I'd like to see examples of actual posts that were taken down, rather than talk of the quantity, or who filed the reports.
The group admin this morning let us know via Facebook post that he has received warnings frm Facebook. The group is "at a risk of being suspended" because way too many posts relating to "dangerous organization and individuals" have been removed. He wants everyone to be extra careful when posting about p*l*s*i*e, I*r*e*, g*z*, j*w* etc. He used asterisks himself just to be extra careful himself.
Not to mention my country is dealing with rohingya crisis, which was fueled by Facebook and WhatsApp misinformation campaigns, and Facebook had 2 moderators for the whole country of Myanmar and refused to do anything about said misinformation campaigns. But they sure make exceptions for I*r*e*.
Not sure why you're downvoted. This is all true.
You are the one who seems to be uptight, bringing up the topic of bombs (?!), and scolding me to relax. Maybe you should relax.
P.S. for those wondering, my flagged comment simply asked why Jews would come up as a topic at all on a local Bangladeshi group. The irony of it being flagged in a post about censorship is piquant.
Further, FB found it necessary to stop discussions about Jews on that group. Now, we can cook up any number of conspiracies about how any mention of Jews is like discussing fight club, or the Illuminati, and that's why FB instructed the group to stop discussing it. Or we can deduce the obvious. That the group, that would normally not be expected to be discussing Jews, had some fairly distasteful discussions about Jews.
FB is not a model of good moderation by a long shot. But given the strangeness of the topic in a local neighborhood group, we can deduce that FB probably got it right in this case.
For a start, I don't outright deny that. Personally I haven't come across a lot, but there are different kinds of people and commentary on social media, so I won't be surprised if a fraction of them are indeed doing so.
Even if they do, Facebook is evidently maximizing resources to moderate calls for violence against Jews/Israel. Which I personally applaud. Palestine is a complex issue that cannot be fixed with violence. It's just that I'd appreciate if Facebook did the same level of moderation when Buddists in Myanmar were doing the same. Otherwise in plain and simple view it seems Facebook does not bother when victims are of certain group.
Remember that Bangladesh is a Muslim majority country (85%+). So naturally there is popular support in favor of Palestine and strong anti-Israel sentiments.
What's really happening is that people are organizing procession and demonstration in support of Gaza, and when they try to organize and communicate online on Facebook and other platforms about this specific issue, their posts are getting moderated out of existence.
Now if you ask whether should people organize in support/against either Palestine or Israel, that's a whole different issue and not what we are debating here.
They’ll do anything but leave.
Could you give a little more detail about what that means?
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/20/facebook-...
Same thing happened during 9/11. Muslims saw suppression, bullying by the police and no one covered it. Then the tables turned on maga republicans after j6.
My understanding of Hamas is that they are not considered a legitimate army, but if they were they would be guilty of an insurmountable number of war crimes (not unlike the IDF as many would say). Showing support for such things is beyond reasonable accepted discourse in my home country.
Any excuse is good when you have power and want to justify repression. For example they tried to claim that the slogan "from the river to the sea Palestine will be free" is genocidal. Quite a jump. (Meanwhile, the Likud's platform says "from the river to the sea there will be only Israel" but that's fine).
> if they were they would be guilty of an insurmountable number of war crimes
They killed much less civilians than the IDF did, and they are not invaders nor illegal occupiers of someone else's country. What is acceptable or unacceptable is decided by those who are in power, and they are currently protecting a country whose prime minister in charge is wanted for crimes against humanity.
It’s actually just German for “The Bart, The”.
There is no other meaning. The slogan is a call to kill every single Israeli. That is literally what it means. Where will the israelis be when palestine is free from the river to the see? The hamas charter still to this day calls to kill every single israeli. This is the problem. You yourself dont even know what it is you are calling for, then you get mad when others point out that you are using slogans that call for a genocide. For the record I think Likud is awful as well, but at least in the US there are no serious israel supporters using the israeli version of the slogan.
As far as counting deaths that doesnt work because Hamas is getting their own civilians killed on purpose while israel is doing the opposite. If hamas had a nuke it would wipe israel off the map, israel does have nukes and the palestinians are more numerous than ever. The palestinaians are deeply oppressed, but theyre also raging assholes who would love nothing more than to not just oppress but kill every isreali. Being oppressed doesnt make them right.
And Hamas 2017 charter does not hace that language
Straight from the 2017 version, calling for the genocide of israelis. I think the israeli version of the slogan is genocidal too, as I said originally.
