19 ms·

I am Palestinian. Here’s how Israel silences us on social media

189 points by rguiscard 5y ago

decremental 5y ago
You'll find that HN is going to be only too happy to silence this as well.
- tothecore13423 5y ago
  Even as a non jew i think that is good. Simply because even educated muslims don't voice against religion and concur with he group think and i feel threatened while discussing any religious issue with muslims even when they have phd. Although other religions are equally bad in their principles, i dont feel threatened discussing against christianity or any other religion.
  - dang 5y ago
    You can't post this kind of slur to HN, regardless of who you're slurring. I've banned this account. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Religious flamewar is not welcome on HN in general (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20religious%20flame&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...), but this was a step even beyond that.
Causality1 5y ago
One of the most chilling maps I've ever seen is the one of Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory. It looks like a cell using lysosomes to kill prey. https://i.imgur.com/v1lNHEY.jpg https://i.imgur.com/v1lNHEY.jpg @dang Care to weigh in on this submission? Seems to be a lot of flagging/vouching going on.
- president 5y ago
  HN should just ban controversial topics. Every time, these threads just devolve into mass flagging and downvoting and many times its usually one-sided depending on the majority view. Not interesting and not fun at all.
  - edgyquant 5y ago
    Political posts are banned unless they involve technology
    - mftaha 5y ago
      Using technology to silence people is technology
    - rorykoehler 5y ago
      Pretty much everything involves technology today. What was that famous quote? "Software will eat the world" or something like this?
    - dang 5y ago
      That's not accurate. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and these past explanations: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21607844 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21607844 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902490 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902490 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=political%20overlap%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so....
      - edgyquant 5y ago
        From your link >Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. So while maybe it isn’t “unless they involve technology” is is still claimed in your guidelines that they are mostly banned.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
truth_ 5y ago
This post is totally political. Having very little to do with technology. And the post completely ignores nuances and objectivity. It has already chosen a side. I guess because that's hip in the woke liberal era.
- ardit33 5y ago
  It is about Tech platforms deciding to side with Israel and silencing palestinians in social media. We have had plenty of discussions here about social media censorship (especially during covid and trump era). This is a valid discussion as well as it is about human rights. If we can talk and about Indian and Nigerian, or Chinese censorship against the Uyghurs and the Tiananmen square masacre, then we can talk about Israeli censorship war against the Palestinians as well. Also Computer Ethics is part of the Computer Science curriculum in most colleges, and part of technology. We are not going to solve this conflict here, but we should know where censorship in tech is being used to suppress the voice of a whole population. I was born in a communist country (Albania), and censorship in media was used to suppress the voice of the people in order to prop up a brutal regime. "In addition to using social media to incriminate Palestinians, Israel has also used it to muzzle us. In 2016, Israel’s then-Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked boasted that, in the previous four-month period, Facebook had complied with 95% of Israel’s requests to remove Palestinian content on the vague basis of “incitement.” A year later, Israel tried to push the “Facebook Bill” through the Knesset, legislation which would force Facebook to remove any content designated as “incitement.” "
  - truth_ 5y ago
    If your post calls for destroying Israel, then it deserves to be removed. You might not know, but hardline Sunni Muslims are very racist towards Jews. They regularly quote verses from the Quran and Hadiths where Jews are incarnations of satans and should not be tolerated. They also regularly quote anti-non Muslim quotes in social media calling them Kafirs. If you live near a significant population of hardliner Sunni Muslims, you'd know this. Bengali social media is filled with such rhetoric. There were open celebration of the French teacher getting beheaded for the Muhammad cartoon. Seeking the death of all Jews is very common. Such posts deserve to be removed. You call for death of an entire ethnicity, that is valid reason of posts getting removed.
truth_ 5y ago
