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I mean, young people have been dramatically more pro-Palestine since long before social media. Grain of salt and all, but I don’t think it’s a wild claim on its
by ketzo 3y ago
I mean, young people have been dramatically more pro-Palestine since long before social media. Grain of salt and all, but I don’t think it’s a wild claim on its face, especially once you account for the nature of network effects / filter bubbles.
- wk_end 3y agoThe problem is that, while young people have been more pro-Palestine for a long time, historically a much smaller percentage were immersing themselves for hours a day in increasingly sensationalist, often misleading pro-Palestinian content; there historically was far less of an incentive to produce or disseminate it. So we quickly go from “pro-Palestine” to “pro-Hamas” to “pro-Osama Bin Laden” to “holocaust denial”. This isn’t exclusively a TikTok problem, or an Israel/Palestine problem, or a young people problem, or a left/right problem. Algorithmic suggestions are extremism generating machines.
- lalajollyton 3y agoIsrael is bombing and murdering thousands of Palestinians. That is why people are supporting them, not an algorithm "problem".
- op00to 3y agoWhy do teenagers care about this particular tragedy and not Syria or any of the horrors in Africa? Surely it can’t be the scale of killing since there are far worse civilian death tolls in conflicts around the world.
- lalajollyton 3y agoProbably because their president isn't on tv endorsing those horrors, funding them with their tax dollars and in general having their mainstream media champion them.
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- pgeorgi 3y agoTo take another brutal war affecting civilians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Saudi_Arabian%E2%80%93led_operations_in_Yemen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Saud... sure sounds like it had the endorsement of two US Presidents both from ends of the political spectrum, and it was a money sink for over $50bn in US tax dollars in 6 years (see https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22-105988 https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22-105988). I'm not sure if those teens even know how to spell Yemen.
- catlover76 3y agoI 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.
- op00to 3y agoWhat 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.
- explaininjs 3y ago“Care” about a tragedy is entirely meaningless. Protest of your government’s policies to perpetuate a tragedy is slightly more meaningful. Not by much, granted. But slightly more.
- vuln 3y agoNever saw a single protest when Obama was dropping a bomb every 20 seconds in 2016. I guess the noble peace prize made it okay.
- explaininjs 3y ago“I don’t think people should care about government funded genocide now, after all they didn’t care before” isn’t really the dunk you think it is.
- vuln 3y agoHow many civilians died in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan? Where were the protests? Israeli leadership is seen as right wing. If they were seen as left no one would even blink an eye. Obama was wholesale slaughtering people in 7 countries.
- explaininjs 3y agoWhat’s your point?
- op00to 3y agoIs there something specific about Israel/Palestine that isn’t present in those other conflicts? Something about the religion of one of the belligerents, perhaps?
- explaininjs 3y agoAgain, what’s your point? Don’t beat around the bush. Make a claim and provide a rational argument to support it. If you aren’t willing/able to do that, there’s no point debating you.
- spaceman_2020 3y agoProbably because it’s received far more widespread coverage since Israel - a wealthy, prominent country - is involved.
- klyrs 3y agoSyria is an old conflict and nothing has changed in many years. This particular tragedy has been stewing for a long time, and recently exploded. So, right now, the reaction is fairly well proportional to the rate of change.
- cykros 3y agoIt's also one where the US government and military has been itself in opposition to Assad's forces. What then would be accomplished by rallying over it? People tend to get up in arms and out in the streets when their concerns aren't being addressed. They tend to be a lot quieter, even if they have major concerns, if they are. Sort of the concept behind "silent majority."
- johnny22 3y agoat least because one is one is cared more about by the media than the other. The Syrian stuff has always been a "side story" even though it's been terrible and ongoing for some time. The Syrian stuff really started during a different media era.
- mardifoufs 3y agoWhy did people care more about Ukraine than Iraq? Who cares?
- wk_end 3y agoSure, and if you read what I wrote carefully, I didn’t say anything about the algorithm having anything to do with why young people are pro-Palestine.
- GuardianCaveman 3y agoWw2 Japan was bombed by the United States and thousands died after they launched a surprise attack which killed thousands of Americans including hundreds of civilians. Palestine launched a surprise attack killing thousands and now they face the same thing.
