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Interestingly if you read the actual report from HRW, it sounds like most of the material they are referring too was legitimately taken down because it supporte

Interestingly if you read the actual report from HRW, it sounds like most of the material they are referring too was legitimately taken down because it supported violence, according to Meta's policies. For example, the phrase "from the river to the see" is considered hateful by many, so it was taken down. In other cases the content praised attacks by Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the US government. From HRWs descriptions it sounds like the bulk of the "1049" content removals were clear violations of Meta's policies against support for violence. Regardless of whether you agree, these don't seem surprising to me on light of Meta's own rules. There are of course a small number of exceptions listed.

wslh 3y ago
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zardo 3y ago
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- wslh 3y ago
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myth_drannon 3y ago
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rayiner 3y ago
> For example, the phrase "from the river to the see" is considered hateful by many The phrase has its origins in Arab nationalism. It was coined in 1960 by the PLO to refer to the goal of an Arab state that occupies the entirety of what was Mandatory Palestine. If you ignore the subtext of “what happens to the Jews in that situation” I suppose you can make a case for it. It’s like the confederate flag. In the 20th century there was an effort to rehabilitate it (as in the Dukes of Hazzard) as a symbol of anti-authoritarianism. And that’s the only connotation lots of people have of it. But it has a pretty unpleasant historical context. At the very least it’s a dog whistle to the large fraction of the Muslim world that hates Jews: https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/adls-global-100-survey-what-does-it-actually-say-about-muslim-attitudes-toward-jews https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/adls-global-100-survey-wh.... Americans who use this phrase should really travel to the Muslim world to understand the antisemitism that’s just in the air. You can’t travel to my “moderate Muslim” country with an Israeli passport. Guess why that is?
- api 3y ago
  > there was an effort to rehabilitate it (as in the Dukes of Hazzard) as a symbol of anti-authoritarianism Never got that one. Nothing like the flag of a breakaway state founded to preserve chattel slavery as a symbol of… anti-authoritarianism?
  - porkbeer 3y ago
    It's known as the 'Rebel Flag' in the united states, and has indeed stood for being a rebel with none of the modern racist associations attaced to it. Many of your favorite antiracist rock stars of the 60s sported the flag. People under 40 mostly just know the culture-war version where its akin to a swastika, which itself originally had a different meaning. Symbols change, you have to view them through the lens of history and culture before recoiling to modern interpretations,
    - MavisBacon 3y ago
      Most Americans refer to this as the “Confederate Flag” these days. I’m currently living in the south, though, and you’ll hear it referred to as the rebel flag in this region by liberals and conservatives alike. Regardless I appreciate your acknowledgment of the cultural aspect, and people like the Allman Brothers and Tom Petty certainly did fly the flag back in the day
    - psychoslave 3y ago
      I can't tell for the rebel flag, but the swastika never stopped to be used with its original meaning in India, and at least in Europe it's rather well known that nazis "stole" it from India cultural heritage where it doesn't have the same semantic to say the least.
    - dctoedt 3y ago
      > has indeed stood for being a rebel with none of the modern racist associations attaced [sic] to it I grew up partly in the South of the civil rights era and went to one de-facto segregated school. (Dad was military, stationed in various places.) I was a kid, but I paid attention to the news, and my impression was that racism was the clear, undeniable subtext to the "being a rebel" part: Many Southerners — notably, most of those who held political- and economic power — resented federal "interference" with "Southern ways," namely the violent oppression of blacks to keep them as an impoverished, powerless, underclass workforce. (In 2020 I read a tweet thread from an anonymous Army officer, recapping the history of post-Civil War Reconstruction and the Union's de facto surrender in 1877; the quote that stuck with me was, "Sherman should've mowed the deep south like a lawn, making multiple passes") https://twitter.com/pptsapper/status/1313470161974947843 https://twitter.com/pptsapper/status/1313470161974947843
nradov 3y ago
And yet when Russia invaded Ukraine, Meta changed their policy and made it acceptable to advocate violence against Russians. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/exclusive-facebook-instagram-temporarily-allow-calls-violence-against-russians-2022-03-10/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/exclusive-facebook-inst... Personally, I oppose both Russian expansionism and the genocidal antisemitic Hamas terrorist movement, so the Meta policy aligns with my views. But I am deeply uncomfortable with having a small cabal of Silicon Valley executives define the acceptable bounds of discourse for the rest of society. It would be better if they allowed all legal content no matter how objectionable and gave individual users tools to block what they don't want to see.
- trhway 3y ago
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  - bjourne 3y ago
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  - anigbrowl 3y ago
    The "from the river to the sea" is a call for genocide of Israelis. No it isn't. Expressing a desire for freedom and regaining ownership of land may make occupiers uncomfortable, but that doesn't constitute genocide.
    - cscurmudgeon 3y ago
      Are you okay with Israel saying 'from the river Israel will prosper'? https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/10/hamas-covenant-israel-attack-war-genocide/675602/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/10/ha... Where will Jews live if there is a Palestinian state from river to sea?
      - anigbrowl 3y ago
        I'm fine with that. Looking at a map I see plenty of room for 2 states to exist; nobody is going to get everything they want.
abeppu 3y ago
