Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices • Hacker News Board

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#51

Post by brabel » Sun, May 05, 2024, 8:25 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #15

I’m not sure about “dark day for the media” but it does feel like a dark day for Israel. Once you’ve established that the government can unilaterally ban a voice for reasons of “national security” you’ve essentially given them a free pass. As Americans living post-9/11 will know, “national security” is a deliberately elastic term that can cover anything required in the moment.

The EU has banned many Russian and Belarussian news sources since the invasion of Ukraine.

The USA seems to not have followed through (as far as I know - as Russian news sites seem to be available).

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#52

Post by verdverm » Sun, May 05, 2024, 8:25 PM UTC

stoperaticless wrote: post #22

nkurz wrote: post #18

How much precedent is there for this? Are there parallels for other countries? Does the US prohibit any news agencies from operating in our borders? Does Europe? Does Russia? Does China? I presume North Korea does, but I don't actually know. These aren't designed to be leading questions. I don't know the answers, and rather than searching, I figured someone else here might know offhand.

Tic toc was recently banned in US.

TikTok wasn't banned explicitly. They are required to divest within a year. If they don't, then the app becomes banned

It is likely more countries will follow. India trail blazed by banning TikTok almost 4 years ago after the border skirmish with China

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#53

Post by tredre3 » Sun, May 05, 2024, 8:25 PM UTC

nkurz wrote: post #18

How much precedent is there for this? Are there parallels for other countries? Does the US prohibit any news agencies from operating in our borders? Does Europe? Does Russia? Does China? I presume North Korea does, but I don't actually know. These aren't designed to be leading questions. I don't know the answers, and rather than searching, I figured someone else here might know offhand.

There's lots of precedent. We just have to look at the Ukraine-Russia war.

Ukraine has shut down everything but the state-sponsored television.

Russia has shut down most independent media since the beginning of the war as well.

But admittedly, they are in a war of (dis)information so might not be representative of the freedom of the press.

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#54

Post by [deleted] » Sun, May 05, 2024, 8:26 PM UTC

jjgreen wrote: post #30

yonixwm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other extreme, Are media that spread misinformation without any due process are just protected indefinitely? Like in this very recent case: https://honestreporting.com/damage-done-how-al-jazeeras-fake... Edit: haaretz link: https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/2024-0...

Honest Reporting is an Israeli media advocacy group. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HonestReporting

[deleted]

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#55

Post by brabel » Sun, May 05, 2024, 8:26 PM UTC

_Microft wrote: post #37

afavour wrote: post #15

I’m not sure about “dark day for the media” but it does feel like a dark day for Israel. Once you’ve established that the government can unilaterally ban a voice for reasons of “national security” you’ve essentially given them a free pass. As Americans living post-9/11 will know, “national security” is a deliberately elastic term that can cover anything required in the moment.

I think it's neither surprising nor necessarily bad. Just think of how Russia Today was spreading disinformation and propaganda about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Banning them from the EU was certainly in our interest.

It's disinformation according to the Government though, which is the same thing happening here with Israel, isn't it?

Do you believe Al Jazeera is spreading misinformation? Even if Israel says so? Even if the USA starts saying so as well?

I don't know where we can draw a line here.

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#56

Post by loceng » Sun, May 05, 2024, 8:26 PM UTC

pseingatl wrote: post #4

Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Banning Al Jazeera is arguably more humane than shooting a rocket into their offices, as was done by Israel in Gaza and the US Army in Baghdad.

Far too many eyeballs witnessing the "conflict" now - and with Elon buying Twitter-X, the censorship-suppression-narrative control apparatus has a massive hole in it now.

#ZeroIsASpecialNumber

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#57

Post by dkjaudyeqooe » Sun, May 05, 2024, 8:27 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #15

I’m not sure about “dark day for the media” but it does feel like a dark day for Israel. Once you’ve established that the government can unilaterally ban a voice for reasons of “national security” you’ve essentially given them a free pass. As Americans living post-9/11 will know, “national security” is a deliberately elastic term that can cover anything required in the moment.

The only justification would be if they are broadcasting government secrets.

Clearly they're not doing that, just criticizing the government.

The obvious next step is outlawing any speech criticizing the government (or rather 'speech that is a threat to national security'), then you've got the same laws as in Russia.

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#58

Post by itscodingtime » Sun, May 05, 2024, 8:27 PM UTC

bottlepalm wrote: post #11

Is there anyone else who doesn't support either side of this conflict? They've been fighting each other for over 100 years. They both want the same piece of land. It's on them to figure it out. People around the world don't need to 'pick a side'. We can protest for both sides to sort their shit out, and not drag the rest of us into it.

I agree with that line of thought too, but one side is sort of represented a terrorist organization who have the ability to murder 1200 people and kidnap others while the other is a western democracy that has the ability kill 30k people as collateral damage level. The collateral damage is so high but people like Sam Harris is saying Israel is engaging in a restrained manner compared to other powers previous retaliatory actions to terrorism.

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#59

Post by verdverm » Sun, May 05, 2024, 8:27 PM UTC

loceng wrote: post #36

verdverm wrote: post #8

Reporters Without Borders gathers data and produces some interesting graphics. They recently released their World Press Freedom Index https://rsf.org/en https://rsf.org/en/country/israel --- edit: they appear to keep a list of mirrored news sites to circumvent censorship https://github.com/RSF-RWB/collateralfreedom (was hoping they had data available for their index, but have not found it yet) --- edit: the index has…

FTL: "... while more than 100 journalists were killed in six months in Gaza by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) ..." Anyone know where to find what the current accurate count of number of journalists killed in the Gaza bombardment to date? Last I heard it was 170. There are also journalists who lived but their whole family died in the strikes.

It is unlikely that reliable numbers will come out of Gaza with the media blackout and two sides who both want to present information "favorably"

At least until the war has subsided and independent orgs can gain access.

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#60

Post by H8crilA » Sun, May 05, 2024, 8:27 PM UTC

I don't feel good about this at all, but please keep in mind that there is still serious independent journalism in Israel. And it's doing very well. For example I can recommend pretty much anything published by Haaretz, or Barak Ravid. We should monitor the health of their domestic media should things start going un-democratic there. After all nothing can replace domestic media, this is painfully clear in the case of Russia.