Oh well, this is just unbelievable. So by your logic the Likud platform, where it claims Israeli sovereignty over the whole Palestine ("from the Jordan to the sea") is a call to kill every single Palestinian? So Israel is ruled since thirty years by a genocidal party? And have you denounced this left and right?
> For the record I think Likud is awful as well, but at least in the US there are no serious israel supporters using the israeli version of the slogan.
I register that when you talk about a protest slogan calling for "freedom" you call it "genocidal"; when talking about the governing party in Israel, whose leader is under arrest order for crimes against humanity, it's just "awful". So is Likud, Israel's ruling party, genocidal or not? Does that make Israel a genocidal state or not? Does it make the US politicians that support the current Israeli government genocidal or not?
By your logic the proposal to ethnically cleanse the Gaza strip, made by Trump and endorsed by Netanyahu (or more probably the other way around), is also a call to kill every single Palestinian in it? And this is not a slogan, it is literally a proposal by the president of the most powerful country on earth. Did you denounce it?
But you logic is flawed.
What if Israel is dissolved and becomes a different state and Jews and Arabs are both unharmed and free to live in it? Wouldn't then Palestine be free, without the need to kill anyone?
> The hamas charter still to this day calls to kill every single israeli
This is a mystification. Even the original Hamas charter (the one that was replaced by a much tamer one) explicitly said that under the protection of Islam, Muslims, Christians and Jews would be free to leave in peace with each other.
What if pigs fly? You know this was the original plan they tried right?
> is Likud, Israel's ruling party, genocidal or not?
I think they probably will be in the future, but right now they could be enacting a genocide and they are not. Hamas is unable to enact a genocide and empirically it really seems like they would do it asap.
> proposal to ethnically cleanse the Gaza strip, made by Trump... genocide
Obviously but just like most of the shit he says its just a distraction, not something he actually meant. Not that thats a good thing, it just is what it is.
The problem with the "freedom" desired in the slogan is that it is the freedom to kill every israeli. You can pretend that Hamas wants peace with israel or would be open to a one state solution that gives the jews any amount of power/freedom but we both know that is not true. The same is true of the Israelis with respect to the palestinians. Everyone in this conflict has acted horrendously and nobody has any reason to work with anyone else so it does unfortunately seem to me that at least cultural genocide if not full blown racial genocide will be the eventual resolution here. The big question is which group will the genocider and which the genocidee. I wont lie, the Israeli cultural values align more closely to my own so not so hard for me to pick a side. Of course Id love a peaceful resolution but it really seems impossible to me.
Oh why, do you think that people living together in peace and freedom is as physically impossible as pigs flying? Guess what, most people disagree with you, and that's why the protesters chant what they chant. And now disprove this.
> I think [Likud] will probably be [genocidal] in the future
So you tell me, pacific protesters chanting "from the river to the sea" are genocidal, while the party that has the same in its platform, has bombed tens of thousands of civilians and is colonising the West Bank, isn't?
> Obviously but just like most of the shit he says its just a distraction
So you tell me, pacific protesters chanting for freedom are genocidal, the prime minister bombing his neighbours and the president of the most powerful nation in the world declaring they want an ethnic cleansing do so just as a distraction?
Listen, are you for real? Because if you're not purposefully being dishonest, then there's some serious cult shit going on here.
Anyway, that's the end of the conversation for me.
And the protesters are naive idiots, which is why I called out the original comment.
> protesters chanting "from the river to the sea" are genocidal, while the party that has the same in its platform, has bombed tens of thousands of civilians and is colonising the West Bank, isn't?
Likud could be committing a genocide right now but they are not. Thats why I dont consider them genocidal right now, pretty simple. The side that actually uses the river to the sea chant with any regularity could not commit a genocide right now.
> So you tell me, pacific protesters chanting for freedom are genocidal, the prime minister bombing his neighbours and the president of the most powerful nation in the world declaring they want an ethnic cleansing do so just as a distraction?
Yes? Not sure why this is so hard to understand. Trump loves attention. When he isnt getting it he just says random shit that comes to mind until its back on him. The israeli government has not in any way endorsed trumps plans for what thats worth.
Yes the respect Fatah has. Look at the strong words of condemnation from world leaders for the daily pogroms Palestinians are subjected to in the West Bank. Look at the apartheid being enforced there, look at the demolished houses and villages, at the hundreds of illegal settlements, at the ethnic cleansing going on by the day.
