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Israeli group claims it’s using back channels to censor “inflammatory” content

292 points by ilamont 3y ago

tome 3y ago
If the discussion here is indicative then it's very clear in which direction the tech world is biased on this issue.
- smoothjazz 3y ago
  I think there's a big difference between the opinion of most of the people in tech and those at the very top (CEOs and VCs). I see wide support for Palestinians with pretty much everyone, but the VCs are almost universally, militantly, Zionist. It's a huge issue that those funding the industry and those working in it (and consuming it) hold such extremely different opinions on an issue as serious as genocide.
Qem 3y ago
Archived: http://web.archive.org/web/20240110185343/https://theintercept.com/2024/01/10/israel-disinformation-social-media-iron-truth/ http://web.archive.org/web/20240110185343/https://theinterce...
jjulius 3y ago
For what it's worth, The Intercept has not been able to verify what this group is claiming. >A SMALL GROUP of volunteers from Israel’s tech sector is working tirelessly to remove content it says doesn’t belong on platforms like Facebook and TikTok, tapping personal connections at those and other Big Tech companies to have posts deleted outside official channels, the project’s founder told The Intercept. >The Intercept was unable to independently confirm that sympathetic workers at Big Tech firms are responding to the group’s complaints or verify that the group was behind the removal of the content it has taken credit for having deleted.
- cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
  Although this is in the grand scheme of things hard to verify. Who is going to admit to that? To a news organisation?
  - jjulius 3y ago
    >Who is going to admit to that? To a news organisation? Stranger things have been admitted to news organizations.
  - Cheer2171 3y ago
    > Who is going to admit to that? To a news organisation? People who don't agree with what their coworkers are doing and want to be whistleblowers. Getting those people to reach out to you is a huge part of investigative journalism.
    - DeathArrow 3y ago
      >Getting those people to reach out to you is a huge part of investigative journalism. Does that still exist? If you do investigative journalism maybe you win the admiration of the public. If you align with the powers that be, no nasty things happen to you and maybe you earn some money.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - DarkByte 3y ago
        The world has already learned from doing this mistake. Despotism is bad and listening to the above is how you get there.
      - Aerbil313 3y ago
        Yes, people with a strong sense of morality, interestingly (to the HN crowd), still do exist.
    - gettodachoppa 3y ago
      The people with power over the journalists' career and reputation are in this case the party they'd piss off by doing proper journalism. They're not gonna do it. It's indirectly the main reason why no one trusts journalists in general anymore. Nearly everything is consolidated under the same people and whatever isn't gets smeared and blacklisted.
- amiga1200 3y ago
  Who is the judge of “inflammatory” content? It’s just censorship plain and simple. Why not let the truth be told? Edit: judging by the way the votes keep going up and down there's a yin to the gatekeepers of inflammatory content's yang. These are actions of a rogue state y'all.
  - DeathArrow 3y ago
    >Why not let the truth be told? Telling the truth is going to always be against someone's interest. If that someone can control the medium, he will do it.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- DoItToMe81 3y ago
  There is a network of pro-Israel and even Israeli government affiliated corporations and NGOs that successfully lobby for extreme censorship and social restrictions, such as a ban on sharing and even viewing all Gaza war footage in Australia, and the numerous anti-boycott and anti-organization rules across government organizations in 30+ American states. Even if it can't be confirmed as of yet, I have no doubt that they are working on or have actually achieved the connections to make this possible.
Baldbvrhunter 3y ago
[flagged]
- dang 3y ago
  You can't post like this here. I've banned the account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
  - atticora 3y ago
    That was fast! Are you notified on keywords or just happened by? It seems like an LLM assistant could make this task much easier.
    - cogman10 3y ago
      If I were to guess, any article about Israel or Palestine is likely going to have a decent amount of posts to remove and flag.
    - dang 3y ago
      I just happened by. It's a bit of an illusion because one is more likely to notice fast responses than slow ones. Is that recency bias? I guess not.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - ofslidingfeet 3y ago
    Tell us what they said or ban me too. You want to make an example, so give the actual example. Thank you to the reply who told me that you can turn on "showdead" in your profile and then see the removed comment that warranted banning the account and gloating about it.
    - 3y ago
genman 3y ago
[flagged]
- kornhole 3y ago
  How can you report content on the platform without visiting the site? Are you using Dataminr or some other tool used by government agencies?
  - genman 3y ago
    It can be that I do not go there voluntarily but if I end up there them I'm going to report racist and genocidal content presented there.
- allthesameagain 3y ago
  I am surprised that reporting on Twitter works. I've gotten positive action on 150+ very vile posts in the past month. Not posts which go against my views, but posts which clearly violate all TOS and social mores. Call me a Karen, but I report hate speech no matter whom it is directed at. Twitter and Reddit are the only sites which take action. You can post "Hitler was right, too bad he failed at killing all of the Jews" on Threads, Instagram and Facebook with no punishment. You can post it on Twitter, and it will stay there until somebody reports it, but then that account will be locked until they delete the content. Instagram and Threads will say "We received your report" then never give an update. Facebook will do the same, then eventually either say they reviewed the content and it did not violate community standards, or that the are too busy to review the content.
mrguyorama 3y ago
Anyone who has ever posted a "I need help" here on HN and gotten support has also used "backchannels". An actual concern would be if this "backchannel" turned out to be messaging an insider who acts outside of policy. We know the Saudis and other state backed groups had insiders in Twitter at least, but I'm much less inclined to believe there are any pro-israel insiders in say, TikTok.
- octopoc 3y ago
  FTA: > Iron Truth members have flagged thousands of posts for removal, from clearly racist or false content to posts that are merely sympathetic to Palestinians. (emphasis added) If you aren't connected enough to get Google to fix your email, your business is disrupted. It's unfair but life moves on. Maybe next time you don't use Gmail. The stakes are much higher here in an actual war / genocide. People are starving, dying, having their homes stolen, etc. and this is an attempt to deny them a voice. Also FTA: > I copied the URL of the video and sent it to a team in [Facebook parent company] Meta, some Israelis that work for Meta, and I told them that this video needs to be removed and actually they removed it after a few days.” American companies should not engage in propaganda for a foreign country. I find it reprehensible that foreign nationals from a nation currently engaged in conflict are deliberately working together to push a foreign agenda on the people of the entire world. This is way, way different than not being able to use Google apps for business.
  - baz00 3y ago
    I think it would be safer to remove all political posts from social media (both sides) as policy. There is a massive propaganda war on both sides and all it does is amplify sentiment, create further division, hurt more people and compromise security over time. The press are bad enough at coming up with verified claims from the right people. Social media is 1000x worse. Of course our current American social media dictators are pretty lax on doing anything positive for society as a whole while it benefits them.
    - shadowgovt 3y ago
baz00 3y ago
[flagged]
- shkkmo 3y ago
  Flags don't come from moderators but from users with enough karma. I suspect your were downvoted and flagged because you aren't really engaging with the content of the article and dismissing claims made in the article without evidence in a way that doesn't contribute to productive discussion.
- Sporktacular 3y ago
  The article refers to posts simply sympathetic to the Palestinians. Are they trash too?
shmatt 3y ago
I thought this was common knowledge? I often see posts in technical groups im in from people asking for help re-opening their hacked instagram or facebook accounts. Apparently there is an internal-only form for Meta employees to speed up the process for friends/family
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- xenospn 3y ago
  Correct. I did exactly that for my friend.
- tazu 3y ago
