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Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers

haaretz.com

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Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers

#221

Post by asveikau »

mupuff1234 wrote: post #205
asveikau wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This line of propaganda is kind of infuriating. Separate from this incident, Israel bombed afaik every hospital in Gaza. They claimed Hamas was operating inside them or under them and produced absolutely zero credible evidence of it. They killed a lot of doctors and patients. But if they start out polluting minds with the claim that one time at the Al Ahli parking lot, there was an Islamic Jihad rocket once, they the…

You are changing the subject, I'm just disputing that NYtimes is Israel propaganda, I'm not claiming anything about the righteousness of Israeli actions.

My personal opinion of NYT is that their record is mixed on the subject.

If you'll allow me to change the subject to one that is less presently divisive to provide an instructive example, NYT's conduct in the lead-up to the Iraq war is a great example of where they acted as a pro-war propaganda mouth piece, and maybe the institution doesn't deserve our total trust.

Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers

#222

Post by nsguy »

nerdjon wrote: post #202
leoh wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Trying to shut down a conversation with "Antisemitism" does not help your case. Being critical of their actions does not equal antisemitism. I fully understand why they are doing what they are doing, they would be stupid not too. That doesn't mean its ok and we should accept it. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/17/pro-israel-m...

How do you propose we determine the fine line between the antisemitic "The Jews run the World" and "being critical of their actions"? What would e.g. be the piece of evidence that convinces you that we're dealing with antisemitism and not legitimate criticism?

We shouldn't shut down conversations about Israel with antisemitism but we also shouldn't shut down conversations about antisemitism with "being critical of their actions".

There are many other groups lobbying for various causes in the US, e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_lobby_in_the_United_State...

"According to ProPublica, 4 of the top 10 governments lobbying in Washington are Arab, in terms of spending. The United Arab Emirates places first, having spent $10,914,002 in 2007 and 2008. Iraq, Morocco and Saudi Arabia also each spent over $3 million, and the non-Arab, Middle Eastern nation of Turkey also spent over $3 million."

Why the focus on Israel here?

Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers

#223

Post by tumsfestival »

wonderwonder wrote: post #56
jhp123 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How many congressmen are dual citizens with Israeli citizenship? Zero? I can't find a reliable source for any congress member being an Israeli citizen

OP means Jews https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/news/defining-antisem... Lots of people going masks off now that is cool to be anti-semitic again but now we call it anti-zionist.

This post was brought to you by the IDF, remember if you don't agree with us you're as bad as Nazis.

Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers

#224

Post by Maxatar »

michaeljhg wrote: post #102

Is there a country that doesn't do this?

I don't know of any government department in Canada, Mexico, the UK, France, Germany, Australia that target U.S. law makers with fake social media accounts.

Do you know of any? Can you cite them?

Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers

#225

Post by pnut »

fsckboy wrote: post #195
justin66 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Free speech sometimes applies to things you don’t like. ...and in the United States we've defined down "free speech" to include "monetary donations."

somebody needs to pay for the billboard, or rent a hall to give a speech, or printing the flyers for your lost cat. How is money not essential to speech? Your proposal is that to support a cause, one should only be allowed to go outside and yell, because that's purer than the corrupting influence of money?

Once money gets involved, you inherently have a commercial interest. What's the ROI?

I personally think people misunderstand to whom "freedom" is granted and defended in the US, it is demonstrably not freedom of the individual, but of the powerful.

Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers

#226

Post by oddtuple »

dang wrote: post #183
runarberg wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Your account has continued to use HN primarily for political battle after we asked you recently to stop: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40519369 (May 2024) If you keep this up we're going to have to ban you, for reasons explained on many past occasions: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... . Edit for anyone concerned: yes, this principle applies regardless of which side of any politic…

Dang, We get you’re frustrated but he’s just stating his opinion. It’s not out of line relative to the other discourse in this thread.

Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers

#227

Post by pessimizer »

zen928 wrote: post #216
jimbob45 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that we've already solved these issues many times over on other sites that are decades old. HN simply refuses to implement 21st-century forum enhancements. Brigaded reports? 4chan solved it by adding a mandatory enum to reports to specify what the report is reporting for. Identifying bad reports and banning users as a result becomes trivial. Flooding with stories about a particular topic? That's what s…

Use the appropriate forum to debate topics in the manner you prefer instead of trying to force others to conform to your standards.

There is no planet where the opinion above represents "force." Stop telling people who disagree with you to shut up.

Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers

#228

Post by croes »

cjk2 wrote: post #70

Well their enemies used social accounts to garner support from US citizens so you've got to start somewhere! It's not like we haven't done this either. I worked for a company in 2005 which was doing this paid for by politicians. Moment I worked this out, I quit.

So it's ok to do something wrong, if others do it too?

Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers

#229

Post by SimbaOnSteroids »

The wild part about this, at least to me, is the wholesale incompetence demonstrated by Israel in this regard. If I couldn't google the talking points the bots make and see Israeli officials saying the same things, one would think these bots were Iranians acting with the intent to make Israel look bad.

Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers

#230

Post by davesque »

nextstep wrote: post #11

Also reported on by NY Times and posted here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40583068 but like most articles about Israeli hacking, US Big Tech involvement in the war, etc it was immediately flagged once it reached the front page. I don’t know how much of this is moderators removing posts, or if there is a pro-Israel brigade that is censoring HN’s front page.

I flagged it because it's really boring to see people go through the same predictable, tribal motions on a topic that's been covered to death by every media outlet.
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