It shows screenshots of people calling the actions of Israel apartheid. I am not taking anything seriously that calls Israel an "apartheid state". You don't know what apartheid is. Arabic Muslims and non-Muslims alike has more rights and power in Israel than all other Arab states combined. People are free to choose leaders via election. Did you know that one of parties in the current Israeli ruling coalition is an Arab Nationalist party? Women and LGBTQ+ have more rights in Israel than anywhere else in the Arab region. And people always forget that Hamas regularly uses innocent people as human-shields. When they die, whose fault is it? Hamas solidified its power by killing intellectuals, police, military personnel, and reporters. Now if you try and protect your citizens from them, are you an apartheid state? Israel withdrew from Gaza strip after the election. If they were actual colonialists, they would have remained. Then we would not see all this. Israel wants a two-state solution. Palestine wants nothing but "death-to-Israel". I am not talking about Hamas only. It is also the stance of the moderate faction of the elected leaders in West Bank. The matter is always nuanced. I am more leaning towards Israel because Hamas launches rockets from school areas, and areas with hospital. And Hamas and other terrorist sympathizers are masters of propaganda. Israel is not an apartheid state. Not even close. I know people who lived in Israel. It is a culturally diverse, tolerant land, with an elected government. I will be leaning towards Palestine if the elected government on West Bank ruled over Gaza and Israel still did the things it is doing. Protecting your citizens from Islamic terrorists is not being an apartheid state. You should always remember- Just because some people are the underdogs, does not mean they are the good guys.
- proshno 5y ago
  Well...we should rather trust Human Rights Watch's report [1] than such "cut-paste" propaganda manifesto. Each of the points mentioned here can so easily be refuted and so well established, I don't even bother getting into each of those. I believe HN readers are smart enough to do their due diligence. [1] https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/isra... Peace!
- namdnay 5y ago
  I think the “Apartheid state” accusation refers to the occupied territories, and the fact that the people living there are not afforded the rights of Israeli citizenship, while still being under Israeli control Maybe Apartheid state is not the right term, but there are clearly two classes of population: Israelis, and people living under Israeli military control without being Israeli
jgb1984 5y ago
Israel is an apartheid state. Stealing land and declaring a "jewish state" is no less criminal or insane than what isis / islamic state tried to do. Anti-zionism is not equal to anti-semitism. Just like I can criticize the USA without hating Americans, or criticize Iran without discriminating against muslims.
- arcanon 5y ago
  Awesome comment about technology. Clearly this is the right forum for it……………
  - dang 5y ago
    HN is explicitly about much more than just "technology". Please read the guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - arcanon 5y ago
      I feel like you linked me to something that proved my point. This seems like politics without evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. How much time has been spent moderating around this? Was it worth it? Anyways i hope rick and morty succeed in their mission tonight.
      - dang 5y ago
        I can't agree. The article touches on (relatively) interesting and new phenomena. This particular thread was a disaster, but the repost at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27645282 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27645282 got at least some ok discussion. Yes, it was a lot of moderation work, with mixed results. Was it worth it? I'm not sure what you mean. I think we made the right moderation call, given the site guidelines and standard moderation practices, and given that, the work was just the work.
- Protostome 5y ago
  I agree that some of Israel's actions in the west bank are better not done and palestinians should have a right for self determination. However, the statement that Israel steals land is false. Israel has never stolen land from anyone. The previous owners of the west bank were the Jordanians and the previous owners of the Gaza Strip were the Eygptians, who lost this land in a war they initiated. Like in every conflict in the world, crimes are comitted by both parties. During the 90s and early 00s suicide bombers kill thousands of Israelis - that's the reason Israel built a wall around the west bank.
01GOD 5y ago
Should know that the company that started hacker news was also run by evil jewwws. Those scumbags are also a problem in America sadly...especially in media propaganda. The fact that much of the public in Western countries has turned against evil israel (despite that propaganda) shows how horribly blatant mostly non-semitic evil jewish israel’s attempted GENOCIDE against ACTUALLY semitic Palestinians has been!!! Sadly many non-jews on hacker news are too spineless to speak the truth about how the ONLY nazis are evil non-semitic inbred ashkenazi jews committing genocide against semitic Palestinians.
dang 5y ago
Although this submission was posted earlier, the thread is so wretched as to be unsalvageable. Therefore the discussion moved to a repost: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27645282 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27645282 - June 2021 (231 comments)