  > Apparently there is an internal-only form for Meta employees to speed up the process for friends/family You can also sleep with those employees to speed it up [1]. [1]: https://www.dailydot.com/irl/kittylixo-onlyfans-instagram-employees/ https://www.dailydot.com/irl/kittylixo-onlyfans-instagram-em...
- netsharc 3y ago
  Ah, god bless cloud feudalism and nepotism...
  - flir 3y ago
    > cloud feudalism nice
  - aspenmayer 3y ago
    Reminds me of the so-called “floating population,” a concept especially related to those living outside their “approved/official” province or municipality in China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_population
octopoc 3y ago
Many of us are in the tech industry. Has anyone seen this sort of thing happen? Or is this something we wouldn't be aware of since it's usually on the "content moderation" side of the house? (I haven't ever worked in social media, so not really familiar with content moderation other than removing the occasional dick pic) Edit: > Most of them are product managers, software developers. … They work with the policy teams with an internal set of tools to forward links and explanations about why they need to be removed.
- kornhole 3y ago
  If you look at the extensive reporting done by racket.news around the Twitter Files and Facebook Files, you can learn about the direct back channels many government agencies had to directly report thousands of people to be banned or shadow banned. A federal court judge concluded that it was the biggest violation of free speech in modern history. He ordered the government to no longer contact the social media companies unless something is found to be illegal. This applied to government agencies but does not apply to these groups that might be organized or funded by a foreign government.
  - Yoric 3y ago
    I remember browsing through the Twitter Files and finding nothing interesting in them. Yes, all social media have open channels with law enforcement. That's because social media have legal obligations and when someone comes to a moderator claiming to be a law enforcement officer working on a kidnapping or preventing a terrorist attack and needing time-sensitive help to save lives, you don't want the moderator to have to guess whether that's a real emergency or a hoax. It's... not a secret. If you live in a democracy, you can quickly find out the name of these channels, they have websites. Source: I've been part of a moderation team. Not on something that large, though.
    - SlickNixon 3y ago
      >they have websites That's interesting, can you link to one?
GrumpySloth 3y ago
> Iron Truth claims its tech industry back channels have led to the removal of roughly 1,000 posts tagged by its members as false, antisemitic, or “pro-terrorist” across platforms such as X, YouTube, and TikTok. Does anyone know if that’s a lot? I don’t know either way. I just have a gut feeling that compared to the number of posts made by bots on any political matter it barely matters. I wonder if it wouldn’t be more efficient to counter with more bots going in the other direction with likes and posts.
- strulovich 3y ago
  My experience is that it’s a drop in the bucket. But, there’s a power law distribution for virality, so removing the top 1000 most viral posts might still be impactful.
- ars 3y ago
  1,000 posts is absolutely nothing. If that's all they removed then I don't get why this article even exists.
  - xenospn 3y ago
    My thoughts exactly. TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook (Reddit as well) probably add more than 1000 posts each on this topic every hour.
    - Yoric 3y ago
      I suspect that we're closer to 1,000 per second.
    - cma 3y ago
      You have to multiply the post count by their reach. If it is a strong exponent power law the top 1000 may be the vast majority of what people see on the topic, but they may apply greater scrutiny in removing posts with high reach too.
  - dralley 3y ago
    Not only that, but there is more than enough legitimately antisemitic or pro-terrorism content on these platforms for this to be fully legitimate reporting behavior. It could be 100,000 posts and this would still be near meaningless without actual context on what is being reported. 1000 posts is a joke.
DarkByte 3y ago
If this "Iron Truth" is a smoke screen to remove any information that is true and sympathetic to Palestinians through mis-categorizing and mis-labeling and that is not hateful then it is a system of oppression and must be stopped.
- genman 3y ago
  [flagged]
- deleted 3y ago
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- doubt_me 3y ago
  [dead]
- stale2002 3y ago
  Ok, now what if it is about removing false information? Do you support it now?
  - smoothjazz 3y ago
    If you look at the original article what they're looking for is a mix of false information but also things rebuking false things stated by the IDF. Such as the 40 beheaded babies. That's not false information, it was a lie spread by the IDF.
smoothjazz 3y ago
You can see this happen out in the open when Paul Graham (or anyone else) posts statistics about who's been killed, raw footage... he's immediately swarmed by people, some major players in the industry, accusing him of "antisemitism", which it most definitely is not.
- deleted 3y ago
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- deleted 3y ago
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- richardfeynman 3y ago
  It was certainly interesting to see Paul Graham, famous for his skepticism of China's COVID numbers, immediately embrace the Gaza Ministry of Health's death toll, without understanding how they themselves generate it.
  - JeffSnazz 3y ago
    ...is there any reason to doubt these figures? Is there any reason to suspect that Hamas is any less trustworthy than the Israeli government is?
    - richardfeynman 3y ago
      Yes, of course there is reason to suspect Hamas is untrustworthy. I'm not trying to argue one should take Israel's word at face value (of course you should subject it to scrutiny as well), but yes, Israel, a liberal democratic state with a free press, strong left-wing movement, and the second biggest tech sector out of silicon valley, is far more trustworthy than Hamas, a repressive, fundamentalist, authoritarian regime with no free press. This doesn't mean they always tell the truth, but there is no equivalence between them and Hamas. In terms of specific reasons to doubt the Gaza Health Ministry numbers specifically, I could go on forever about that, but I don't see the point of doing so on HN. It's not a tech-related question.
rthkljlkrj 3y ago
Of course they are. Anyone who's seen that documentary about Israel meddling in UK politics know that these people have a lot of power that isn't just military.
- ok123456 3y ago
  "The Labour Files" is on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiODoWurA64 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiODoWurA64
- latency-guy2 3y ago
  Eh, meddling in foreign politics is just the name of the game of a globalist world. Not really the panacea of a sin I think you're making it out to be. The mere existence of intelligence agencies is proof, sending aid to others is also proof (which we know gets intercepted all the time), having military bases or consulates, even more. If all of the above, and more including the recession of all foreign aid would make me believe its a sin again, doubled with strong isolationist thinking and very strict border control. People can make documentaries all they want, it doesn't matter, they're crying about things their country does all day, every day, and probably even better than those they're accusing. They just don't want egg on their face. I definitely don't really feel bad for hypocrites.
faraofspeech 3y ago
[flagged]
myth_drannon 3y ago
[flagged]
- hax0ron3 3y ago
  Russian propaganda such as what? Do you have any specific examples?
  - genman 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - hax0ron3 3y ago
      Expressing the views that they do in that video does not make them Russian shills. As I understand the word "shill", they would be shills if they were expressing those views because they worked for Russia. But I see no evidence that they do. Agreeing with certain arguments that supporters of Russia in the current war make does not make someone a Russian shill. It also does not make someone into a mouthpiece for Russian propaganda, unless you are willing to say that any time that a person agrees with a government's propaganda about anything, it makes that person a mouthpiece for the government's propaganda, even if when it comes to other issues the person might fundamentally disagree with that government.
      - genman 3y ago
        No, this is not the meaning of the word. The reason why they do this is not important - though I wouldn't be surprised if both of them would benefit personally in one way or another. Only very naive person would not see the connection. Your second claim is also not correct. Even Russians themselves are not in 100% agreement with the Russian government and many of them even criticize it heavily - not enough Ukrainians are killed.
        genman 3y ago
        Of course not all Russians share this sentiment. There are people, of whom many have by now emigrated, who are against Russian government genocidal actions and there is large part of people who are either ignorant or indifferent.