Looking at the actual report, I really disagree with your assessment. It sounds like there's a bunch of nonsense in there where Meta is _not_ living up to its own policies, and is flagging stuff disingenuously. > Human Rights Watch also found repeated inaccurate application of the “adult nudity and sexual activity” policy for content related to Palestine. In every one of the cases, we reviewed where this policy was invoked, the content included images of dead Palestinians over ruins in Gaza that were clothed, not naked. For example, multiple users reported their Instagram stories being removed under this policy when they posted the same image of a Palestinian father in Gaza who was killed while he was holding his clothed daughter, who was also killed. ... so no nudity, no sexual activity > 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.” 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.” ... arguing _against_ violence is flagged as harassment. Image and statement about Israeli action flagged as incitement > In one case, an Instagram user received a warning that the comment she posted “may be hurtful to others.” The comment, which Human Rights Watch reviewed, consisted of nothing more than a series of Palestinian flag emojis.[77] In other cases, Meta hid the Palestinian flag from comment sections or removed it on the basis that it “harasses, targets, or shames others.”[78] ...that's just kinda indefensible. > Many users reported posts on Instagram being removed when they criticized the Israeli government, including the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, no matter how nuanced or careful their posts were. Meta removed these posts under its “Dangerous Organizations or Individuals” and hate speech rules, respectively. ... which is crazy since there have been plenty of reasons to criticize Netanyahu well before the Oct 7 attacks. On the topic of "From the river to the sea", they specifically mention that posts with this phrase, as well as others > such as “Free Palestine,” “Ceasefire Now,” and “Stop the Genocide,” were repeatedly removed by Instagram and Facebook under “spam” Community Guidelines or Standards without appearing to take into account the context of these comments. I.e. Meta's own cited policy was not that it "is considered hateful" as you say, but that this political expression was labeled as spam. That sounds pretty bogus. As for the "is considered hateful by many", that's true, but is also subjective, and very tangled given that prominent Israeli conservatives have used very similar phrasing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_river_to_the_sea#Similar_sayings_by_the_Israeli_right https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_river_to_the_sea#Simi... If someone actually praising the Oct 7 attacks or something gets flagged/banned/etc, then sure, Meta is just applying its policies. That does not seem to be what's happening here. It's true that the report doesn't give numbers for these specific treatments, and the authors have a limited and biased view based on who responded to their call for evidence. But the limited view doesn't seem to be of Meta even-handedly and competently applying their policies. _However_, I don't want to attribute everything to malice where incompetence may be at least a partial explanation. If motivated 3rd parties are repeatedly flagging a photo of a clothed, dead Palestinian as "nudity", and Meta's systems are built with the assumption that such user-provided flags are presumed trustworthy, then we could easily see how someone posting that photo would get incorrectly/inappropriately flagged.
slim 3y ago
removal of content is really like 10% of the cases. the most worrisome type of suppression of speech is what they call "shadow banning" which is really "reach limiting". to the extent people now refrain from using the word "Palestine" to avoid metas algirithms. I experienced this myself. We have a draft law in parliament concerning boyocott of israel. I posted a status about the law (notice it's unrelated to war or anything in the news rights now) and it got almost zero reach. it's not subtil. It's like two orders of magnitude less reach. I know it because I'm a political activist and I always comment on draft laws.
- mgraczyk 3y ago
  From my first hand experience designing these algorithms at Meta and running experiments, and listening to feedback from accounts, I would guess that you are not getting reach because your followers do not interact with what you post. In almost every case people call "shadow ban", the cause was occasionally an actual bug (code doing something undesired and unexpected) or far more often people posting bad content. The ML is good enough to know whether your followers want to engage with political content. If they don't, Facebook will show them less of it.
  - selcuka 3y ago
    > The ML is good enough to know whether your followers want to engage with political content. If they don't, Facebook will show them less of it. This is a very simplistic explanation. If the GP is a political activist and "always comments on draft laws", I would expect their followers to be willing to engage with political content.
    - uoaei 3y ago
      It would explain a lot about how Meta operates that the engineers don't factor things like this in.
      - mgraczyk 3y ago
        We did, they do. When I was there people did "calibration studies" for certain sensitive categories to understand and fix any model biases that would rank content higher for undesirable or unexpected reasons.
bjourne 3y ago
The problem is that the rules aren't applied fairly or evenly. See this example from twitter: https://twitter.com/PalestineNW/status/1738711045265392028 https://twitter.com/PalestineNW/status/1738711045265392028
- mgraczyk 3y ago
  That's Twitter, not owned by Meta
- ajmurmann 3y ago
  Three of those are religions and one of those is an ethnicity as well. One of those also has seen almost constant persecution during history. It's concerning that this needs to be pointed out
  - bjourne 3y ago
    That's a lame excuse as if one writes "Fuck Druze" or "Fuck Yazids" Twitter does not add a warning. Besides, Christians have certainly been persecuted in Muslim countries and Muslims are certainly persecuted in Western countries.
    - Aerbil313 3y ago
      Please show an example of Christians being persecuted in Muslim countries. Muslims did not/do not try to convert Christians and Jews as they are considered ahlul-kitab/people of the book under Islamic law.
    - ajmurmann 3y ago
      That's the exact opposite of what I was saying. Unlike Muslims, Christians and Druze, Jews are also a ethnic groups. Write "kill blacks", "kill Asians" or "kill Uighurs" on Twitter and you'll get similar treatment
sarafiq 3y ago
So the phrase "from the river to the sea" is hateful to many but when it comes to disrespect Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) or Quran then it becomes freedom of speech no matter a vast majority of world population hates it. Hypocrisy to say the least!
- deleted 3y ago
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- junofan 3y ago
  Both are hateful to many and both are protected from laws by Congress. Facebook can remove whatever it wants on their platform.