Hamas is an excuse as good as any. In fact, given its overwhelming power and impunity, Israel makes and chooses its counterparts. If a Palestinian leader looks too good, they can kill him. If the protests are too peaceful, they can shoot a few people until they turn a bit violent. Hamas was promoted to weaken Fatah. And so on.
Hamas has proposed multiple times long term ceasefires (10 years) and has recognised the 1967 borders. All these proposals went completely ignored and mostly unmentioned in the Western media because that's not useful to Israel.
Hamas has broken ever cease fire since they took power. There was a ceasefire in place when they attacked Israel.
Interestingly in WW2 a lot of Germans helped to save Jews. Exactly zero gazans helped to save an hostage. Some civilians even held hostages at home themselves.
What is that based on?
Hamas is very different than the Nazis. They are holding hostages in a war - they want the hostages to live or the hostages have no value. The Nazis were trying to murder as many people as possible.
Do you have any credible source for that?
> And hamas promised to kill all jews, not only in israel.
When? And whatever your theory, what I said is what actually happened.
Violence doesn't win political credibility when you're extremely weak, and not in control of the media narrative to manufacture consent or justifications for aid and arms shipments.
That's what the Axis of Evil says and actively tries to convey: inevitability, despair, etc. It's basic propaganda.
It's taking it way to far to suppress speech - political speech, the most important speech - for slipping in the 'wrong' slogans.
> My understanding of Hamas is that they are not considered a legitimate army, but if they were they would be guilty of an insurmountable number of war crimes
While Hamas commits many horrors and is oppressive and awful, I don't think the ligitimate army argument holds water:
If Hamas acted like a legitimate army under the laws of war, they'd be massacred in an instant. It would require them to dress in uniforms so they can be identified, and only fight against the enemy's military. Hamas has some rifles and RPGs and a few rockets. Their enemy has tanks, fighter planes, etc etc etc. If Hamas wanted to be a legitimate army, their only option would be to immediately disband.
The laws of war seem written by large powers to protect their interests. There are legitimate 'freedom-fighting' insurgents out there who also are limited in their ability to be a 'legitimate army'.
> (not unlike the IDF as many would say). Showing support for such things is beyond reasonable accepted discourse in my home country.
So can people show support for either Israel (it's not the IDF, it's a political entity - Israel) or Hamas (also a political entity)? How do they talk about the war?
Surely the burden should be on the censors to establish clearly that something is in fact incitement to violence, rather than on external reporters to magically show that content which has been taken down is not incitement?
But the journalists seem to be doing a decent job of announcing and describing the data they have, and confirming it with multiple sources within Meta. They're engaged in a seemingly earnest and forthright effort to make the case. And to the degree that it's limited, it seems those limits are due to Meta itself.
Meta, on the other hand, excepting these whistleblowers, makes very little information available about their take-down actions both at the level of individual cases or at the level of their systematic responses to governments. The whistleblowers claim that Meta regularly took down posts without human review when requested by the Israelis. That's the exact opposite of the high burden of proof that you're asking for.
In terms of the implied proposition that israel is intentionally using the take down process to shield itself from criticism. I just dont think the evidence in the article supports that proposition. I would expect the stuff mentioned in the article to happen both in the case Israel is trying to get criticism taken down and in the case Israel is only interested in having "kill 'em all" type posts taken down. So i don't find the article very compelling.
Except in this case, the accused are the ones who have all the logs, all the records, all the database entries, etc. They are in fact in possession of the complete and perfect means to prove or disprove these allegations, and their choice not to use this data to defend themselves (i.e. by not showing that the posts were in fact harmful or inciting violence, etc) lends credence to the allegations.
Second, you write: > [...] their choice not to use this data to defend themselves (i.e. by not showing that the posts were in fact harmful or inciting violence, etc) lends credence to the allegations.
This article is from yesterday. I don't think it's fair to call not responding a "choice", surely you would expect it to take some time to actually respond. I might have missed it in the article, but did they reach out to the Israeli government or to Meta to ask for a response (as is normal journalistic practice)?
Third, it's possible that some of the material is things that cannot be publicized. I have no idea if this is the case (and I personally doubt it's the majority of takedown requests), but if, for example, some of the requests were to remove e.g. images of abused Israeli hostages, bodies, etc, this might be material that they won't release, because the whole idea is to stop spread of such images. Of course, they can still describe the purpose of the various takedown requests.