bjourne 3y ago
Three days ago a number of accounts with massive followings were suspended from Twitter; @zei_squirrel, @AlanRMacLeod, @kenklipperstein, and @TrueAnonPod. They were later reinstated and Twitter claimed its algorithms had misidentified them as spam accounts. Strange how that so frequently happens to pro-Palestinian accounts, but never to Zionist accounts. Clearly, there are well-organized and well-funded (and possbly even state-sponsored) "flagging campaigns" working to remove as much pro-Palestinian content as possible.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- yieldcrv 3y ago
  whats interesting is that zionists often feel the opposite occurs and its hilarious to watch, as someone’s whose algorithm surfaces content from multiple sides of this conflict based on my friends being on multiple sides of this conflict every side is saying “but you never see it happening to them!” “why is nobody discussing this! I know, it’s because they are secretly wishing for our annihilation!” like get a therapist lol. algorithm driven echo chambers going to echo.
davidf18 3y ago
[flagged]
- adhamsalama 3y ago
  "If Palestinians had accepted being killed and colonized, they would have had a state since 1948. Since they weren't okay with that, we will keep killing them and steal their home and land to build illegal settlements".
  - davidf18 3y ago
    [dead]
allthesameagain 3y ago
[flagged]
- ok123456 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - allthesameagain 3y ago
    Your glib, sarcastic, bombastic, inappropriate remark aside, the point is that NOBODY is being censored. Claims of censorship are an age old tactic by groups of all sides to get attention.
    - ok123456 3y ago
      But it's actually happening.
    - allthesameagain 3y ago
      > But it's actually happening. The only censorship I am seeing anywhere is when somebody challenges the notion that censorship is happening, because that challenges the wound-seeking nature of the post.
    - wolverine876 3y ago
      Censorship actually does happen. In the case of the Gaza war, there's a bunch of evidence. Your refutation doesn't offer much argument: Saying it's impossible a priori is obviously false. Saying you see allegedly censorable content argues, to a degree, against a strawperson: That if censorhips worked there would be no such content.
    - user982 3y ago
      > I'm not sure I have seen a single post ono any of those platforms which more than 50 comments which did not have at least one "ceasefirenow", palestinian flag and watermelon emoji, or in the case of facebook, a crude palestinian flag from different colored emojis. This is from your first post. Why do you think people have had to resort to watermelons and other emoji combinations in comments on those platforms?
FergusArgyll 3y ago
[flagged]
- commandlinefan 3y ago
  Maybe they're afraid to be honest about which they prefer?
- DarkByte 3y ago
  I would argue free speech is much more preferred as a citizen of one of these countries as too many are walking around convinced their understanding of facts is truth when it is in truth not. Free speech is a necessity learned from the past horrors of fascism.
  - bllguo 3y ago
    Fascism is literally being empowered today by unrestricted free speech in Western societies - something Western "liberal" politicians are constantly shouting from the rooftops. Nazism took root in the Weimar Republic essentially unmolested. The Germans censor Holocaust denial today. And you're telling me the lesson learned from all this is the virtue of free speech?
    - decremental 3y ago
      [dead]
- JacobThreeThree 3y ago
  That doesn't really fit with my experience in Canada, especially given that Canadian law has robust freedom of expression provisions in the charter of rights and freedoms. https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/check/art2b.html https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/chec...
  - FergusArgyll 3y ago
    I don't want to start a shouting match and have to prove my case for every country but this is from Wikipedia. "Hate speech, obscenity, and defamation are common categories of restricted speech in Canada. During the 1970 October Crisis, the War Measures Act was used to limit speech from the militant political opposition."
bhouston 3y ago
I have found a lot of pro-Palestinian YouTube videos are put behind warnings pages unnecessarily - the preventing them from going viral. Here is a great example, this Chris Hayes of MSNBC news segment on the MSNBC YouTube channel where he is incredibly critical of what Israeli leaders are saying: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WTHVseqZdw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WTHVseqZdw Notice the warning says: "The following content may contain graphic or violent imagery" There are no such warnings on the official MSNBC website on this video, thus it is specific to YouTube: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/chris-hayes-the-war-in-gaza-must-end/vi-AA1lLwVg https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/chris-hayes-the-war-in-... I've seen this happen on another video, one calling on the games industry to be supportive of the Palestinian struggle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDB_wYdn5f4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDB_wYdn5f4 You can find a ton of videos on YouTube with similar content or worse that the Chris Hayes's video that is critical of Israel, but they are allowed: https://www.youtube.com/@msnbc/search?query=israel https://www.youtube.com/@msnbc/search?query=israel Here is probably the best example, here is an official IDF video that shows clearly dead bodies and there is no YouTube content warning, just a warning that the IDF put in their video - thus allowing this video to still go viral: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta7ScT67vQ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta7ScT67vQ0
- mtalantikite 3y ago
  I was asked to sign in to watch that video, since it has a content warning. Is that something that happens to other news broadcasts dealing with war footage?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - bhouston 3y ago
    Mostly no, a ton of these videos have graphic content, but do not have the critical aspects of Chris Hayes' video: https://www.youtube.com/@msnbc/search?query=israel https://www.youtube.com/@msnbc/search?query=israel
  - dijit 3y ago
golemiprague 3y ago
[dead]
standapart 3y ago
Weird... Things are starting to smell a lot like 2020, again...
- topspin 3y ago
  Hard not to see these recent stories about backchannel deplatforming and social media accounts getting accidentally-ed and not recall the warnings that this behavior won't stop with just the people/views you prefer not to see. It was all great fun when "election deniers" and lab leak "conspiracy" theorists were getting ban hammered right and left. But now we're where you were told we'd get, and the righteous defenders of establishment narrative have you in the crosshairs.
  - whatshisface 3y ago
    In the long run, anyone who thinks for themselves will eventually be on the "wrong side" of an issue, and the people who copy the leaders, even when the leaders change, remain "right" through all of them. See also: the huge number of brilliant intellectuals burnt to death by the Church because they applied the principle of making up their own minds about stuff to religion. That means, if there is a policy of "burning" people who are "wrong," it will eventually catch every free thinker.
Sporktacular 3y ago
“We have direct channels with Israelis who work in the big companies,” If this is confirmed it's bad news, and not just for the Palestinian cause. 'They all work together as part of a cabal' in one of the big anti-semitic tropes. This will harm the cause of Jews everywhere, not just Israeli Jews.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
sigma5 3y ago
I wonder if this group also operates on HN. Two weeks ago I posted a ask HN post that was immediately removed. After seeing that, I concluded that I should drastically reduce my exposure to the media since I think It's just a tool to manipulate.
- brobinson 3y ago
  What was it about?
- bawolff 3y ago
  That's a silly conclusion to those events. HN basically has a policy of flagging anything involving politics, including things much less controversial than israel/palestine.
  - JeffSnazz 3y ago
    > HN basically has a policy of flagging anything involving politics, including things much less controversial than Israel/palestine This does not preclude the effective operation of an astroturfing operation. I would be absolutely shocked if the site were not a target of such a campaign given its reputed influence.
    - kergonath 3y ago
      Astroturfing cannot just remove posts. Flagged dead posts still appear as such.
  - gnicholas 3y ago
    I don't see any Ask HNs on @sigma5's profile. I don't know if flagged or dead posts show up in the profile, but I guess I figured they did (especially if you have showdead on, like I do). It would be a different story if the post were somehow removed entirely, not just downvoted or made dead.
- kelnos 3y ago