- krembo 3y ago
  Let's make it simpler- disrespect for Muhamad is a disrespect to a religion based on crusades and a prophet who is a declared pedophile according to their scripts (married and had sex with Aisha when she was 6yo). Calling "from the river to the sea" is a call for genocide of the Jewish people. So, can you pick a side already of which of the calls is legit and which not?
  - baobabKoodaa 3y ago
    Wow, you are openly advocating for speech to be allowed in cases where it is politically good and disallowed in cases where it is politically bad? And who's going to determine which speech is good and what's bad? It's not gonna be you, it's some bureaucrat who has a completely different idea of good and bad than you do. Why do you want that?
    - filoleg 3y ago
      > Wow, you are openly advocating for speech to be allowed in cases where it is politically good and disallowed in cases where it is politically bad? Not the person you are replying to, but I think the logic is a bit different than “is it politically good or bad.” It is more like “is this speech advocating for genocide of an ethnic group or is it just critical of/disrespectful to a religion.” I think most people agree that those two things aren’t even close to being the same. Also, I don’t think that “talking negative about islam” has been a “politically good” thing in way over a decade.
faeriechangling 3y ago
I have no problem taking down "From the river to the sea" type content so long as we also take down Greater Israel type content.
- danenania 3y ago
  Having social media companies attempting to guess at the intention behind ambiguous phrases seems like a bad idea. Some people are certainly implying support for genocide when they say "from the river to the sea", while others are not. Same for "Greater Israel". The only sane place to draw the line imo is at explicit support for hatred or violence. Even that standard can be fuzzy, but if there's a reasonable doubt about intent, I don't think we want corporations or governments making those judgments.
  - faeriechangling 3y ago
    Moderation isn’t so clean-cut that elegant rules like “no EXPLICIT support”. You’ll have people who spend all day ducking around these rules to say IMPLICITLY hateful things and it’ll cause a furor over legitimate grievances with the moderation. I recall back during the furor over drawing Mohammad peoppe an extremist Muslim group said about Matt stone/trey Parker that they "will probably wind up like Theo van Gogh". Is allowing that sort of speech, what appears to be a death threat in response to free expression, protecting free speech? Or is it enabling a culture of self-censorship due to fears of violent reprisals? Things are complicated, you must be flexible. In this case, I want to be reasonable. I have heard people use “from the river to the sea” in hateful ways many times. People seem legitimately upset by it and are not just putting on airs. It doesn’t advance the discourse in a productive way.
  - smsm42 3y ago
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- smsm42 3y ago
  I don't remember a single instance of a mass protest on campus or in the streets, in US or in Europe or in Israel, where the protestors would demand that Israel occupies Egypt, Iraq and Syria, throw their population into the sea (or into the desert) and establish a Judaic theocracy on the freshly liberated land. I can believe that whatever is meant by "Greater Israel" among 8 billions of people would be some that support that idea, because any crazy idea can find a person crazy enough to support it. However, comparing this idea to the level of support slogans like "from the river to the sea" enjoy right now - with thousands openly proclaiming them, and on many campuses also proceeding to attack Jewish students under them - is just non-sensical. There's no "Greater Israel" movement worth talking about seriously - but there's very much movement in support of genocide of Jews, and it's very visible and prominent.
LtWorf 3y ago
I've seen comments saying "yes please, show me more bombings, I love to see them die" not taken down, because "them" was palestinians. I wonder how long the comment would have been up, if it was referring to the other side instead. edit: I see from the downvotes that my experience doesn't fit your bias. Sorry people -_-
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  Doesn’t Facebook have a report button? I’m pretty sure comments like that would be taken down if you reported them, it’s really a no brainer whatever “them” refers to.
  - LtWorf 3y ago
    I reported them, yes. Facebook said they didn't violate policy.
  - selcuka 3y ago
    The report button is rather useless unless it's a delicate issue that Facebook wants to distance themselves from. I find it hard to believe that nobody reports such comments. Probably many people do, but they get the stock reply "this comment does not violate our community standards".
    - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
      I would be really really surprised if some comment so brazen wasn’t auto deleted on flagging. Saying you want someone to die is very straightforward reason to delete without much thought.
      - uoaei 3y ago
        So you're just going to assume the problem doesn't exist because you'd be surprised if it did? There's skepticism, and then there's sticking your head in the sand...
mongol 3y ago
I don't see why "From the river to the see" would be hateful in isolation. Certainly some people who say it may have hateful thoughts in their minds, but wishing for palestinian land where Israel is now is not hateful in itself.
- krembo 3y ago
  Don't you really understand why it's an hateful speech when you wish my country stop to exists?
  - tarunupaday 3y ago
    no i do not. as an example, it’s okay for a native american to argue that usa (my country) should not exist as long as that person is not advocating physical violence to do so.
    - Thuggery 3y ago
      Side debate: the USA "ceasing to exist" from the view of a native American, in a manner analogous to Palestinians, would be the status quo that already exists today. In opposition to a racially exclusive "white supremacy" manifest dystenity. The USA already functions as a de facto One State solution where natives have both full rights and a negotiated sub-nationality too. The manifest destiny USA's "right to exist" was settled definitively against as early as 1865.
  - arnavpraneet 3y ago
    Unfortunately, wishing for the ceasing-of-existence of an apartheid state is considered justified by most of the world.
    - tety 3y ago
      what makes it an apartheid state? palestinians have no voting rights in all the neighboring arab states, yet a large amount of them do in israel. and if they don’t in Israel they have voting rights for the palestinian authority
bsaul 3y ago
