Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices
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Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices
#802"and block its websites." So this keeps Israelis from reading Al Jazeera. Now that's new. Israel started Internet censorship in 2017.[1] Initially it was limited to "terror group websites, online illegal gambling, prostitution services, hard drug sales". At the time, "due to warnings from rights groups that the law poses a slippery slope toward additional censorship, the final version of the legislation dictates that…
> The US White House press secretary issued a weak statement condemning Israel's action, but it was on April 1st and the costumed Easter Bunny overshadowed that statement.[7] Wow you can't make this stuff up
video of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GfCgqeWqOY
Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices
#803Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Sources, please.
Here's a random description of sources, with an illustration of what's happening right at the time I'm posting this, in a not particularly important news item.
https://www-aljazeera-net.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_t...
(yes, this strange URL is just Google translate translating the arabic frontpage of Al-Jazeera. Don't worry, they're not going to stop the double speak)
vs
Here's my take:
Arabic: https://www-aljazeera-net.translate.goog/news/2024/5/6/%d8%a...
Proudly declaring that Hezbollah attacks the Golan Heights of Israel with "booby-trapped drones". One might point out that booby trapping weapons is illegal under international law and a serious warcrime. A warcrime that even Russia, who see no problem with white phosphorous and poison gas, refuses to commit in Ukraine. Why? There's no telling who will be killed by booby trapped weapons (Booby trapped weapons legislation is about that will explode on impact, then explode again or otherwise injure people when it's getting cleaned up or examined. Because civilians might clean up weapons, or children might find them, this is a big no-no in international law)
The whole article is about using 10 different sources to brag how effective the attack was, and it just keeps and keeps going on about that. It mentions various sources, each more far fetched than the last, how "these types of rockets" cause enormous damage, death and injuries. It has no mention of this being a response to Israeli attacks, nor does it have any mention that Israel made a counterstrike.
It concludes by actually stating that the military campaign by Hezbollah is about to defeat the IDF.
English, same news event:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/13/lebanons-hezbollah-...
In this, the "booby-trapped" part is gone, they are reporting it, pretending to be neutral about it (as opposed to in arabic, where they are anything but neutral) and the whole article starts trying to cause doubts about whether the attack happened at all.
Prominently featured in the article is that the Isreali military states no injuries where reported, and all the sources are suddenly gone. Instead, there is focus on that this is a "tit-for-tat" attack, that was really Israel's fault.
In other words, the article focuses on how this was a totally ineffective attack, that was justified because of Israeli killings in Lebanon, that absolutely does not merit any kind of counterattack.
In case you're wondering, Israeli press reported the same event:
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-05-06/ty-article-li...
https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-800017
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/s1joamlmc#autoplay
Summary:
1) 30 rockets (al Jazeera and Hezbollah reported many drones)
2) NO details, no statements from Hezbollah
3) it hit a town, Metulla, not a military base, either zero (Haaretz, Ynetnews) or two (Jerusalem Post) persons wounded, both civilians. The town, by the way, is in the foothills of the Golan heights at best, it is very much not actually in the Golan heights. But it's very close to Lebanon.
3) The IDF executed a military counterstrike, against military targets (which means Hezbollah launch sites)
Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices
#804TBH I don't care to extend charity like freedom of speech to people that don't share our liberal values. Sure, the bar should be very high for such charges, but organizations like Al Jazeera have repeatedly shown their colors.
Ah yes, freedom of speech works best when limited only to people who share your values. Truly our greatest allies in democracy.
Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices
#805Excellent move. They were encouraging terrorism, and are funded by actors who are connected to terrorist activities. It's long overdue.
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Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices
#806Earlier quoted context omitted.
Few questioned Ukraine's decision to ban RT's operations. This doesn't seem terribly different - Al Jazeera has very deep ties to Hamas, the enemy Israel is at war with, and has arguably been acting as their mouthpiece for propaganda.
i did and do. banning your citizens from reading the 'propaganda' of your enemy reduces them to subjects and foments further armed conflict. it's also a power invariably used to avoid accountability for petty corruption such as beria's garden full of young, beautiful women
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Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices
#807Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's part of the EU sanctions, EU ISPs are required to block certain Russian sites. But they didn't specify how, that's left up to the countries to figure out afaik. But as you say, some of the what has been done barely qualifies. Here's my personal experience with this: Germany does exactly what you describe, the bare minimum to say "we're blocking" --- DNS omitting certain sites. Spain is doing deep packet inspecti…
Thanks, though that specifically why I am questioning that it is the EU in this case. Because rt.com is reachable in Sweden just fine, including sub-sites. Which, to me, says that it must be national sanctions, or at minimum, national lists of what to 'block'.