  If you're worried about specific examples, you should email the mods (dang, that is), at hn@ycombinator.com and ask what's going on. I've found dang to be super responsive and thoughtful in his replies when I've had an occasion to ask something about HN's operation.
Sporktacular 3y ago
Israel set up troll farms years ago to attack, debate, downvote and report opposing content. It's the front channel. https://electronicintifada.net/content/inside-israels-million-dollar-troll-army/27566 https://electronicintifada.net/content/inside-israels-millio...
- DarkByte 3y ago
  This is extremely concerning if true.
- nolongerthere 3y ago
  Your source is not reliable for any information regarding any topic, but is especially unreliable for topics involving Jews or Israel.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - tdeck 3y ago
    act.il was a pretty well known effort, there are multiple sources that describe the same thing and it wasn't exactly a secret.
  - Sporktacular 3y ago
    Then see the wikipedia page on that or on Hasbara fellowships.
- Kranar 3y ago
  Saying Israel set this up is quite misleading. This group is no more affiliated with Israel than Alex Jones is affiliated with the U.S. This is a grassroots organization doing this and in fact its funding and support mostly comes from Americans, such as casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and the Israeli-American Council.
  - dundarious 3y ago
    Your rhetorical point about Alex Jones is contradicted within your own post. Alex Jones does not receive grant funding from the US government, but this group does receive a portion of its funding from the Israeli government. James Bamford has written at least 3 good articles about Israeli government influence of US civil society (social media) and elections (the leak of the DNC hack materials), all in the last year or so, at The Nation: https://www.thenation.com/authors/james-bamford/ https://www.thenation.com/authors/james-bamford/ And until extremely recently, the IDF and associated arms of the state have been engaging in even more deceptive actions, such as creating sock-puppet accounts to bolster support for government policy, targeting Israelis themselves: https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-admits-psychological-warfare-attempt-against-israeli-citizens/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-admits-psychological-warfa... It's impossible to be certain of anything related to these highly unaccountable and secret operations, but the "grain" of truth runs very much in the direction of Israeli state interference, with quite wide scope -- but effectiveness unknown.
Gyrantula 3y ago
[flagged]
- rfl890 3y ago
  I thought I was on Hacker News, not 4Chan!
- MicrowavedSteak 3y ago
  From Wikipedia: A dominant anti-Semitic conspiracy theory is the belief that Jewish people have undue influence over the media, banking, and politics. Based on this conspiracy theory, certain groups and activists discuss the "Jewish Question" and offer different proposals to address it. In the early 21st century, white nationalists, alt-righters, and neo-Nazis have used the initialism JQ in order to refer to the Jewish question.
  - deleted 3y ago
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deleted 3y ago
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valeg 3y ago
Seems related to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38930084 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38930084
steve76 3y ago
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Animats 3y ago
This should be looked at in light of the problems Israel faces. Israel is in serious danger of losing US support.[1][2] Outside of the US, there is very little support for what Israel is doing.[3] In the US, support is bought and paid for with political contributions. “If there was no lobby pushing Congress in a particular direction in a really forceful way, the position of the US Congress on the war in Gaza would be fundamentally different.”[4] The social media effort is only a small part of this. [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/us-public-support-israel-drops-majority-backs-ceasefire-reutersipsos-2023-11-15/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us-public-support-israel-drops... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/31/us/politics/us-israel-hamas-war.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/31/us/politics/us-israel-ham... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/12/united-nations-general-assembly-vote-ceasefire-israel-gaza-war https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/12/united-nations... [4] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/10/congress-member-pro-israel-donations-military-support https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/10/congress-mem...
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- wly_cdgr 3y ago
  Good! They should be in serious danger of losing US support!
- gdsdfe 3y ago
  They are throwing millions at US politicians left and right, they're not loosing the US support they're loosing the young generation that are on tiktok
- jcranmer 3y ago
  It's not just social media... I think at this point, every newspaper I've read has more or less started saying that Israel is seriously screwing up, and there is especially unanimity in saying that Netanyahu needs to go. I'm not going to try to enumerate Israel's mistakes, but when you decide to invite a coterie of journalists to the hospital you destroyed to provide proof of your claims that it was actually a hive center of terrorist activity, and all of them come away basically saying "this evidence isn't good enough," then that should be a sign that it's not PR that's the problem of Israel, it's Israeli actions that are the problem that needs addressing. And on a personal level, I'm ashamed that my government is giving such unconditional support to a country that is acting in that manner.
JeffSnazz 3y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago
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waynecochran 3y ago
Sounds like the Twitter Files. Better Censor this comment.
whatshisface 3y ago
>I copied the URL of the video and sent it to a team in [Facebook parent company] Meta, some Israelis that work for Meta, and I told them that this video needs to be removed and actually they removed it after a few days.” Some commenters here ask, "is this guy lying," but I can't help but wonder... was there any correlation between him flagging the post and Facebook's internal misinformation police taking it down on their own? They take down a lot of content every day. It would be pretty funny if the whole crusade was made up of people who could find doomed posts a few minutes before the moderation system does, and so think they're the ones taking things down.
rdtsc 3y ago
> they have connections to the policy team,” Kaganovitch told The Intercept, referring to the personnel at social media firms who set rules for permissible speech. “Most of them are product managers, software developers. … I wonder if they see how the whole thing backfires. “Look how we conspire with our secret workers integrated into the larger media and tech companies…” I suppose the idea was that it wouldn’t be made too public.
DeathArrow 3y ago
>they have connections to the policy team,” Kaganovitch told The Intercept, referring to the personnel at social media firms who set rules for permissible speech. “Most of them are product managers, software developers. And no one gets fired for working in secret for dubious, shady groups. No internal rules were broken, no laws were broken.
DeathArrow 3y ago
Why they don't go to the next level and inject their own propaganda into social networks, like it's coming from others?
nostromo 3y ago
It’s notable that suddenly there’s push back against DEI initiatives, anti-racism and “decolonize” language the moment it was used to criticize Israel.
- raxxorraxor 3y ago
  No, Many criticized these initiatives for years because they are a bundle of bad ideas. And it was predictable that these ideas would also be used to criticise Israel as the alleged oppressor. It was a predictable as its failings to alleviate prejudice in any form. It is because of the bad ideas, not political allegiance.
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  - jscipione 3y ago
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incomingpain 3y ago
In my anecdotal point of view, it's the opposite. Pro-israel content is being censored and Palestinian content is dominant. I find this article failed to verify this claim at all. I can find nothing elsewhere about 'iron truth'. It seems to be a creation by this website. Then I goto their main page right now. https://theintercept.com/2024/01/11/dnc-biden-israel-palestine-immigration/ https://theintercept.com/2024/01/11/dnc-biden-israel-palesti... Also multiple entries of 'Israel's war on Gaza' Which is simply not factually correct. The palestinians are the ones who declared war and invaded Israel. Israel is in a defensive war. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-intercept/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-intercept/ I would say they being far left and low factuality seems to have been proven here.
6510 3y ago
this is still technology I presume? https://www.jpost.com/Features/In-Thespotlight/Want-to-help-defend-Israel-Become-a-virtual-soldier https://www.jpost.com/Features/In-Thespotlight/Want-to-help-...

