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Twitter suspends Israeli MK over call to kill Palestinians

52 points by bjourne 4y ago

32gbsd 4y ago
So twitter is back on our good side?
miga 4y ago
It is a platform. Whether it enforces rules consistently is important.
- beej71 4y ago
  It's not as important as maximizing revenue, though. Depending on whom you ask...
aerodog 4y ago
"After widespread condemnation from online users"... This is unfortunately what it still takes ...
guykdm 4y ago
He used "them" in regards to the killing of armed Palestinians exchanging fire. Now, you can choose to interpret it as calling to kill all Palestinians, but that is very ungracious. Maliciously so I'd say. So in short, this is ridicules and completely biased. Bummer to be an Israeli (and a jew) in that regard, we're treated unfairly.
- happytoexplain 4y ago
  I strongly disagree. When somebody says the phrase "keep killing them", they are expressing hatred for that side of the conflict. This is exceedingly clear-cut colloquial semantics. Is "kill all Palestinians" explicitly stated? Of course not, but it's ungracious of you to frame this as a binary, where either he is saying we should kill all Palestinians, or this whole thing is ridiculous. It's nowhere near a binary. He obviously understands what those words conjure. It seems pretty clear he is at least implying, "I hate Palestinians and enjoy violence against them".
  - guykdm 4y ago
    This was said in Hebrew to an Israeli audience, and we quite simply know exactly what he meant. If he called to the killing of Palestinians in general there would be lots of outrage in Israel, such an opinion is not part of the Israeli public discourse. This is part of a known argument in Israel regarding the IDFs existing policy to minimize casualties among Palestinian combatants, which many argue puts the lives of our soldiers at risk. Anyway, Israelis know what he meant. I'm sorry to use my cultural and linguistical familiarity as an argument, but it is what it is.
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  Maybe if israel didn't have a robust and consistent decades long history of killing palestinians and calling them terrorists to justify it. Given they do have that though, you're asking for a lot of grace here.
guywithahat 4y ago
The tweet in question: > Nice and professional work by the fighters in Jenin, keep killing them. This was in response to an attack on what seems to be terrorists hiding in a refugee camp. The guy has only been part of parliament since November too so this was pretty fast lol It is sort of interesting to consider the implications of this. Like Ukrainians are able to endorse killing russian solders, so at what point do wars become complex enough we don't give one side leeway? If he had been more clear about killing terrorists would this have been ok? Seems interesting to consider the implications
- jakear 4y ago
  Ye was banned for showing an image of a swastica intertwined with a star of david. Did I love the image? No. Was it far less of a call for violence than literally saying "keep killing them"? Most certainly. End of the day all that really matters is whether Twitter thinks advertisers want to have their creative appear next to the content in question. Anything else is ancillary. Call me capitalist, but I actually believe this is how it should be. Want to post what you want without worrying about what advertisers will think? Pay for the hosting.
- bjourne 4y ago
  Wouldn't a more apt analogy be a Russian politician congratulating their soldiers for killing "Ukrainian nazis"?
- jltsiren 4y ago
  The war between Ukraine and Russia is an old-fashioned war between sovereign states. The ethical frameworks for determining acceptable behavior in such wars have been well established, at least in the West. In contrast, the situation around "anti-terrorist operations" is ambiguous, largely because people use ambiguous language to describe them. They fail to distinguish between police operations where the suspected terrorists are civilians, non-international armed conflicts (according to the Geneva Conventions) between privileged combatants, and situations where privileged combatants become unprivileged due to their actions. And sometimes people just want to pretend that branding your opponents "terrorists" is enough to strip them (and sometimes also people around them) of their rights.
webdevfe 4y ago
Get these hate provoking articles and sources out of HN!
DueDilligence 4y ago
[flagged]
happytoexplain 4y ago
I prefer any given platform remove such blatant statements akin to, "I like that these people are getting killed", but it does beg the question about how we categorize calls for violence (not what Twitter's rules say - I mean the generalized question). If I say any version of "I support my side's rationale in choosing to fight against X people", during a shooting war, I am pretty clearly supporting the killing of X people despite not saying it. But it seems unreasonable to moderate that kind of statement. It's hard to say where the line is between simple support for one side in a conflict, and repugnant support for violence. I am absolutely not of the mind that there must be some way to objectively measure something in order to base content moderation policy on it - sometimes that's just not realistic. War is a really good example where the ability to make reasonable, clear, consistent rules really goes out the window.