Because rt.com is reachable in Sweden just fine, including sub-sites.
See discussion further down thread, but basically the block in Sweden seems to be on the ISP level and depends on which ISP you have. I can access rt.com via work wifi, but not not over mobile data via Telia. Another user who has Telia as their home ISP cannot access rt.com from home either.
Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices
#808Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are two things wrong with this argument. One, it implies that there isn't a better way to deal with an such a malicious organization. And two, it doesn't acknowledge how such a ban creates an obvious opening for abuse. Holding up the classic Western ideals of Democracy and Freedom is hard because it is much deeper than simply giving people the freedom to access all information so they can form their own opinion…
The argument in no way implies that there is no other way to deal with malice, only that it is an option. The argument further implies that the decision to censor should not be taken lightly. When censorship is being considered in a democratic society, the decision to do so must be argued and debated. Note that it is perfectly possible to be well-educated and still be taken in by bullshit and false information - it h…
Content is being banned because the governments don't think the citizens collectively can handle that content. This is the government thinking for the people. I wouldn't have an issue if it was really argued and debated, but I don't really see that happening. It is mostly just the government unilaterally deciding that said content is bad and banning it with no really possibility for debate. It isn't too hard to imagine a situation where content would help citizens but harm the government, and who is really deciding what to ban in such a case.
Countries are seeing how much banning content helps governments in places like China, and want that easy "solution" to their problems instead of doing the difficult thing of properly educating citizens and cultivating free and open discourse.
I guess my analogy is bad because it is debatable if fast food, in itself, is bad for you. My issue with your analogy is that the use of violence is abused by governments so much more than it is every used correctly (if that is even possible) and that all citizens would benefit from governments condemning violence. The reason governments don't condemn violence isn't because their use of violence helps citizens, it is because their use of violence helps themselves. And the same thing goes for banning content. So I guess your analogy is actually pretty good, just counterproductive to your point.
Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices
#809Earlier quoted context omitted.
Damn that was a difficult read. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wael_Al-Dahdouh 2023-10-28: Wife, 15-year-old son, 7-year-old daughter, a grandson and seven other relatives killed in strike on refugee camp. 2023-12-15: Wounded by missile during filming, cameraman fatally wounded and bled to death with ambulances cut off. 2024-01-07: Eldest son, a journalist, killed in air strike. 2024-01-08: Two nephews killed. 2024-01…
As much as it hurts even writing it, I don't think its a rare story there these days. History will not look kindly at both sides here, they really have no higher moral ground than the other
>History will not look kindly at both sides here, they really have no higher moral ground than the other
There are four sides here: the Israeli government, Hamas, Israeli citizens, and Palestinian citizens. The first two are the active combatants. The third group were victims in October. The fourth group are still victims today. Killing unarmed and non-hostile citizens is absolutely immoral. Acting in such a reckless way that the majority of casualties are citizens is still immoral.
History will look harshly on Hamas for slaughtering thousands of Israeli citizens, and Israel for slaughtering tens of thousands of Palestinian citizens. No rational person should think those citizens were at fault.
Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices
#810Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Does it make them harder to watch here? No. Of course it does? Most people are not going to go out of their way for it unless they have specific reasons to do so. What's on/available by default matters. (Ask any UX specialist.)
I should know better, my wife is a UX specialist! You make a good point. What I should have said is that it won’t stop people who really want to watch it.
But then that isn't the goal: totally preventing you from ever seeing Al Jazeera or somesuch. As you noted: that'd be curtailment of freedoms only befitting dictatorships. Nobody wants that.
Making it slightly more difficult to consume outright propaganda by not having it front and center; that seems to me to be a very much acceptable move for democratic and free states to make in the context of information warfare.