292 points by ilamont 3y ago

tome 3y ago

If the discussion here is indicative then it's very clear in which direction the tech world is biased on this issue.

smoothjazz 3y ago
I think there's a big difference between the opinion of most of the people in tech and those at the very top (CEOs and VCs). I see wide support for Palestinians with pretty much everyone, but the VCs are almost universally, militantly, Zionist. It's a huge issue that those funding the industry and those working in it (and consuming it) hold such extremely different opinions on an issue as serious as genocide.

Qem 3y ago

Archived: http://web.archive.org/web/20240110185343/https://theintercept.com/2024/01/10/israel-disinformation-social-media-iron-truth/ http://web.archive.org/web/20240110185343/https://theinterce...

jjulius 3y ago

For what it's worth, The Intercept has not been able to verify what this group is claiming. >A SMALL GROUP of volunteers from Israel’s tech sector is working tirelessly to remove content it says doesn’t belong on platforms like Facebook and TikTok, tapping personal connections at those and other Big Tech companies to have posts deleted outside official channels, the project’s founder told The Intercept. >The Intercept was unable to independently confirm that sympathetic workers at Big Tech firms are responding to the group’s complaints or verify that the group was behind the removal of the content it has taken credit for having deleted.

cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
Although this is in the grand scheme of things hard to verify. Who is going to admit to that? To a news organisation?
- jjulius 3y ago
  >Who is going to admit to that? To a news organisation? Stranger things have been admitted to news organizations.
- Cheer2171 3y ago
  > Who is going to admit to that? To a news organisation? People who don't agree with what their coworkers are doing and want to be whistleblowers. Getting those people to reach out to you is a huge part of investigative journalism.
  - DeathArrow 3y ago
    >Getting those people to reach out to you is a huge part of investigative journalism. Does that still exist? If you do investigative journalism maybe you win the admiration of the public. If you align with the powers that be, no nasty things happen to you and maybe you earn some money.
    - deleted 3y ago
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    - DarkByte 3y ago
      The world has already learned from doing this mistake. Despotism is bad and listening to the above is how you get there.
    - Aerbil313 3y ago
      Yes, people with a strong sense of morality, interestingly (to the HN crowd), still do exist.
  - gettodachoppa 3y ago
    The people with power over the journalists' career and reputation are in this case the party they'd piss off by doing proper journalism. They're not gonna do it. It's indirectly the main reason why no one trusts journalists in general anymore. Nearly everything is consolidated under the same people and whatever isn't gets smeared and blacklisted.
amiga1200 3y ago
Who is the judge of “inflammatory” content? It’s just censorship plain and simple. Why not let the truth be told? Edit: judging by the way the votes keep going up and down there's a yin to the gatekeepers of inflammatory content's yang. These are actions of a rogue state y'all.
- DeathArrow 3y ago
  >Why not let the truth be told? Telling the truth is going to always be against someone's interest. If that someone can control the medium, he will do it.
deleted 3y ago
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DoItToMe81 3y ago
There is a network of pro-Israel and even Israeli government affiliated corporations and NGOs that successfully lobby for extreme censorship and social restrictions, such as a ban on sharing and even viewing all Gaza war footage in Australia, and the numerous anti-boycott and anti-organization rules across government organizations in 30+ American states. Even if it can't be confirmed as of yet, I have no doubt that they are working on or have actually achieved the connections to make this possible.

Baldbvrhunter 3y ago

[flagged]

dang 3y ago
You can't post like this here. I've banned the account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
- atticora 3y ago
  That was fast! Are you notified on keywords or just happened by? It seems like an LLM assistant could make this task much easier.
  - cogman10 3y ago
    If I were to guess, any article about Israel or Palestine is likely going to have a decent amount of posts to remove and flag.
  - dang 3y ago
    I just happened by. It's a bit of an illusion because one is more likely to notice fast responses than slow ones. Is that recency bias? I guess not.
- deleted 3y ago
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- ofslidingfeet 3y ago
  Tell us what they said or ban me too. You want to make an example, so give the actual example. Thank you to the reply who told me that you can turn on "showdead" in your profile and then see the removed comment that warranted banning the account and gloating about it.
  - 3y ago

genman 3y ago

[flagged]

kornhole 3y ago
How can you report content on the platform without visiting the site? Are you using Dataminr or some other tool used by government agencies?
- genman 3y ago
  It can be that I do not go there voluntarily but if I end up there them I'm going to report racist and genocidal content presented there.
allthesameagain 3y ago
I am surprised that reporting on Twitter works. I've gotten positive action on 150+ very vile posts in the past month. Not posts which go against my views, but posts which clearly violate all TOS and social mores. Call me a Karen, but I report hate speech no matter whom it is directed at. Twitter and Reddit are the only sites which take action. You can post "Hitler was right, too bad he failed at killing all of the Jews" on Threads, Instagram and Facebook with no punishment. You can post it on Twitter, and it will stay there until somebody reports it, but then that account will be locked until they delete the content. Instagram and Threads will say "We received your report" then never give an update. Facebook will do the same, then eventually either say they reviewed the content and it did not violate community standards, or that the are too busy to review the content.

mrguyorama 3y ago

Anyone who has ever posted a "I need help" here on HN and gotten support has also used "backchannels". An actual concern would be if this "backchannel" turned out to be messaging an insider who acts outside of policy. We know the Saudis and other state backed groups had insiders in Twitter at least, but I'm much less inclined to believe there are any pro-israel insiders in say, TikTok.

octopoc 3y ago
FTA: > Iron Truth members have flagged thousands of posts for removal, from clearly racist or false content to posts that are merely sympathetic to Palestinians. (emphasis added) If you aren't connected enough to get Google to fix your email, your business is disrupted. It's unfair but life moves on. Maybe next time you don't use Gmail. The stakes are much higher here in an actual war / genocide. People are starving, dying, having their homes stolen, etc. and this is an attempt to deny them a voice. Also FTA: > I copied the URL of the video and sent it to a team in [Facebook parent company] Meta, some Israelis that work for Meta, and I told them that this video needs to be removed and actually they removed it after a few days.” American companies should not engage in propaganda for a foreign country. I find it reprehensible that foreign nationals from a nation currently engaged in conflict are deliberately working together to push a foreign agenda on the people of the entire world. This is way, way different than not being able to use Google apps for business.
- baz00 3y ago
  I think it would be safer to remove all political posts from social media (both sides) as policy. There is a massive propaganda war on both sides and all it does is amplify sentiment, create further division, hurt more people and compromise security over time. The press are bad enough at coming up with verified claims from the right people. Social media is 1000x worse. Of course our current American social media dictators are pretty lax on doing anything positive for society as a whole while it benefits them.
  - shadowgovt 3y ago

baz00 3y ago

[flagged]

shkkmo 3y ago
Flags don't come from moderators but from users with enough karma. I suspect your were downvoted and flagged because you aren't really engaging with the content of the article and dismissing claims made in the article without evidence in a way that doesn't contribute to productive discussion.
Sporktacular 3y ago
The article refers to posts simply sympathetic to the Palestinians. Are they trash too?