yes the problem is most likely that a lot of people have become hamas's defenders recently for some uncomprehensible reasons. Like finding them justifications, or supporting them on the ongoing war. It's pretty insane if you think about. I remember some people in the arab world took side for ben laden on 9/11 but this time it's happening in the west too.
- faeriechangling 3y ago
  I recall PLENTY of "The west deserved 9/11 due to imperialism" sentiments, although not people who actually supported Osama Bin Laden. I see similar sentiments around this war all the time, "Israel deserved this terrorist attack due to imperialism" but again really not much actual support for Hamas.
  - bsaul 3y ago
    It's often accompanied by cheerful comments whenever an israeli soldier dies in gaza, killed by hamas. I think it's pretty clear those people are on the terrorists side on this war.
    - ethanbond 3y ago
      Like most arguments in controversial topics, there are good versions of the argument and bad ones. It behooves everyone not to use the bad arguments to outright dismiss the good ones.
      - bsaul 3y ago
        I agree with your point, however in this case i think it's important to pinpoint the hypocrisy of some people. You can't blame israel for oct 7, ask them to stop their ongoing operations in gaza, not call for the release of hostages, not say a word about the women raped by hamas and gaza civilians, AND pretend to "just want to spare the civilians population". Those people are in practice siding for the hamas, even if they deny it.
rshaban 3y ago
"Supported violence" is a wild thing to ... // Compare; at some point, I began to receive an almost unrelenting stream of advertisements for weapons, body armor, etc. Tanks, even. Crazy things. SO much violence is advertised on "Meta"; it's only... """ a specific kind of violence """ that seems to be prohibited, by Meta, namely anti-Israeli violence.
- baybal2 3y ago
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- mgraczyk 3y ago
  Well no, the rule is just not what you think it is. Meta doesn't ban supporting tools that can be used for violence, Meta bans support for violent acts.
Qiu_Zhanxuan 3y ago
Seems you haven't read the actual report, HRW clearly points inconsistencies in the application of Meta's policies that amounts to censorship of any support to Palestine.
- __loam 3y ago
  I've seen reports of hate speech in Hebrew getting a pass while Arabic users are having rules enforced in an overly broad way. Regardless of your views on the conflict, it is a bit chilling that a massive corporation is now the arbiter of speech for much of the internet now.
DiogenesKynikos 3y ago
The irony of banning the phrase, "From the river to the sea" is that in almost every Israeli school, there are maps on the wall that show Israel extending from the river to the sea.[0] Greater Israel, extending from the river to the sea, with the Palestinians as stateless people with no rights, is a de facto reality, and has been for 56 years now. 0. This is a typical map. The only indication that there is any Palestinian territory at all is that the tiny "Area A" regions are in a different color. East Jerusalem and the vast majority of the West Bank are simply shown as belonging to Israel. https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-9fb3beb756529713386ccf4500f61b98-lq https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-9fb3beb756529713386cc...
- mgraczyk 3y ago
  That's bad too
- drawkward 3y ago
  Furthermore, a soverign Israel "from the river to the sea" was a founding tenet of Israel's Likud party, of which Netanyahu is a member. It is no longer an explicit goal of Likud.
  - DiogenesKynikos 3y ago
    It's a principle of the ruling coalition (of which Likud is the leading party), and Netanyahu has repeatedly stated that he will never allow any Palestinian state between the river and the sea.
  - Aerbil313 3y ago
    Furthermore, the Israeli flag itself is the Star of David (representing Israeli land) between two blue lines which are the river and the sea. It has always been Israel’s slogan and aim, “from the river to the sea”.
    - lovelyviking 3y ago
      Can you as well describe us how logo of PLO looks today ? You can find it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Liberation_Organizat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Liberation_Organizat...
Slava_Propanei 3y ago
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alternative_a 3y ago
> For example, the phrase "from the river to the [sea]" is considered hateful by many, so it was taken down. That’s convenient. Zionism, the ideology and its propaganda, “is considered hateful by many” too. Actually, that happy slogan of “from this body of water to that other body of water is all our precious” is shared by both parties. Israel’s flag even has it diagrammed in case you missed the slogans. The two blue lines are RIVERS. One in Egypt the other in Iraq. Believe me that many many find that “ambition” harboring “violent intent” one way or another and don’t like it. So, Is Facebook really concerned about sensitive feelings of “many”?
- incrudible 3y ago
  > The two blue lines are RIVERS. One in Egypt the other in Iraq. This sounded suspicious to me, and brief research shows it to be untrue.
- smsm42 3y ago
  Yes, it is convenient for potential victims of genocide that calling for genocide of those people is considered calling for genocide. It's also true. "From the river to the sea" is calling for the genocide of Israel population. It was known before, and Hamas proudly demonstrated it just now, there can not be any misunderstanding what they meant. The lines on the flag have zero to do with rivers, it's a symbolic representation of a talith, a prayer garment, which can be seen in any synagogue. Try to get a bit of factual information before you go around spreading nonsense.
  - alternative_a 3y ago
    Let me see how this works: For Palestinians to say the want to be “free from river to sea” means the “genocide of Israelis”. But, amazingly but unsurprisingly, for Israelis to say they want to be “free of Palestinians” (who happen to currently be in part in the area “from river to sea”) it does not mean “genocide of Palestinians”. This must be Schroedinger’s genocide. Now you see it now you don’t. Amazing. A conversation somewhere in the area between river and the sea. That oh so special place on earth that is worth having a world war over. “How long o lord?” Seriously lord. Here it goes: - Palestinians say they want to be free from river to the sea! - Hah, really? The nerve. Why can’t they just go to some Arab country or maybe America? - They say they are not Arab, they are Palestinian. - Hah. Nationalism is a sickness. - Agreed. - I can’t believe they want to kill us all. - How you figure? - Well, they ain’t gonna be “free” while we’re here. That can’t possibly work. - Hmm. - And they know that we know that they know. - Aha. - Yeah, so obviously, they want to kill us all. A genocide. - Ingrates. - Animals!