52 points by bjourne 4y ago

32gbsd 4y ago

So twitter is back on our good side?

miga 4y ago

It is a platform. Whether it enforces rules consistently is important.

beej71 4y ago
It's not as important as maximizing revenue, though. Depending on whom you ask...

aerodog 4y ago

"After widespread condemnation from online users"... This is unfortunately what it still takes ...

guykdm 4y ago

He used "them" in regards to the killing of armed Palestinians exchanging fire. Now, you can choose to interpret it as calling to kill all Palestinians, but that is very ungracious. Maliciously so I'd say. So in short, this is ridicules and completely biased. Bummer to be an Israeli (and a jew) in that regard, we're treated unfairly.

happytoexplain 4y ago
I strongly disagree. When somebody says the phrase "keep killing them", they are expressing hatred for that side of the conflict. This is exceedingly clear-cut colloquial semantics. Is "kill all Palestinians" explicitly stated? Of course not, but it's ungracious of you to frame this as a binary, where either he is saying we should kill all Palestinians, or this whole thing is ridiculous. It's nowhere near a binary. He obviously understands what those words conjure. It seems pretty clear he is at least implying, "I hate Palestinians and enjoy violence against them".
- guykdm 4y ago
  This was said in Hebrew to an Israeli audience, and we quite simply know exactly what he meant. If he called to the killing of Palestinians in general there would be lots of outrage in Israel, such an opinion is not part of the Israeli public discourse. This is part of a known argument in Israel regarding the IDFs existing policy to minimize casualties among Palestinian combatants, which many argue puts the lives of our soldiers at risk. Anyway, Israelis know what he meant. I'm sorry to use my cultural and linguistical familiarity as an argument, but it is what it is.
giraffe_lady 4y ago
Maybe if israel didn't have a robust and consistent decades long history of killing palestinians and calling them terrorists to justify it. Given they do have that though, you're asking for a lot of grace here.

guywithahat 4y ago

The tweet in question: > Nice and professional work by the fighters in Jenin, keep killing them. This was in response to an attack on what seems to be terrorists hiding in a refugee camp. The guy has only been part of parliament since November too so this was pretty fast lol It is sort of interesting to consider the implications of this. Like Ukrainians are able to endorse killing russian solders, so at what point do wars become complex enough we don't give one side leeway? If he had been more clear about killing terrorists would this have been ok? Seems interesting to consider the implications

jakear 4y ago
Ye was banned for showing an image of a swastica intertwined with a star of david. Did I love the image? No. Was it far less of a call for violence than literally saying "keep killing them"? Most certainly. End of the day all that really matters is whether Twitter thinks advertisers want to have their creative appear next to the content in question. Anything else is ancillary. Call me capitalist, but I actually believe this is how it should be. Want to post what you want without worrying about what advertisers will think? Pay for the hosting.
bjourne 4y ago
Wouldn't a more apt analogy be a Russian politician congratulating their soldiers for killing "Ukrainian nazis"?
jltsiren 4y ago
The war between Ukraine and Russia is an old-fashioned war between sovereign states. The ethical frameworks for determining acceptable behavior in such wars have been well established, at least in the West. In contrast, the situation around "anti-terrorist operations" is ambiguous, largely because people use ambiguous language to describe them. They fail to distinguish between police operations where the suspected terrorists are civilians, non-international armed conflicts (according to the Geneva Conventions) between privileged combatants, and situations where privileged combatants become unprivileged due to their actions. And sometimes people just want to pretend that branding your opponents "terrorists" is enough to strip them (and sometimes also people around them) of their rights.

webdevfe 4y ago

Get these hate provoking articles and sources out of HN!

DueDilligence 4y ago

[flagged]

happytoexplain 4y ago

I prefer any given platform remove such blatant statements akin to, "I like that these people are getting killed", but it does beg the question about how we categorize calls for violence (not what Twitter's rules say - I mean the generalized question). If I say any version of "I support my side's rationale in choosing to fight against X people", during a shooting war, I am pretty clearly supporting the killing of X people despite not saying it. But it seems unreasonable to moderate that kind of statement. It's hard to say where the line is between simple support for one side in a conflict, and repugnant support for violence. I am absolutely not of the mind that there must be some way to objectively measure something in order to base content moderation policy on it - sometimes that's just not realistic. War is a really good example where the ability to make reasonable, clear, consistent rules really goes out the window.