The accusation that Palestinian voices were suppressed by social media companies has been being made for years. It's not a new revelation.
> or the Israeli government
Israel is the originator of the requests, not the one who is being accused of improperly complying (Meta), so why would they help or respond at all?
> it's possible that some of the material is things that cannot be publicized
Even the kinds of images you describe can be shown censored, in order to show the content being present without revealing sensitive material.
It has been since restored, after a predictable twitter storm.
On the one hand there are comments from users that want to “turn Gaza into a parking lot” or worse and were not removed because they don’t violate the community guidelines.
On the other hand there are people posting educational explainers about Palestinian human rights censored under hate speech or dangerous individuals rules.
> A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report investigating Meta’s moderation of pro-Palestine content post-October 7th found that, of 1,050 posts HRW documented as taken-down or suppressed on Facebook or Instagram, 1,049 involved peaceful content in support of Palestine, while just one post was content in support of Israel."
[1] https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/12/21/metas-broken-promises/...
> While “hate speech,” “bullying and harassment,” and “violence and incitement” policies[74] were less commonly invoked in the cases Human Rights Watch documented, the handful of cases where they were applied stood out as erroneous. For example, a Facebook user post that said, “How can anyone justify supporting the killing of babies and innocent civilians…” was removed under Community Standards on “bullying and harassment.”[75] Another user posted an image on Instagram of a dead child in a hospital in Gaza with the comment, “Israel bombs the Baptist Hospital in Gaza City killing over 500…” which was removed under Community Guidelines on “violence and incitement.”[76]
[1] https://theintercept.com/2020/03/02/human-rights-watch-took-...
[2] https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/middle-east/1700763578-human-...
[3] https://www.memri.org/reports/raven-project-leaks-alleged-qa...
The Israeli government also helped facilitate Qatar's support for Hamas[0], what's your point here?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_support_for_Hamas#Isra...
The nonsensical references to Qatar and Hamas while pushing conspiracies around a human rights group are standard Hasbara talking points.
Qatar however is a supporter of the islamist Muslim Brotherhood ideology behind Hamas, financier and a host for most of its leadership.
Furthermore involved in other terror financing in the region such as the Taliban, IRGC and Al-Qaeda [1][2].
My point here is the HRW has shown before to be corrupted and flexible with their ethics in relation to the middle east, and there is evidence it took money from Qatar, a country deeply involved in this conflict and in the past used bribery in corruption to influence western politics [3]
[1] https://thearabweekly.com/ahmadinejad-reveals-qatar-paid-ran...
[2] https://www.iar-gwu.org/print-archive/an-analysis-of-qatari-...
[3] https://www.politico.eu/article/european-parliament-qatargat...
Horseshit. Israeli support for Hamas increased as the PLA/PLO became much more moderate and looking for peaceable solutions.
Arafat and those organizations were absolutely responsible for many violent, reprehensible, terrorist acts.
For whatever reason, they became more willing to sit at the table and work toward reasonable peace.
To the Israeli hard right, this was an awkward position to be in. Because now they'd be seen as the intransigents, the unmoving, the ones unwilling to work toward peace.
So they started supporting Hamas, directly and indirectly, because Hamas did take a harder line, and was a more easily denounced group, much as the PLA/PLO of old.
This PR spin that "really, we hoped that Hamas wanted the best for everyone and they betrayed us all" is complete garbage.
I think this is an extremely simplified look at the last two decades. Israel withdrew from the Gaza strip and removed all its settlements under a Likud government, was that also a conspiracy to strengthen hamas?
What actually happened is that Israel did not want the Gaza strip, or to manage any of the millions there, so it withdrew.
However, Hamas being hamas continued firing rockets at Israeli towns, which required going to war to protect these.
This left Israel in an awkward situation of having to reoccupy the gaza strip with the thousand dead gazans that will die in the process (a lesser version of what we see now) and having to occupy the strip back.
Because no one wanted to do that, together with a negligent leadership, this system of half-operations started, where every two years they would bomb and sign a cease fire. Enough to stop the rockets for a while but not enough to anger anyone internationally. Later on culminating in actually allowing Qatar terror money, in order to keep the quiet.
Ironically half of the reason of reaching to the point where so many people had died in this war, is the international community sensitivity to casualties, very similar to pre-ww2 appeasement. Where it is only accepted for Israel to destroy such an organization is after it already conducts its mass killings (and even that is apparently contested)