wslh 3y ago

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zardo 3y ago

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wslh 3y ago
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myth_drannon 3y ago

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rayiner 3y ago

> For example, the phrase "from the river to the see" is considered hateful by many The phrase has its origins in Arab nationalism. It was coined in 1960 by the PLO to refer to the goal of an Arab state that occupies the entirety of what was Mandatory Palestine. If you ignore the subtext of “what happens to the Jews in that situation” I suppose you can make a case for it. It’s like the confederate flag. In the 20th century there was an effort to rehabilitate it (as in the Dukes of Hazzard) as a symbol of anti-authoritarianism. And that’s the only connotation lots of people have of it. But it has a pretty unpleasant historical context. At the very least it’s a dog whistle to the large fraction of the Muslim world that hates Jews: https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/adls-global-100-survey-what-does-it-actually-say-about-muslim-attitudes-toward-jews https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/adls-global-100-survey-wh.... Americans who use this phrase should really travel to the Muslim world to understand the antisemitism that’s just in the air. You can’t travel to my “moderate Muslim” country with an Israeli passport. Guess why that is?

api 3y ago
> there was an effort to rehabilitate it (as in the Dukes of Hazzard) as a symbol of anti-authoritarianism Never got that one. Nothing like the flag of a breakaway state founded to preserve chattel slavery as a symbol of… anti-authoritarianism?
- porkbeer 3y ago
  It's known as the 'Rebel Flag' in the united states, and has indeed stood for being a rebel with none of the modern racist associations attaced to it. Many of your favorite antiracist rock stars of the 60s sported the flag. People under 40 mostly just know the culture-war version where its akin to a swastika, which itself originally had a different meaning. Symbols change, you have to view them through the lens of history and culture before recoiling to modern interpretations,
  - MavisBacon 3y ago
    Most Americans refer to this as the “Confederate Flag” these days. I’m currently living in the south, though, and you’ll hear it referred to as the rebel flag in this region by liberals and conservatives alike. Regardless I appreciate your acknowledgment of the cultural aspect, and people like the Allman Brothers and Tom Petty certainly did fly the flag back in the day
  - psychoslave 3y ago
    I can't tell for the rebel flag, but the swastika never stopped to be used with its original meaning in India, and at least in Europe it's rather well known that nazis "stole" it from India cultural heritage where it doesn't have the same semantic to say the least.
  - dctoedt 3y ago
    > has indeed stood for being a rebel with none of the modern racist associations attaced [sic] to it I grew up partly in the South of the civil rights era and went to one de-facto segregated school. (Dad was military, stationed in various places.) I was a kid, but I paid attention to the news, and my impression was that racism was the clear, undeniable subtext to the "being a rebel" part: Many Southerners — notably, most of those who held political- and economic power — resented federal "interference" with "Southern ways," namely the violent oppression of blacks to keep them as an impoverished, powerless, underclass workforce. (In 2020 I read a tweet thread from an anonymous Army officer, recapping the history of post-Civil War Reconstruction and the Union's de facto surrender in 1877; the quote that stuck with me was, "Sherman should've mowed the deep south like a lawn, making multiple passes") https://twitter.com/pptsapper/status/1313470161974947843 https://twitter.com/pptsapper/status/1313470161974947843

nradov 3y ago

And yet when Russia invaded Ukraine, Meta changed their policy and made it acceptable to advocate violence against Russians. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/exclusive-facebook-instagram-temporarily-allow-calls-violence-against-russians-2022-03-10/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/exclusive-facebook-inst... Personally, I oppose both Russian expansionism and the genocidal antisemitic Hamas terrorist movement, so the Meta policy aligns with my views. But I am deeply uncomfortable with having a small cabal of Silicon Valley executives define the acceptable bounds of discourse for the rest of society. It would be better if they allowed all legal content no matter how objectionable and gave individual users tools to block what they don't want to see.

trhway 3y ago
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- bjourne 3y ago
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- anigbrowl 3y ago
  The "from the river to the sea" is a call for genocide of Israelis. No it isn't. Expressing a desire for freedom and regaining ownership of land may make occupiers uncomfortable, but that doesn't constitute genocide.
  - cscurmudgeon 3y ago
    Are you okay with Israel saying 'from the river Israel will prosper'? https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/10/hamas-covenant-israel-attack-war-genocide/675602/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/10/ha... Where will Jews live if there is a Palestinian state from river to sea?
    - anigbrowl 3y ago
      I'm fine with that. Looking at a map I see plenty of room for 2 states to exist; nobody is going to get everything they want.