shmatt 3y ago

I thought this was common knowledge? I often see posts in technical groups im in from people asking for help re-opening their hacked instagram or facebook accounts. Apparently there is an internal-only form for Meta employees to speed up the process for friends/family

deleted 3y ago
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xenospn 3y ago
Correct. I did exactly that for my friend.
tazu 3y ago
> Apparently there is an internal-only form for Meta employees to speed up the process for friends/family You can also sleep with those employees to speed it up [1]. [1]: https://www.dailydot.com/irl/kittylixo-onlyfans-instagram-employees/ https://www.dailydot.com/irl/kittylixo-onlyfans-instagram-em...
netsharc 3y ago
Ah, god bless cloud feudalism and nepotism...
- flir 3y ago
  > cloud feudalism nice
- aspenmayer 3y ago
  Reminds me of the so-called “floating population,” a concept especially related to those living outside their “approved/official” province or municipality in China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_population

octopoc 3y ago

Many of us are in the tech industry. Has anyone seen this sort of thing happen? Or is this something we wouldn't be aware of since it's usually on the "content moderation" side of the house? (I haven't ever worked in social media, so not really familiar with content moderation other than removing the occasional dick pic) Edit: > Most of them are product managers, software developers. … They work with the policy teams with an internal set of tools to forward links and explanations about why they need to be removed.

kornhole 3y ago
If you look at the extensive reporting done by racket.news around the Twitter Files and Facebook Files, you can learn about the direct back channels many government agencies had to directly report thousands of people to be banned or shadow banned. A federal court judge concluded that it was the biggest violation of free speech in modern history. He ordered the government to no longer contact the social media companies unless something is found to be illegal. This applied to government agencies but does not apply to these groups that might be organized or funded by a foreign government.
- Yoric 3y ago
  I remember browsing through the Twitter Files and finding nothing interesting in them. Yes, all social media have open channels with law enforcement. That's because social media have legal obligations and when someone comes to a moderator claiming to be a law enforcement officer working on a kidnapping or preventing a terrorist attack and needing time-sensitive help to save lives, you don't want the moderator to have to guess whether that's a real emergency or a hoax. It's... not a secret. If you live in a democracy, you can quickly find out the name of these channels, they have websites. Source: I've been part of a moderation team. Not on something that large, though.
  - SlickNixon 3y ago
    >they have websites That's interesting, can you link to one?

GrumpySloth 3y ago

> Iron Truth claims its tech industry back channels have led to the removal of roughly 1,000 posts tagged by its members as false, antisemitic, or “pro-terrorist” across platforms such as X, YouTube, and TikTok. Does anyone know if that’s a lot? I don’t know either way. I just have a gut feeling that compared to the number of posts made by bots on any political matter it barely matters. I wonder if it wouldn’t be more efficient to counter with more bots going in the other direction with likes and posts.

strulovich 3y ago
My experience is that it’s a drop in the bucket. But, there’s a power law distribution for virality, so removing the top 1000 most viral posts might still be impactful.
ars 3y ago
1,000 posts is absolutely nothing. If that's all they removed then I don't get why this article even exists.
- xenospn 3y ago
  My thoughts exactly. TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook (Reddit as well) probably add more than 1000 posts each on this topic every hour.
  - Yoric 3y ago
    I suspect that we're closer to 1,000 per second.
  - cma 3y ago
    You have to multiply the post count by their reach. If it is a strong exponent power law the top 1000 may be the vast majority of what people see on the topic, but they may apply greater scrutiny in removing posts with high reach too.
- dralley 3y ago
  Not only that, but there is more than enough legitimately antisemitic or pro-terrorism content on these platforms for this to be fully legitimate reporting behavior. It could be 100,000 posts and this would still be near meaningless without actual context on what is being reported. 1000 posts is a joke.

DarkByte 3y ago

If this "Iron Truth" is a smoke screen to remove any information that is true and sympathetic to Palestinians through mis-categorizing and mis-labeling and that is not hateful then it is a system of oppression and must be stopped.

genman 3y ago
[flagged]
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doubt_me 3y ago
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stale2002 3y ago
Ok, now what if it is about removing false information? Do you support it now?
- smoothjazz 3y ago
  If you look at the original article what they're looking for is a mix of false information but also things rebuking false things stated by the IDF. Such as the 40 beheaded babies. That's not false information, it was a lie spread by the IDF.

smoothjazz 3y ago

You can see this happen out in the open when Paul Graham (or anyone else) posts statistics about who's been killed, raw footage... he's immediately swarmed by people, some major players in the industry, accusing him of "antisemitism", which it most definitely is not.

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richardfeynman 3y ago
It was certainly interesting to see Paul Graham, famous for his skepticism of China's COVID numbers, immediately embrace the Gaza Ministry of Health's death toll, without understanding how they themselves generate it.
- JeffSnazz 3y ago
  ...is there any reason to doubt these figures? Is there any reason to suspect that Hamas is any less trustworthy than the Israeli government is?
  - richardfeynman 3y ago
    Yes, of course there is reason to suspect Hamas is untrustworthy. I'm not trying to argue one should take Israel's word at face value (of course you should subject it to scrutiny as well), but yes, Israel, a liberal democratic state with a free press, strong left-wing movement, and the second biggest tech sector out of silicon valley, is far more trustworthy than Hamas, a repressive, fundamentalist, authoritarian regime with no free press. This doesn't mean they always tell the truth, but there is no equivalence between them and Hamas. In terms of specific reasons to doubt the Gaza Health Ministry numbers specifically, I could go on forever about that, but I don't see the point of doing so on HN. It's not a tech-related question.

rthkljlkrj 3y ago

Of course they are. Anyone who's seen that documentary about Israel meddling in UK politics know that these people have a lot of power that isn't just military.

ok123456 3y ago
"The Labour Files" is on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiODoWurA64 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiODoWurA64
latency-guy2 3y ago
Eh, meddling in foreign politics is just the name of the game of a globalist world. Not really the panacea of a sin I think you're making it out to be. The mere existence of intelligence agencies is proof, sending aid to others is also proof (which we know gets intercepted all the time), having military bases or consulates, even more. If all of the above, and more including the recession of all foreign aid would make me believe its a sin again, doubled with strong isolationist thinking and very strict border control. People can make documentaries all they want, it doesn't matter, they're crying about things their country does all day, every day, and probably even better than those they're accusing. They just don't want egg on their face. I definitely don't really feel bad for hypocrites.

faraofspeech 3y ago

[flagged]

myth_drannon 3y ago

[flagged]

hax0ron3 3y ago
Russian propaganda such as what? Do you have any specific examples?
- genman 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - hax0ron3 3y ago
    Expressing the views that they do in that video does not make them Russian shills. As I understand the word "shill", they would be shills if they were expressing those views because they worked for Russia. But I see no evidence that they do. Agreeing with certain arguments that supporters of Russia in the current war make does not make someone a Russian shill. It also does not make someone into a mouthpiece for Russian propaganda, unless you are willing to say that any time that a person agrees with a government's propaganda about anything, it makes that person a mouthpiece for the government's propaganda, even if when it comes to other issues the person might fundamentally disagree with that government.
    - genman 3y ago
      No, this is not the meaning of the word. The reason why they do this is not important - though I wouldn't be surprised if both of them would benefit personally in one way or another. Only very naive person would not see the connection. Your second claim is also not correct. Even Russians themselves are not in 100% agreement with the Russian government and many of them even criticize it heavily - not enough Ukrainians are killed.
      - genman 3y ago
        Of course not all Russians share this sentiment. There are people, of whom many have by now emigrated, who are against Russian government genocidal actions and there is large part of people who are either ignorant or indifferent.

