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> 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-terroris

> 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.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - pydry 3y ago
    I dont think Israel is that interested in legitimate anti semitism. Orban ran an election campaign centered aroud an anti semitic trope and he gets along with Israel just fine, for instance. Their primary target is anti-racist criticism of the state, the apartheid, the war and the genocide. All labeled as anti semitism despite being fundamentally antiracist and running counter to a racist Israeli narrative.
    - kergonath 3y ago
      At least in several European countries there was a tendency to label any criticism of Israel as a state as antisemitism. This is the kind of antisemitism they are fighting. They do not seem to care about actual antisemitism in far-right parties, but then they broadly agree with them on policies such as how to deal with Arabs.
    - mupuff1234 3y ago
      The reported group is not the Israeli government. And what is the "racist Israeli narrative"?
      - pydry 3y ago
        The Amalek reference that Netanyahu likes to use is one of the more recent examples of their favored genocidal/racist wolfwhistles. You can read more here if you are interested https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/11/benjamin-netanyahu-amalek-israel-palestine-gaza-saul-samuel-old-testament/ https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/11/benjamin-netany...
bjourne 3y ago
You have to measure the effect by summing the reach of every removed post. Removing a post from n account with ten followers is not the same as removing one from an account with ten million followers.
- klyrs 3y ago
  Deleting 1000 of my posts: inconsequential. Deleting 1000 of Musk's posts: inconceivable.
- GrumpySloth 3y ago
  Wouldn’t deleting posts of high-profile users be easily noticed and lead to Streisand effect? The article says it didn’t manage to verify the cited claims.
  - kevingadd 3y ago
    Yeah, but the reposts of it would be from lower-reach follower accounts that would also potentially be vulnerable to deletion if they spread
johnnyworker 3y ago
> Among a list of LinkedIn content that Iron Truth told its Telegram followers it had passed along to the company was a post demanding evidence for the beheaded baby claim, categorized by the project as “Terror/Fake.” Just one instance of that is one too many in my books. https://www.declassifieduk.org/beheaded-babies-how-uk-media-reported-israels-fake-news-as-fact/ https://www.declassifieduk.org/beheaded-babies-how-uk-media-...
- mvdtnz 3y ago
  Is there a name for this tactic that people like you use? Where you think you can deflect attention from the disgusting atrocities of October 7 (atrocities which continue to this day as the perpetrators continue to torture hostages) by laser focusing on just one perhaps false claim made during the fog of war? October 7 was a barbaric act of murder, torture, rape and kidnapping, involving men, women, children and babies. Women were forced to watch their children burned to death before themselves being burned alive. Men had fingers, toes, hands and feet removed before being shot in the head. I couldn't care less if the rumour of beheaded babies is false because there were enough atrocities at the same scale which have been confirmed. Shame on you for deflecting from this fact. Shame on you.
  - johnnyworker 3y ago
    It's called "intellectual honesty". It's not a tactic, it's more like a strategy. One crime doesn't justify or deflect from another. Simple as that. And to exploit the victims of the Hamas attacks to commit ethnic cleansing is not honoring them, it's really just exploiting them for jingoistic purposes, and to dehumanize all Palestinians. We've seen so much of that we won't forget for decades.
  - isr 3y ago
    Nearly every single thing you have just listed as "things that happened on Oct 7" have ALREADY been debunked and shown by INDEPENDENT JOURNALISTS to be a lie. Mutilation. False. Burnings (except by Israeli tank shells and Hellfire missiles). False. Beheaded babies (the one thing you did admit to). False. You just PROVED the entire raison d'etre of the article, and of the poster you responded to.
jdietrich 3y ago
I'm just a random schmuck with no backchannel connections, but I get Twitter notifications several times a day about accounts being locked or suspended as a result of my report. The internet is awash with explicit antisemitism.
- anileated 3y ago
  Perhaps because I’m not on a paid subscription, I either never hear from Twitter after a report or they reply along the lines of ”we found no issues with a photo of Hitler doing the Nazi salute in a thread concerning Jews”.
  - u32480932048 3y ago
    I flag most posts that I disagree with, don't understand, or simply don't like, and the success rate is hit-or-miss, but not in any kind of logical way, which just inspires me to cast as wide a net as possible. I call it stochastic decluttering.
    - PawgerZ 3y ago
      I stay away from Twitter for my mental health, so I'm not well versed with their systems. Do you not have to select the reason you're flagging sometihing? Is flagging something that you don't understand or just don't like abusing their reporting system?
      - anileated 3y ago
        Personally, I always select the correct reason and it does not seem to help. I don’t think “disagree” is a valid reason, I report obvious misinformation/racial hate/threats/gore.