abeppu 3y ago

Looking at the actual report, I really disagree with your assessment. It sounds like there's a bunch of nonsense in there where Meta is _not_ living up to its own policies, and is flagging stuff disingenuously. > Human Rights Watch also found repeated inaccurate application of the “adult nudity and sexual activity” policy for content related to Palestine. In every one of the cases, we reviewed where this policy was invoked, the content included images of dead Palestinians over ruins in Gaza that were clothed, not naked. For example, multiple users reported their Instagram stories being removed under this policy when they posted the same image of a Palestinian father in Gaza who was killed while he was holding his clothed daughter, who was also killed. ... so no nudity, no sexual activity > 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.” 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.” ... arguing _against_ violence is flagged as harassment. Image and statement about Israeli action flagged as incitement > In one case, an Instagram user received a warning that the comment she posted “may be hurtful to others.” The comment, which Human Rights Watch reviewed, consisted of nothing more than a series of Palestinian flag emojis.[77] In other cases, Meta hid the Palestinian flag from comment sections or removed it on the basis that it “harasses, targets, or shames others.”[78] ...that's just kinda indefensible. > Many users reported posts on Instagram being removed when they criticized the Israeli government, including the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, no matter how nuanced or careful their posts were. Meta removed these posts under its “Dangerous Organizations or Individuals” and hate speech rules, respectively. ... which is crazy since there have been plenty of reasons to criticize Netanyahu well before the Oct 7 attacks. On the topic of "From the river to the sea", they specifically mention that posts with this phrase, as well as others > such as “Free Palestine,” “Ceasefire Now,” and “Stop the Genocide,” were repeatedly removed by Instagram and Facebook under “spam” Community Guidelines or Standards without appearing to take into account the context of these comments. I.e. Meta's own cited policy was not that it "is considered hateful" as you say, but that this political expression was labeled as spam. That sounds pretty bogus. As for the "is considered hateful by many", that's true, but is also subjective, and very tangled given that prominent Israeli conservatives have used very similar phrasing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_river_to_the_sea#Similar_sayings_by_the_Israeli_right https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_river_to_the_sea#Simi... If someone actually praising the Oct 7 attacks or something gets flagged/banned/etc, then sure, Meta is just applying its policies. That does not seem to be what's happening here. It's true that the report doesn't give numbers for these specific treatments, and the authors have a limited and biased view based on who responded to their call for evidence. But the limited view doesn't seem to be of Meta even-handedly and competently applying their policies. _However_, I don't want to attribute everything to malice where incompetence may be at least a partial explanation. If motivated 3rd parties are repeatedly flagging a photo of a clothed, dead Palestinian as "nudity", and Meta's systems are built with the assumption that such user-provided flags are presumed trustworthy, then we could easily see how someone posting that photo would get incorrectly/inappropriately flagged.

slim 3y ago

removal of content is really like 10% of the cases. the most worrisome type of suppression of speech is what they call "shadow banning" which is really "reach limiting". to the extent people now refrain from using the word "Palestine" to avoid metas algirithms. I experienced this myself. We have a draft law in parliament concerning boyocott of israel. I posted a status about the law (notice it's unrelated to war or anything in the news rights now) and it got almost zero reach. it's not subtil. It's like two orders of magnitude less reach. I know it because I'm a political activist and I always comment on draft laws.

mgraczyk 3y ago
From my first hand experience designing these algorithms at Meta and running experiments, and listening to feedback from accounts, I would guess that you are not getting reach because your followers do not interact with what you post. In almost every case people call "shadow ban", the cause was occasionally an actual bug (code doing something undesired and unexpected) or far more often people posting bad content. The ML is good enough to know whether your followers want to engage with political content. If they don't, Facebook will show them less of it.
- selcuka 3y ago
  > The ML is good enough to know whether your followers want to engage with political content. If they don't, Facebook will show them less of it. This is a very simplistic explanation. If the GP is a political activist and "always comments on draft laws", I would expect their followers to be willing to engage with political content.
  - uoaei 3y ago
    It would explain a lot about how Meta operates that the engineers don't factor things like this in.
    - mgraczyk 3y ago
      We did, they do. When I was there people did "calibration studies" for certain sensitive categories to understand and fix any model biases that would rank content higher for undesirable or unexpected reasons.

bjourne 3y ago

The problem is that the rules aren't applied fairly or evenly. See this example from twitter: https://twitter.com/PalestineNW/status/1738711045265392028 https://twitter.com/PalestineNW/status/1738711045265392028

mgraczyk 3y ago
That's Twitter, not owned by Meta
ajmurmann 3y ago
Three of those are religions and one of those is an ethnicity as well. One of those also has seen almost constant persecution during history. It's concerning that this needs to be pointed out
- bjourne 3y ago
  That's a lame excuse as if one writes "Fuck Druze" or "Fuck Yazids" Twitter does not add a warning. Besides, Christians have certainly been persecuted in Muslim countries and Muslims are certainly persecuted in Western countries.
  - Aerbil313 3y ago
    Please show an example of Christians being persecuted in Muslim countries. Muslims did not/do not try to convert Christians and Jews as they are considered ahlul-kitab/people of the book under Islamic law.
  - ajmurmann 3y ago
    That's the exact opposite of what I was saying. Unlike Muslims, Christians and Druze, Jews are also a ethnic groups. Write "kill blacks", "kill Asians" or "kill Uighurs" on Twitter and you'll get similar treatment

sarafiq 3y ago

So the phrase "from the river to the sea" is hateful to many but when it comes to disrespect Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) or Quran then it becomes freedom of speech no matter a vast majority of world population hates it. Hypocrisy to say the least!