bjourne 3y ago

Three days ago a number of accounts with massive followings were suspended from Twitter; @zei_squirrel, @AlanRMacLeod, @kenklipperstein, and @TrueAnonPod. They were later reinstated and Twitter claimed its algorithms had misidentified them as spam accounts. Strange how that so frequently happens to pro-Palestinian accounts, but never to Zionist accounts. Clearly, there are well-organized and well-funded (and possbly even state-sponsored) "flagging campaigns" working to remove as much pro-Palestinian content as possible.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
yieldcrv 3y ago
whats interesting is that zionists often feel the opposite occurs and its hilarious to watch, as someone’s whose algorithm surfaces content from multiple sides of this conflict based on my friends being on multiple sides of this conflict every side is saying “but you never see it happening to them!” “why is nobody discussing this! I know, it’s because they are secretly wishing for our annihilation!” like get a therapist lol. algorithm driven echo chambers going to echo.

davidf18 3y ago

[flagged]

adhamsalama 3y ago
"If Palestinians had accepted being killed and colonized, they would have had a state since 1948. Since they weren't okay with that, we will keep killing them and steal their home and land to build illegal settlements".
- davidf18 3y ago
  [dead]

allthesameagain 3y ago

[flagged]

ok123456 3y ago
[flagged]
- allthesameagain 3y ago
  Your glib, sarcastic, bombastic, inappropriate remark aside, the point is that NOBODY is being censored. Claims of censorship are an age old tactic by groups of all sides to get attention.
  - ok123456 3y ago
    But it's actually happening.
  - allthesameagain 3y ago
    > But it's actually happening. The only censorship I am seeing anywhere is when somebody challenges the notion that censorship is happening, because that challenges the wound-seeking nature of the post.
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    Censorship actually does happen. In the case of the Gaza war, there's a bunch of evidence. Your refutation doesn't offer much argument: Saying it's impossible a priori is obviously false. Saying you see allegedly censorable content argues, to a degree, against a strawperson: That if censorhips worked there would be no such content.
  - user982 3y ago
    > I'm not sure I have seen a single post ono any of those platforms which more than 50 comments which did not have at least one "ceasefirenow", palestinian flag and watermelon emoji, or in the case of facebook, a crude palestinian flag from different colored emojis. This is from your first post. Why do you think people have had to resort to watermelons and other emoji combinations in comments on those platforms?

FergusArgyll 3y ago

[flagged]

commandlinefan 3y ago
Maybe they're afraid to be honest about which they prefer?
DarkByte 3y ago
I would argue free speech is much more preferred as a citizen of one of these countries as too many are walking around convinced their understanding of facts is truth when it is in truth not. Free speech is a necessity learned from the past horrors of fascism.
- bllguo 3y ago
  Fascism is literally being empowered today by unrestricted free speech in Western societies - something Western "liberal" politicians are constantly shouting from the rooftops. Nazism took root in the Weimar Republic essentially unmolested. The Germans censor Holocaust denial today. And you're telling me the lesson learned from all this is the virtue of free speech?
  - decremental 3y ago
    [dead]
JacobThreeThree 3y ago
That doesn't really fit with my experience in Canada, especially given that Canadian law has robust freedom of expression provisions in the charter of rights and freedoms. https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/check/art2b.html https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/chec...
- FergusArgyll 3y ago
  I don't want to start a shouting match and have to prove my case for every country but this is from Wikipedia. "Hate speech, obscenity, and defamation are common categories of restricted speech in Canada. During the 1970 October Crisis, the War Measures Act was used to limit speech from the militant political opposition."

bhouston 3y ago

I have found a lot of pro-Palestinian YouTube videos are put behind warnings pages unnecessarily - the preventing them from going viral. Here is a great example, this Chris Hayes of MSNBC news segment on the MSNBC YouTube channel where he is incredibly critical of what Israeli leaders are saying: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WTHVseqZdw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WTHVseqZdw Notice the warning says: "The following content may contain graphic or violent imagery" There are no such warnings on the official MSNBC website on this video, thus it is specific to YouTube: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/chris-hayes-the-war-in-gaza-must-end/vi-AA1lLwVg https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/chris-hayes-the-war-in-... I've seen this happen on another video, one calling on the games industry to be supportive of the Palestinian struggle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDB_wYdn5f4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDB_wYdn5f4 You can find a ton of videos on YouTube with similar content or worse that the Chris Hayes's video that is critical of Israel, but they are allowed: https://www.youtube.com/@msnbc/search?query=israel https://www.youtube.com/@msnbc/search?query=israel Here is probably the best example, here is an official IDF video that shows clearly dead bodies and there is no YouTube content warning, just a warning that the IDF put in their video - thus allowing this video to still go viral: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta7ScT67vQ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta7ScT67vQ0

mtalantikite 3y ago
I was asked to sign in to watch that video, since it has a content warning. Is that something that happens to other news broadcasts dealing with war footage?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- bhouston 3y ago
  Mostly no, a ton of these videos have graphic content, but do not have the critical aspects of Chris Hayes' video: https://www.youtube.com/@msnbc/search?query=israel https://www.youtube.com/@msnbc/search?query=israel
- dijit 3y ago

golemiprague 3y ago

[dead]

standapart 3y ago

Weird... Things are starting to smell a lot like 2020, again...

topspin 3y ago
Hard not to see these recent stories about backchannel deplatforming and social media accounts getting accidentally-ed and not recall the warnings that this behavior won't stop with just the people/views you prefer not to see. It was all great fun when "election deniers" and lab leak "conspiracy" theorists were getting ban hammered right and left. But now we're where you were told we'd get, and the righteous defenders of establishment narrative have you in the crosshairs.
- whatshisface 3y ago
  In the long run, anyone who thinks for themselves will eventually be on the "wrong side" of an issue, and the people who copy the leaders, even when the leaders change, remain "right" through all of them. See also: the huge number of brilliant intellectuals burnt to death by the Church because they applied the principle of making up their own minds about stuff to religion. That means, if there is a policy of "burning" people who are "wrong," it will eventually catch every free thinker.

Sporktacular 3y ago

“We have direct channels with Israelis who work in the big companies,” If this is confirmed it's bad news, and not just for the Palestinian cause. 'They all work together as part of a cabal' in one of the big anti-semitic tropes. This will harm the cause of Jews everywhere, not just Israeli Jews.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

sigma5 3y ago

I wonder if this group also operates on HN. Two weeks ago I posted a ask HN post that was immediately removed. After seeing that, I concluded that I should drastically reduce my exposure to the media since I think It's just a tool to manipulate.

brobinson 3y ago
What was it about?
bawolff 3y ago
That's a silly conclusion to those events. HN basically has a policy of flagging anything involving politics, including things much less controversial than israel/palestine.
- JeffSnazz 3y ago
  > HN basically has a policy of flagging anything involving politics, including things much less controversial than Israel/palestine This does not preclude the effective operation of an astroturfing operation. I would be absolutely shocked if the site were not a target of such a campaign given its reputed influence.
  - kergonath 3y ago
    Astroturfing cannot just remove posts. Flagged dead posts still appear as such.
- gnicholas 3y ago
  I don't see any Ask HNs on @sigma5's profile. I don't know if flagged or dead posts show up in the profile, but I guess I figured they did (especially if you have showdead on, like I do). It would be a different story if the post were somehow removed entirely, not just downvoted or made dead.
kelnos 3y ago
If you're worried about specific examples, you should email the mods (dang, that is), at hn@ycombinator.com and ask what's going on. I've found dang to be super responsive and thoughtful in his replies when I've had an occasion to ask something about HN's operation.

