Comment by catlover76 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by catlover76 | Hacker News Reader

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I totally hear you and think it's messed up too, but I'm not sure this line of argument makes sense.

First, it's factually inapposite, because we don't have a bunch of disproportionately pro-Saudi American companies and billionaires trying to intimidate people speaking in favor of Yemeni civilians, considering ad blitzes to gaslight and obfuscate the issues, etc. We don't have a significant pro-Saudi bias in the media such that it views the conflict there as worthy of constant reporting and also as a relatively black-and-white struggle where Yemeni civilians either are getting what they deserve or are merely unfortunate collateral damage for justifiable military actions. We don't have a strong contingency of people in this country trying to act like speaking out against the killing of Yemeni civilians is being "pro-terrorist".

Second, it's logically inane to say that someone's criticism of something is invalid because they didn't speak out or criticize some other thing that they most likely don't even know about.

> it's logically inane to say that someone's criticism of something is invalid because they didn't speak out or criticize some other thing that they most likely don't even know about.

I'm not saying the criticism of Hamas and/or Israel is invalid, I just found it worth pointing out that there are conflicts that teens somehow can make up their mind on (that's TikTok's claim, not mine) and strong enough that they take to the streets for that, while they likely haven't heard of other somewhat comparable conflicts (support by "their government", civilians dying, half the world away, ...) at all.

Maybe it's just the general media circus (Yemen _isn't_ very present in the media, after all), but "algorithm" or not, I'm considering TikTok part of that media circus.

As such, "the kids are just voicing their opinion" seems a rather shallow excuse to me: They pick up what gets amplified. Having no idea about Yemen but strong opinions on "who's the baddie" in Gaza (since folks like to talk colonialism: it's clearly the UK) doesn't sound like an independently formed opinion at all, and so I'm not willing to let TikTok (et al) off the hook.

What if that criticism isn't actually because of the conflict, but because of prejudices against one of the parties? There are strong anti-Islam and anti-Jewish forces at play. That sort of racism generally invalidates an argument.

So you believe that there is no valid basis to criticize Israel's actions here, and that anyone who is critical thereof must certainly be acting out of bigotry and you won't hear otherwise?

And nothing I pointed out about how differently the war in Yemen is situated in the Western consciousness (i.e. basically not at all) versus this one matters?

There are all manner of reasons to criticize Israel’s actions.

I believe that most American teens opinions on this matter are influenced by either anti-Islam or anti-Jewish messaging they read through social media, and not a genuine interest in the conflict.

I have no doubt that anti-Muslim/Arab and anti-Jewish sentiment influence a lot of peoples' views, but you seem to be taking the view in this thread that it's appropriate to assume that's the case the first time you hear of anyone's views, to speculate it's the case that "most" American teens are influenced by those lines of thinking for some reason.

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