189 points by rguiscard 5y ago

decremental 5y ago

You'll find that HN is going to be only too happy to silence this as well.

tothecore13423 5y ago
Even as a non jew i think that is good. Simply because even educated muslims don't voice against religion and concur with he group think and i feel threatened while discussing any religious issue with muslims even when they have phd. Although other religions are equally bad in their principles, i dont feel threatened discussing against christianity or any other religion.
- dang 5y ago
  You can't post this kind of slur to HN, regardless of who you're slurring. I've banned this account. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Religious flamewar is not welcome on HN in general (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20religious%20flame&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...), but this was a step even beyond that.

Causality1 5y ago

One of the most chilling maps I've ever seen is the one of Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory. It looks like a cell using lysosomes to kill prey. https://i.imgur.com/v1lNHEY.jpg https://i.imgur.com/v1lNHEY.jpg @dang Care to weigh in on this submission? Seems to be a lot of flagging/vouching going on.

president 5y ago
HN should just ban controversial topics. Every time, these threads just devolve into mass flagging and downvoting and many times its usually one-sided depending on the majority view. Not interesting and not fun at all.
- edgyquant 5y ago
  Political posts are banned unless they involve technology
  - mftaha 5y ago
    Using technology to silence people is technology
  - rorykoehler 5y ago
    Pretty much everything involves technology today. What was that famous quote? "Software will eat the world" or something like this?
  - dang 5y ago
    That's not accurate. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and these past explanations: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21607844 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21607844 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902490 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902490 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=political%20overlap%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so....
    - edgyquant 5y ago
      From your link >Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. So while maybe it isn’t “unless they involve technology” is is still claimed in your guidelines that they are mostly banned.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

truth_ 5y ago

This post is totally political. Having very little to do with technology. And the post completely ignores nuances and objectivity. It has already chosen a side. I guess because that's hip in the woke liberal era.

ardit33 5y ago
It is about Tech platforms deciding to side with Israel and silencing palestinians in social media. We have had plenty of discussions here about social media censorship (especially during covid and trump era). This is a valid discussion as well as it is about human rights. If we can talk and about Indian and Nigerian, or Chinese censorship against the Uyghurs and the Tiananmen square masacre, then we can talk about Israeli censorship war against the Palestinians as well. Also Computer Ethics is part of the Computer Science curriculum in most colleges, and part of technology. We are not going to solve this conflict here, but we should know where censorship in tech is being used to suppress the voice of a whole population. I was born in a communist country (Albania), and censorship in media was used to suppress the voice of the people in order to prop up a brutal regime. "In addition to using social media to incriminate Palestinians, Israel has also used it to muzzle us. In 2016, Israel’s then-Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked boasted that, in the previous four-month period, Facebook had complied with 95% of Israel’s requests to remove Palestinian content on the vague basis of “incitement.” A year later, Israel tried to push the “Facebook Bill” through the Knesset, legislation which would force Facebook to remove any content designated as “incitement.” "
- truth_ 5y ago
  If your post calls for destroying Israel, then it deserves to be removed. You might not know, but hardline Sunni Muslims are very racist towards Jews. They regularly quote verses from the Quran and Hadiths where Jews are incarnations of satans and should not be tolerated. They also regularly quote anti-non Muslim quotes in social media calling them Kafirs. If you live near a significant population of hardliner Sunni Muslims, you'd know this. Bengali social media is filled with such rhetoric. There were open celebration of the French teacher getting beheaded for the Muhammad cartoon. Seeking the death of all Jews is very common. Such posts deserve to be removed. You call for death of an entire ethnicity, that is valid reason of posts getting removed.