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
junofan 3y ago
Both are hateful to many and both are protected from laws by Congress. Facebook can remove whatever it wants on their platform.
krembo 3y ago
Let's make it simpler- disrespect for Muhamad is a disrespect to a religion based on crusades and a prophet who is a declared pedophile according to their scripts (married and had sex with Aisha when she was 6yo). Calling "from the river to the sea" is a call for genocide of the Jewish people. So, can you pick a side already of which of the calls is legit and which not?
- baobabKoodaa 3y ago
  Wow, you are openly advocating for speech to be allowed in cases where it is politically good and disallowed in cases where it is politically bad? And who's going to determine which speech is good and what's bad? It's not gonna be you, it's some bureaucrat who has a completely different idea of good and bad than you do. Why do you want that?
  - filoleg 3y ago
    > Wow, you are openly advocating for speech to be allowed in cases where it is politically good and disallowed in cases where it is politically bad? Not the person you are replying to, but I think the logic is a bit different than “is it politically good or bad.” It is more like “is this speech advocating for genocide of an ethnic group or is it just critical of/disrespectful to a religion.” I think most people agree that those two things aren’t even close to being the same. Also, I don’t think that “talking negative about islam” has been a “politically good” thing in way over a decade.

faeriechangling 3y ago

I have no problem taking down "From the river to the sea" type content so long as we also take down Greater Israel type content.

danenania 3y ago
Having social media companies attempting to guess at the intention behind ambiguous phrases seems like a bad idea. Some people are certainly implying support for genocide when they say "from the river to the sea", while others are not. Same for "Greater Israel". The only sane place to draw the line imo is at explicit support for hatred or violence. Even that standard can be fuzzy, but if there's a reasonable doubt about intent, I don't think we want corporations or governments making those judgments.
- faeriechangling 3y ago
  Moderation isn’t so clean-cut that elegant rules like “no EXPLICIT support”. You’ll have people who spend all day ducking around these rules to say IMPLICITLY hateful things and it’ll cause a furor over legitimate grievances with the moderation. I recall back during the furor over drawing Mohammad peoppe an extremist Muslim group said about Matt stone/trey Parker that they "will probably wind up like Theo van Gogh". Is allowing that sort of speech, what appears to be a death threat in response to free expression, protecting free speech? Or is it enabling a culture of self-censorship due to fears of violent reprisals? Things are complicated, you must be flexible. In this case, I want to be reasonable. I have heard people use “from the river to the sea” in hateful ways many times. People seem legitimately upset by it and are not just putting on airs. It doesn’t advance the discourse in a productive way.
- smsm42 3y ago
  [flagged]
smsm42 3y ago
I don't remember a single instance of a mass protest on campus or in the streets, in US or in Europe or in Israel, where the protestors would demand that Israel occupies Egypt, Iraq and Syria, throw their population into the sea (or into the desert) and establish a Judaic theocracy on the freshly liberated land. I can believe that whatever is meant by "Greater Israel" among 8 billions of people would be some that support that idea, because any crazy idea can find a person crazy enough to support it. However, comparing this idea to the level of support slogans like "from the river to the sea" enjoy right now - with thousands openly proclaiming them, and on many campuses also proceeding to attack Jewish students under them - is just non-sensical. There's no "Greater Israel" movement worth talking about seriously - but there's very much movement in support of genocide of Jews, and it's very visible and prominent.

LtWorf 3y ago

I've seen comments saying "yes please, show me more bombings, I love to see them die" not taken down, because "them" was palestinians. I wonder how long the comment would have been up, if it was referring to the other side instead. edit: I see from the downvotes that my experience doesn't fit your bias. Sorry people -_-

seanmcdirmid 3y ago
Doesn’t Facebook have a report button? I’m pretty sure comments like that would be taken down if you reported them, it’s really a no brainer whatever “them” refers to.
- LtWorf 3y ago
  I reported them, yes. Facebook said they didn't violate policy.
- selcuka 3y ago
  The report button is rather useless unless it's a delicate issue that Facebook wants to distance themselves from. I find it hard to believe that nobody reports such comments. Probably many people do, but they get the stock reply "this comment does not violate our community standards".
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    I would be really really surprised if some comment so brazen wasn’t auto deleted on flagging. Saying you want someone to die is very straightforward reason to delete without much thought.
    - uoaei 3y ago
      So you're just going to assume the problem doesn't exist because you'd be surprised if it did? There's skepticism, and then there's sticking your head in the sand...

mongol 3y ago

I don't see why "From the river to the see" would be hateful in isolation. Certainly some people who say it may have hateful thoughts in their minds, but wishing for palestinian land where Israel is now is not hateful in itself.

krembo 3y ago
Don't you really understand why it's an hateful speech when you wish my country stop to exists?
- tarunupaday 3y ago
  no i do not. as an example, it’s okay for a native american to argue that usa (my country) should not exist as long as that person is not advocating physical violence to do so.
  - Thuggery 3y ago
    Side debate: the USA "ceasing to exist" from the view of a native American, in a manner analogous to Palestinians, would be the status quo that already exists today. In opposition to a racially exclusive "white supremacy" manifest dystenity. The USA already functions as a de facto One State solution where natives have both full rights and a negotiated sub-nationality too. The manifest destiny USA's "right to exist" was settled definitively against as early as 1865.
- arnavpraneet 3y ago
  Unfortunately, wishing for the ceasing-of-existence of an apartheid state is considered justified by most of the world.
  - tety 3y ago
    what makes it an apartheid state? palestinians have no voting rights in all the neighboring arab states, yet a large amount of them do in israel. and if they don’t in Israel they have voting rights for the palestinian authority

bsaul 3y ago

yes the problem is most likely that a lot of people have become hamas's defenders recently for some uncomprehensible reasons. Like finding them justifications, or supporting them on the ongoing war. It's pretty insane if you think about. I remember some people in the arab world took side for ben laden on 9/11 but this time it's happening in the west too.

