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Meta censors pro-Palestinian views on a global scale, report claims

theguardian.com

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Re: Meta censors pro-Palestinian views on a global scale, report claims

#481

Post by [deleted] »

sarafiq wrote: post #479
mgraczyk wrote: post #336

Interestingly if you read the actual report from HRW, it sounds like most of the material they are referring too was legitimately taken down because it supported violence, according to Meta's policies. For example, the phrase "from the river to the see" is considered hateful by many, so it was taken down. In other cases the content praised attacks by Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the US go…

So the phrase "from the river to the sea" is hateful to many but when it comes to disrespect Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) or Quran then it becomes freedom of speech no matter a vast majority of world population hates it. Hypocrisy to say the least!

[deleted]

Re: Meta censors pro-Palestinian views on a global scale, report claims

#482

Post by peyton »

sarafiq wrote: post #479
mgraczyk wrote: post #336

Interestingly if you read the actual report from HRW, it sounds like most of the material they are referring too was legitimately taken down because it supported violence, according to Meta's policies. For example, the phrase "from the river to the see" is considered hateful by many, so it was taken down. In other cases the content praised attacks by Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the US go…

So the phrase "from the river to the sea" is hateful to many but when it comes to disrespect Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) or Quran then it becomes freedom of speech no matter a vast majority of world population hates it. Hypocrisy to say the least!

Both are hateful to many and both are protected from laws by Congress. Facebook can remove whatever it wants on their platform.

Re: Meta censors pro-Palestinian views on a global scale, report claims

#483

Post by bjourne »

rayiner wrote: post #380
mgraczyk wrote: post #336

Interestingly if you read the actual report from HRW, it sounds like most of the material they are referring too was legitimately taken down because it supported violence, according to Meta's policies. For example, the phrase "from the river to the see" is considered hateful by many, so it was taken down. In other cases the content praised attacks by Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the US go…

> For example, the phrase "from the river to the see" is considered hateful by many The phrase has its origins in Arab nationalism. It was coined in 1960 by the PLO to refer to the goal of an Arab state that occupies the entirety of what was Mandatory Palestine. If you ignore the subtext of “what happens to the Jews in that situation” I suppose you can make a case for it. It’s like the confederate flag. In the 20th c…

Comparing the chant "from the river to the sea" with the confederate flag is completely preposterous. The chant is a call for liberation. Anyone who has a problem with someone's freedom is themselves a racist and probably has a lot of views in common with what the confederate flag stands for. Fwiw, the phrase was coined by Jewish settlers in the 1930's (https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/2018-12-16/ty-artic...) and ADL is an anti-Palestinian hate organization whose opinions no one should take seriously.

> You can’t travel to my “moderate Muslim” country with an Israeli passport. Guess why that is?

Perhaps for exactly the same reason Russian passport holders aren't welcome in a lot of places?

Re: Meta censors pro-Palestinian views on a global scale, report claims

#484

Post by torton »

paulmd wrote: post #420
chiefalchemist wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom of speech is drastically compromised when there's a lower and lower ceiling of freedom of thought. Meta or any platform limiting speech is a 2x "win" because it also limits further proliferation of such ideas. That is, people can't think what they aren't aware of. People can't change their minds when the alternatives are limited.

Even here there are some thoughts you are not allowed to voice. And I’m not just talking about violence/etc but calling out ideas too vigorously etc will get you censored here too. “Flamewar style” is the trope used to justify it. and in general this site also has a massive trend of people who are losing a debate leaning in to rules-lawyering as a means of suppressing disagreement etc. “sorry sir you’re not allowed t…

> and in general this site also has a massive trend of people who are losing a debate leaning in to rules-lawyering as a means of suppressing disagreement etc.

Is this specific to or more prevalent on this site though? Seems like common human/business behaviour. If you can’t win on merit, win on technicality, etc.

Re: Meta censors pro-Palestinian views on a global scale, report claims

#485

Post by mgraczyk »

slim wrote: post #404
mgraczyk wrote: post #336

Interestingly if you read the actual report from HRW, it sounds like most of the material they are referring too was legitimately taken down because it supported violence, according to Meta's policies. For example, the phrase "from the river to the see" is considered hateful by many, so it was taken down. In other cases the content praised attacks by Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the US go…

removal of content is really like 10% of the cases. the most worrisome type of suppression of speech is what they call "shadow banning" which is really "reach limiting". to the extent people now refrain from using the word "Palestine" to avoid metas algirithms. I experienced this myself. We have a draft law in parliament concerning boyocott of israel. I posted a status about the law (notice it's unrelated to war or a…

From my first hand experience designing these algorithms at Meta and running experiments, and listening to feedback from accounts, I would guess that you are not getting reach because your followers do not interact with what you post. In almost every case people call "shadow ban", the cause was occasionally an actual bug (code doing something undesired and unexpected) or far more often people posting bad content.