truth_ 5y ago

It shows screenshots of people calling the actions of Israel apartheid. I am not taking anything seriously that calls Israel an "apartheid state". You don't know what apartheid is. Arabic Muslims and non-Muslims alike has more rights and power in Israel than all other Arab states combined. People are free to choose leaders via election. Did you know that one of parties in the current Israeli ruling coalition is an Arab Nationalist party? Women and LGBTQ+ have more rights in Israel than anywhere else in the Arab region. And people always forget that Hamas regularly uses innocent people as human-shields. When they die, whose fault is it? Hamas solidified its power by killing intellectuals, police, military personnel, and reporters. Now if you try and protect your citizens from them, are you an apartheid state? Israel withdrew from Gaza strip after the election. If they were actual colonialists, they would have remained. Then we would not see all this. Israel wants a two-state solution. Palestine wants nothing but "death-to-Israel". I am not talking about Hamas only. It is also the stance of the moderate faction of the elected leaders in West Bank. The matter is always nuanced. I am more leaning towards Israel because Hamas launches rockets from school areas, and areas with hospital. And Hamas and other terrorist sympathizers are masters of propaganda. Israel is not an apartheid state. Not even close. I know people who lived in Israel. It is a culturally diverse, tolerant land, with an elected government. I will be leaning towards Palestine if the elected government on West Bank ruled over Gaza and Israel still did the things it is doing. Protecting your citizens from Islamic terrorists is not being an apartheid state. You should always remember- Just because some people are the underdogs, does not mean they are the good guys.

proshno 5y ago
Well...we should rather trust Human Rights Watch's report [1] than such "cut-paste" propaganda manifesto. Each of the points mentioned here can so easily be refuted and so well established, I don't even bother getting into each of those. I believe HN readers are smart enough to do their due diligence. [1] https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/isra... Peace!
namdnay 5y ago
I think the “Apartheid state” accusation refers to the occupied territories, and the fact that the people living there are not afforded the rights of Israeli citizenship, while still being under Israeli control Maybe Apartheid state is not the right term, but there are clearly two classes of population: Israelis, and people living under Israeli military control without being Israeli

jgb1984 5y ago

Israel is an apartheid state. Stealing land and declaring a "jewish state" is no less criminal or insane than what isis / islamic state tried to do. Anti-zionism is not equal to anti-semitism. Just like I can criticize the USA without hating Americans, or criticize Iran without discriminating against muslims.

arcanon 5y ago
Awesome comment about technology. Clearly this is the right forum for it……………
- dang 5y ago
  HN is explicitly about much more than just "technology". Please read the guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - arcanon 5y ago
    I feel like you linked me to something that proved my point. This seems like politics without evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. How much time has been spent moderating around this? Was it worth it? Anyways i hope rick and morty succeed in their mission tonight.
    - dang 5y ago
      I can't agree. The article touches on (relatively) interesting and new phenomena. This particular thread was a disaster, but the repost at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27645282 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27645282 got at least some ok discussion. Yes, it was a lot of moderation work, with mixed results. Was it worth it? I'm not sure what you mean. I think we made the right moderation call, given the site guidelines and standard moderation practices, and given that, the work was just the work.
Protostome 5y ago
I agree that some of Israel's actions in the west bank are better not done and palestinians should have a right for self determination. However, the statement that Israel steals land is false. Israel has never stolen land from anyone. The previous owners of the west bank were the Jordanians and the previous owners of the Gaza Strip were the Eygptians, who lost this land in a war they initiated. Like in every conflict in the world, crimes are comitted by both parties. During the 90s and early 00s suicide bombers kill thousands of Israelis - that's the reason Israel built a wall around the west bank.

01GOD 5y ago

Should know that the company that started hacker news was also run by evil jewwws. Those scumbags are also a problem in America sadly...especially in media propaganda. The fact that much of the public in Western countries has turned against evil israel (despite that propaganda) shows how horribly blatant mostly non-semitic evil jewish israel’s attempted GENOCIDE against ACTUALLY semitic Palestinians has been!!! Sadly many non-jews on hacker news are too spineless to speak the truth about how the ONLY nazis are evil non-semitic inbred ashkenazi jews committing genocide against semitic Palestinians.

dang 5y ago

Although this submission was posted earlier, the thread is so wretched as to be unsalvageable. Therefore the discussion moved to a repost: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27645282 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27645282 - June 2021 (231 comments)