faeriechangling 3y ago
I recall PLENTY of "The west deserved 9/11 due to imperialism" sentiments, although not people who actually supported Osama Bin Laden. I see similar sentiments around this war all the time, "Israel deserved this terrorist attack due to imperialism" but again really not much actual support for Hamas.
- bsaul 3y ago
  It's often accompanied by cheerful comments whenever an israeli soldier dies in gaza, killed by hamas. I think it's pretty clear those people are on the terrorists side on this war.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    Like most arguments in controversial topics, there are good versions of the argument and bad ones. It behooves everyone not to use the bad arguments to outright dismiss the good ones.
    - bsaul 3y ago
      I agree with your point, however in this case i think it's important to pinpoint the hypocrisy of some people. You can't blame israel for oct 7, ask them to stop their ongoing operations in gaza, not call for the release of hostages, not say a word about the women raped by hamas and gaza civilians, AND pretend to "just want to spare the civilians population". Those people are in practice siding for the hamas, even if they deny it.

rshaban 3y ago

"Supported violence" is a wild thing to ... // Compare; at some point, I began to receive an almost unrelenting stream of advertisements for weapons, body armor, etc. Tanks, even. Crazy things. SO much violence is advertised on "Meta"; it's only... """ a specific kind of violence """ that seems to be prohibited, by Meta, namely anti-Israeli violence.

baybal2 3y ago
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mgraczyk 3y ago
Well no, the rule is just not what you think it is. Meta doesn't ban supporting tools that can be used for violence, Meta bans support for violent acts.

Qiu_Zhanxuan 3y ago

Seems you haven't read the actual report, HRW clearly points inconsistencies in the application of Meta's policies that amounts to censorship of any support to Palestine.

__loam 3y ago
I've seen reports of hate speech in Hebrew getting a pass while Arabic users are having rules enforced in an overly broad way. Regardless of your views on the conflict, it is a bit chilling that a massive corporation is now the arbiter of speech for much of the internet now.

DiogenesKynikos 3y ago

The irony of banning the phrase, "From the river to the sea" is that in almost every Israeli school, there are maps on the wall that show Israel extending from the river to the sea.[0] Greater Israel, extending from the river to the sea, with the Palestinians as stateless people with no rights, is a de facto reality, and has been for 56 years now. 0. This is a typical map. The only indication that there is any Palestinian territory at all is that the tiny "Area A" regions are in a different color. East Jerusalem and the vast majority of the West Bank are simply shown as belonging to Israel. https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-9fb3beb756529713386ccf4500f61b98-lq https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-9fb3beb756529713386cc...

mgraczyk 3y ago
That's bad too
drawkward 3y ago
Furthermore, a soverign Israel "from the river to the sea" was a founding tenet of Israel's Likud party, of which Netanyahu is a member. It is no longer an explicit goal of Likud.
- DiogenesKynikos 3y ago
  It's a principle of the ruling coalition (of which Likud is the leading party), and Netanyahu has repeatedly stated that he will never allow any Palestinian state between the river and the sea.
- Aerbil313 3y ago
  Furthermore, the Israeli flag itself is the Star of David (representing Israeli land) between two blue lines which are the river and the sea. It has always been Israel’s slogan and aim, “from the river to the sea”.
  - lovelyviking 3y ago
    Can you as well describe us how logo of PLO looks today ? You can find it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Liberation_Organizat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Liberation_Organizat...

Slava_Propanei 3y ago

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alternative_a 3y ago

> For example, the phrase "from the river to the [sea]" is considered hateful by many, so it was taken down. That’s convenient. Zionism, the ideology and its propaganda, “is considered hateful by many” too. Actually, that happy slogan of “from this body of water to that other body of water is all our precious” is shared by both parties. Israel’s flag even has it diagrammed in case you missed the slogans. The two blue lines are RIVERS. One in Egypt the other in Iraq. Believe me that many many find that “ambition” harboring “violent intent” one way or another and don’t like it. So, Is Facebook really concerned about sensitive feelings of “many”?

incrudible 3y ago
> The two blue lines are RIVERS. One in Egypt the other in Iraq. This sounded suspicious to me, and brief research shows it to be untrue.
smsm42 3y ago
Yes, it is convenient for potential victims of genocide that calling for genocide of those people is considered calling for genocide. It's also true. "From the river to the sea" is calling for the genocide of Israel population. It was known before, and Hamas proudly demonstrated it just now, there can not be any misunderstanding what they meant. The lines on the flag have zero to do with rivers, it's a symbolic representation of a talith, a prayer garment, which can be seen in any synagogue. Try to get a bit of factual information before you go around spreading nonsense.
- alternative_a 3y ago
  Let me see how this works: For Palestinians to say the want to be “free from river to sea” means the “genocide of Israelis”. But, amazingly but unsurprisingly, for Israelis to say they want to be “free of Palestinians” (who happen to currently be in part in the area “from river to sea”) it does not mean “genocide of Palestinians”. This must be Schroedinger’s genocide. Now you see it now you don’t. Amazing. A conversation somewhere in the area between river and the sea. That oh so special place on earth that is worth having a world war over. “How long o lord?” Seriously lord. Here it goes: - Palestinians say they want to be free from river to the sea! - Hah, really? The nerve. Why can’t they just go to some Arab country or maybe America? - They say they are not Arab, they are Palestinian. - Hah. Nationalism is a sickness. - Agreed. - I can’t believe they want to kill us all. - How you figure? - Well, they ain’t gonna be “free” while we’re here. That can’t possibly work. - Hmm. - And they know that we know that they know. - Aha. - Yeah, so obviously, they want to kill us all. A genocide. - Ingrates. - Animals!