report it.

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#37

Post by wizzwizz4 » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 9:31 PM UTC

mikevm wrote: post #30

dang wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I changed it the same way we change every such title which relies on linkbait tropes (which is what "I am $X. Here's how $Y" is). Linkbait tropes make HN threads worse. Editing them is standard moderation practice ( https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... ), and is also in the site guidelines (" Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize. " - https:/…

dang, why are such posts even allowed? It's posted by an anonymous user who's just created his account, and the content his highly one-sided and prone to create political flame wars.

Not every source has to be “balanced”. A balanced perspective comes from listening to lots of voices, not one neutral-sounding summary.

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#38

Post by crooked-v » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 9:32 PM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #32

crooked-v wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peace is unlikely as long as settlers continue to claim Palestinean land and force them out of their own homes, considering what an obvious mockery this makes of any kind of negotiations even for those Palestineans who do actively want peace.

[deleted]

What are you talking about?

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#39

Post by dang » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 9:32 PM UTC

2939223 wrote: post #18

ljasdas wrote: post #14

Not sure why HN moderation changed the original title, which was "I am Palestinian. Here’s how Israel silences us on social media." to its current form.

Demonisation of Israel cannot be tolerated. Very telling.

> very telling

This is the sort of internet cheap shot that passionate partisans come up with. If you multiply all the moderation actions you agree with by 0% and all the ones you disagree with by 100%, yes, you're going to end up with quite a picture of bias. But it's a picture you've generated yourself by weighting the variables that way.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

For example, I specifically turned off the flags on this submission. That's a moderation action you presumably support, since you submitted it. But you overlook that, while a title edit is "very telling". Meanwhile there's someone on the opposite side of the question who's weighting the same two actions in the opposite way and coming up with the opposite conclusion, which they no doubt also consider "very telling".

More here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27646015.

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#40

Post by ardit33 » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 9:32 PM UTC

Wow... this comment section is proving the point of the article. This was posted last night as well and got flagged right away.

The discussion is important as it is about Tech platforms deciding to side with Israel and silencing Palestinians in social media and they have no recourse. 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 former communist country (1980, Albania), and censorship and media control 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.” "