The ML is good enough to know whether your followers want to engage with political content. If they don't, Facebook will show them less of it.

Re: Meta censors pro-Palestinian views on a global scale, report claims

#486

Post by dlubarov »

anigbrowl wrote: post #444
dlubarov wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> precision weapons tend to reduce civilian casualties Yes, but normally the user is targeting military assets and trying to minimize collateral damage. I think it's clear that Hamas has the opposite goal, since they typically lob unguided rockets in the general direction of population centers.

If all you have are unguided rockets, you're going to point them wherever they're most likely to hit something. If/when you have guidance systems, you can afford to be selective and concentrate on high value targets. That's how it goes in asymmetric warfare.

Given Hamas' explicit genocidal goals, I think we can expect some portion of their strikes will simply aim to maximize Jewish deaths, even as others may target specific military assets.

See for example Russia's recent Hroza strike (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hroza_missile_attack), which killed 59 at a memorial service. Hamas can't really do strikes like that today; they would just miss with overwhelming probability. I think that will change soon if they remain in power.

Re: Meta censors pro-Palestinian views on a global scale, report claims

#487

Post by two_in_one »

slim wrote: post #404
mgraczyk wrote: post #336

Interestingly if you read the actual report from HRW, it sounds like most of the material they are referring too was legitimately taken down because it supported violence, according to Meta's policies. For example, the phrase "from the river to the see" is considered hateful by many, so it was taken down. In other cases the content praised attacks by Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the US go…

removal of content is really like 10% of the cases. the most worrisome type of suppression of speech is what they call "shadow banning" which is really "reach limiting". to the extent people now refrain from using the word "Palestine" to avoid metas algirithms. I experienced this myself. We have a draft law in parliament concerning boyocott of israel. I posted a status about the law (notice it's unrelated to war or a…

> people now refrain from using the word "Palestine" to avoid metas algirithms

It wasn't algorithm, or glitch, or bug. It was a decision made by humans, including you know who. It's a form of crowd control. That's why it's important to have several channels for 'producers'. For others it's a good idea to have several sources. You'll see much more even if each source represents a single side (which is usually the case, 'democracies' are no different).

Re: Meta censors pro-Palestinian views on a global scale, report claims

#488

Post by torton »

nulld3v wrote: post #188
riku_iki wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IDF doesn't have intent to destroy palestinian group, they have intent to destroy Hamas, so probably you only can call it genocide against Hamas. Genocide was in Ukraine for example, when Russia targeted powerplants during winter, which didn't have any military value.

I have supported Ukraine in the war for a long time but this claim I do not understand. Surely a power plant has military value right? If you destroy the power plant, you impact the country's economic and manufacturing ability which would definitely impact the country's ability to wage war. Obviously it also severely impacts civilians but many other "acceptable" actions in war do the same. In my head I imagine a war…

I’m guessing you haven’t served. The front line military brings its own power, exactly portable gas/diesel generators, to run everything. If there is a usable power line with a transformer to a usable voltage and it hasn’t been yet damaged in the fighting, it’s amazing, but also fragile.

A non trivial chunk of signal corps training is learning the ins and outs of standard generators, conventions and apparatus for distributing power, equipment for converting between various voltages used by equipment 1 to 80 years old, etc.

Re: Meta censors pro-Palestinian views on a global scale, report claims

#489

Post by nielsbot »

rajup wrote: post #216
nielsbot wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel has repeatedly blocked the 2 state solution. Even Rabin’s stance was “the Palestinians should have something but something less than full statehood” Israel encouraged Hamas by allowing Qatari support in to Gaza with the intent of keeping Gaza and the West Bank Finally the Hamas charter was amended and no longer calls for the destruction of Israel. In any case Israel (with the support of the US) has all the pow…

> In any case Israel (with the support of the US) has all the power in this conflict and they are the ones actually killing tens of thousands of innocents What happened on Oct 7 then?

What’s happening in Gaza right now? Who is dropping the bombs? Whose army is in Gaza? What is also happening in the West Bank? What about the border in Lebanon.

True there was a terroristic raid into Israel in which 1200 people lost their lives but the scale of power does not compare AT ALL

Re: Meta censors pro-Palestinian views on a global scale, report claims

#490

Post by faeriechangling »

mgraczyk wrote: post #336

Interestingly if you read the actual report from HRW, it sounds like most of the material they are referring too was legitimately taken down because it supported violence, according to Meta's policies. For example, the phrase "from the river to the see" is considered hateful by many, so it was taken down. In other cases the content praised attacks by Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the US go…

I have no problem taking down "From the river to the sea" type content so long as we also take down Greater Israel type content.
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