Sporktacular 3y ago

Israel set up troll farms years ago to attack, debate, downvote and report opposing content. It's the front channel. https://electronicintifada.net/content/inside-israels-million-dollar-troll-army/27566 https://electronicintifada.net/content/inside-israels-millio...

DarkByte 3y ago
This is extremely concerning if true.
nolongerthere 3y ago
Your source is not reliable for any information regarding any topic, but is especially unreliable for topics involving Jews or Israel.
- deleted 3y ago
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- tdeck 3y ago
  act.il was a pretty well known effort, there are multiple sources that describe the same thing and it wasn't exactly a secret.
- Sporktacular 3y ago
  Then see the wikipedia page on that or on Hasbara fellowships.
Kranar 3y ago
Saying Israel set this up is quite misleading. This group is no more affiliated with Israel than Alex Jones is affiliated with the U.S. This is a grassroots organization doing this and in fact its funding and support mostly comes from Americans, such as casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and the Israeli-American Council.
- dundarious 3y ago
  Your rhetorical point about Alex Jones is contradicted within your own post. Alex Jones does not receive grant funding from the US government, but this group does receive a portion of its funding from the Israeli government. James Bamford has written at least 3 good articles about Israeli government influence of US civil society (social media) and elections (the leak of the DNC hack materials), all in the last year or so, at The Nation: https://www.thenation.com/authors/james-bamford/ https://www.thenation.com/authors/james-bamford/ And until extremely recently, the IDF and associated arms of the state have been engaging in even more deceptive actions, such as creating sock-puppet accounts to bolster support for government policy, targeting Israelis themselves: https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-admits-psychological-warfare-attempt-against-israeli-citizens/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-admits-psychological-warfa... It's impossible to be certain of anything related to these highly unaccountable and secret operations, but the "grain" of truth runs very much in the direction of Israeli state interference, with quite wide scope -- but effectiveness unknown.

Gyrantula 3y ago

[flagged]

rfl890 3y ago
I thought I was on Hacker News, not 4Chan!
MicrowavedSteak 3y ago
From Wikipedia: A dominant anti-Semitic conspiracy theory is the belief that Jewish people have undue influence over the media, banking, and politics. Based on this conspiracy theory, certain groups and activists discuss the "Jewish Question" and offer different proposals to address it. In the early 21st century, white nationalists, alt-righters, and neo-Nazis have used the initialism JQ in order to refer to the Jewish question.
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valeg 3y ago

Seems related to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38930084 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38930084

steve76 3y ago

[dead]

Animats 3y ago

This should be looked at in light of the problems Israel faces. Israel is in serious danger of losing US support.[1][2] Outside of the US, there is very little support for what Israel is doing.[3] In the US, support is bought and paid for with political contributions. “If there was no lobby pushing Congress in a particular direction in a really forceful way, the position of the US Congress on the war in Gaza would be fundamentally different.”[4] The social media effort is only a small part of this. [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/us-public-support-israel-drops-majority-backs-ceasefire-reutersipsos-2023-11-15/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us-public-support-israel-drops... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/31/us/politics/us-israel-hamas-war.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/31/us/politics/us-israel-ham... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/12/united-nations-general-assembly-vote-ceasefire-israel-gaza-war https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/12/united-nations... [4] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/10/congress-member-pro-israel-donations-military-support https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/10/congress-mem...

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wly_cdgr 3y ago
Good! They should be in serious danger of losing US support!
gdsdfe 3y ago
They are throwing millions at US politicians left and right, they're not loosing the US support they're loosing the young generation that are on tiktok
jcranmer 3y ago
It's not just social media... I think at this point, every newspaper I've read has more or less started saying that Israel is seriously screwing up, and there is especially unanimity in saying that Netanyahu needs to go. I'm not going to try to enumerate Israel's mistakes, but when you decide to invite a coterie of journalists to the hospital you destroyed to provide proof of your claims that it was actually a hive center of terrorist activity, and all of them come away basically saying "this evidence isn't good enough," then that should be a sign that it's not PR that's the problem of Israel, it's Israeli actions that are the problem that needs addressing. And on a personal level, I'm ashamed that my government is giving such unconditional support to a country that is acting in that manner.

JeffSnazz 3y ago

[flagged]

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waynecochran 3y ago

Sounds like the Twitter Files. Better Censor this comment.

whatshisface 3y ago

>I copied the URL of the video and sent it to a team in [Facebook parent company] Meta, some Israelis that work for Meta, and I told them that this video needs to be removed and actually they removed it after a few days.” Some commenters here ask, "is this guy lying," but I can't help but wonder... was there any correlation between him flagging the post and Facebook's internal misinformation police taking it down on their own? They take down a lot of content every day. It would be pretty funny if the whole crusade was made up of people who could find doomed posts a few minutes before the moderation system does, and so think they're the ones taking things down.

rdtsc 3y ago

> they have connections to the policy team,” Kaganovitch told The Intercept, referring to the personnel at social media firms who set rules for permissible speech. “Most of them are product managers, software developers. … I wonder if they see how the whole thing backfires. “Look how we conspire with our secret workers integrated into the larger media and tech companies…” I suppose the idea was that it wouldn’t be made too public.

DeathArrow 3y ago

>they have connections to the policy team,” Kaganovitch told The Intercept, referring to the personnel at social media firms who set rules for permissible speech. “Most of them are product managers, software developers. And no one gets fired for working in secret for dubious, shady groups. No internal rules were broken, no laws were broken.

DeathArrow 3y ago

Why they don't go to the next level and inject their own propaganda into social networks, like it's coming from others?

nostromo 3y ago

It’s notable that suddenly there’s push back against DEI initiatives, anti-racism and “decolonize” language the moment it was used to criticize Israel.

raxxorraxor 3y ago
No, Many criticized these initiatives for years because they are a bundle of bad ideas. And it was predictable that these ideas would also be used to criticise Israel as the alleged oppressor. It was a predictable as its failings to alleviate prejudice in any form. It is because of the bad ideas, not political allegiance.
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- jscipione 3y ago
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incomingpain 3y ago

In my anecdotal point of view, it's the opposite. Pro-israel content is being censored and Palestinian content is dominant. I find this article failed to verify this claim at all. I can find nothing elsewhere about 'iron truth'. It seems to be a creation by this website. Then I goto their main page right now. https://theintercept.com/2024/01/11/dnc-biden-israel-palestine-immigration/ https://theintercept.com/2024/01/11/dnc-biden-israel-palesti... Also multiple entries of 'Israel's war on Gaza' Which is simply not factually correct. The palestinians are the ones who declared war and invaded Israel. Israel is in a defensive war. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-intercept/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-intercept/ I would say they being far left and low factuality seems to have been proven here.

6510 3y ago

this is still technology I presume? https://www.jpost.com/Features/In-Thespotlight/Want-to-help-defend-Israel-Become-a-virtual-soldier https://www.jpost.com/Features/In-Thespotlight/Want-to-help-...