- cto_of_antifa 3y agoTerrible example, since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were also extremely unethical
- hunter-gatherer 3y agoA lot happened before those two bombs were dropped, so how would you articulate your stance about those I wonder? Axis and Allies were bombing each other all over the place. Plenty of cities (in Japan, since you hyper focused on the nuclear bombs) were devastated and wrought with bombings before.
- wolverine876 3y agoThe US didn't bomb Japan in retaliation for Pearl Harbor, but to accomplish a military objective. Also, past errors, to the extent there were any, are not valid reasons for current ones - otherwise we'd quickly have no laws or morality at all. The Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC), which is taken very seriously by militaries, requires distinguishing between military and civilian people and assets, only pursuing military targets and objectives, and when civilians will be harmed, requires that it be in proportion to the military benefit. Here are a couple of links. The first is the authoritative International Committee of the Red Cross's very usable LOAC page, and the second is the application of it to the Gaza war by leading experts: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1 https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1 https://www.justsecurity.org/89489/expert-guidance-law-of-armed-conflict-in-the-israel-hamas-war/ https://www.justsecurity.org/89489/expert-guidance-law-of-ar...
- Cody-99 3y agoTiktok has a very real algorithm problem that pushes terrorism & antisemitism to millions of people. They have started to crack down since the Osama thing, but prior to that tiktok refused to remove hate and calls for violence from their platform.
- lalajollyton 3y ago#freepalestine and #standwithpalestine (as mentioned in the article) are not terrorism or anti-semitism.
- baybal2 3y agoNo, I would say some ideological lines of thought are intrinsically leading to repeatable, predictable outcomes — parting and opposition to the society. Take communism. There were many grassroots communist regimes in the 20th century, and certainly not all controlled by Moscow, but they all degraded into very tyrannical regimes, caste societies by following very similar paths.
- op00to 3y agoDo you have any data to back up that assertion? As a teenager of the 90s, we were not all that globally conscious.
- eesmith 3y agoAs a teenager of the 80s, we were conscious of apartheid in South Africa and the boycotts thereof, and of the starvation in Ethiopia ("We Are The World"). I remember reading the newspaper about the Shining Path in Peru, and about the Iran-Iraq War. The Falkland Islands War was a big one. The school librarian had a map open showing where the British Navy was on their way down. Right! Glasnot, and perestroika in Russia, and the Solidarity movement in Poland. And the German teen who flew into Moscow and landed on Red Square. Ferdinand Marcos going into exile, and his wife's bajillion shoes. Tienanmen Square. Oh, and of course the fall of the Berlin Wall back in 1989. Israel has had a larger prominence in the US mind because of it being the Holy Land. I know people who went there to see where Jesus lived, for example. We also had some teens from a kibbutz visit our high school and talk about their life. In addition to the newspaper, and the TV news shows, my family subscribed to National Geographic, and well remember https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Girl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Girl , a refugee from the Soviet-Afghan war. How much more global do you need?
- op00to 3y agoCongratulations on your wonderfully diverse and globally conscious upbringing. I do not think it was representative of most Americans experience in recent history. I remember reports in the news after 9/11 that most American children surveyed were unable to locate Afghanistan on a map, with only 17% being able to find the country. Similar abysmal numbers for identifying Israel and Iraq. America was next to last, Sweden had the highest geographic literacy. Basic geographic literacy is key to understanding world events. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/geography-survey-illiteracy https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/geography...
- eesmith 3y agoGeography knowledge is a very different topic. Most people in the 1980s couldn't have pointed to Ethiopia on a map, but they knew of the starving children there. Most people in the 1980s couldn't have pointed to Afghanistan, but they knew Rambo went there in Rambo III, and that Reagan supported the "freedom fighters" there. Most couldn't have pointed out South Africa on the map, but they knew who Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela were. Why do you need to know where Palestine and Israel are on a world map in order to be aware of what's going on there? > I do not think it was representative of most Americans experience in recent history. Is your understanding of the global consciousness of the 1980s based solely on your perception of geographical knowledge of the era? Do you really think modern geographical knowledge is significantly better?
- friend_and_foe 3y agoWell, our brains don't exist in vats. A storm of information is flowing through our heads constantly. They're pro Palestine because of their exposure to that information, increasingly curated by these algorithms. I think they're probably right, in that it's not just their algorithm that has had this impact. It's all the algorithms, their social circle, the propagandistic media that's not fed by an algorithm but designed the old fashioned way such as TV, and of course their faculty of reason which is often discounted when we talk about this sort of thing.