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.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- pydry 3y ago
  I dont think Israel is that interested in legitimate anti semitism. Orban ran an election campaign centered aroud an anti semitic trope and he gets along with Israel just fine, for instance. Their primary target is anti-racist criticism of the state, the apartheid, the war and the genocide. All labeled as anti semitism despite being fundamentally antiracist and running counter to a racist Israeli narrative.
  - kergonath 3y ago
    At least in several European countries there was a tendency to label any criticism of Israel as a state as antisemitism. This is the kind of antisemitism they are fighting. They do not seem to care about actual antisemitism in far-right parties, but then they broadly agree with them on policies such as how to deal with Arabs.
  - mupuff1234 3y ago
    The reported group is not the Israeli government. And what is the "racist Israeli narrative"?
    - pydry 3y ago
      The Amalek reference that Netanyahu likes to use is one of the more recent examples of their favored genocidal/racist wolfwhistles. You can read more here if you are interested https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/11/benjamin-netanyahu-amalek-israel-palestine-gaza-saul-samuel-old-testament/ https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/11/benjamin-netany...

bjourne 3y ago

You have to measure the effect by summing the reach of every removed post. Removing a post from n account with ten followers is not the same as removing one from an account with ten million followers.

klyrs 3y ago
Deleting 1000 of my posts: inconsequential. Deleting 1000 of Musk's posts: inconceivable.
GrumpySloth 3y ago
Wouldn’t deleting posts of high-profile users be easily noticed and lead to Streisand effect? The article says it didn’t manage to verify the cited claims.
- kevingadd 3y ago
  Yeah, but the reposts of it would be from lower-reach follower accounts that would also potentially be vulnerable to deletion if they spread

johnnyworker 3y ago

> Among a list of LinkedIn content that Iron Truth told its Telegram followers it had passed along to the company was a post demanding evidence for the beheaded baby claim, categorized by the project as “Terror/Fake.” Just one instance of that is one too many in my books. https://www.declassifieduk.org/beheaded-babies-how-uk-media-reported-israels-fake-news-as-fact/ https://www.declassifieduk.org/beheaded-babies-how-uk-media-...

mvdtnz 3y ago
Is there a name for this tactic that people like you use? Where you think you can deflect attention from the disgusting atrocities of October 7 (atrocities which continue to this day as the perpetrators continue to torture hostages) by laser focusing on just one perhaps false claim made during the fog of war? October 7 was a barbaric act of murder, torture, rape and kidnapping, involving men, women, children and babies. Women were forced to watch their children burned to death before themselves being burned alive. Men had fingers, toes, hands and feet removed before being shot in the head. I couldn't care less if the rumour of beheaded babies is false because there were enough atrocities at the same scale which have been confirmed. Shame on you for deflecting from this fact. Shame on you.
- johnnyworker 3y ago
  It's called "intellectual honesty". It's not a tactic, it's more like a strategy. One crime doesn't justify or deflect from another. Simple as that. And to exploit the victims of the Hamas attacks to commit ethnic cleansing is not honoring them, it's really just exploiting them for jingoistic purposes, and to dehumanize all Palestinians. We've seen so much of that we won't forget for decades.
- isr 3y ago
  Nearly every single thing you have just listed as "things that happened on Oct 7" have ALREADY been debunked and shown by INDEPENDENT JOURNALISTS to be a lie. Mutilation. False. Burnings (except by Israeli tank shells and Hellfire missiles). False. Beheaded babies (the one thing you did admit to). False. You just PROVED the entire raison d'etre of the article, and of the poster you responded to.

jdietrich 3y ago

I'm just a random schmuck with no backchannel connections, but I get Twitter notifications several times a day about accounts being locked or suspended as a result of my report. The internet is awash with explicit antisemitism.

anileated 3y ago
Perhaps because I’m not on a paid subscription, I either never hear from Twitter after a report or they reply along the lines of ”we found no issues with a photo of Hitler doing the Nazi salute in a thread concerning Jews”.
- u32480932048 3y ago
  I flag most posts that I disagree with, don't understand, or simply don't like, and the success rate is hit-or-miss, but not in any kind of logical way, which just inspires me to cast as wide a net as possible. I call it stochastic decluttering.
  - PawgerZ 3y ago
    I stay away from Twitter for my mental health, so I'm not well versed with their systems. Do you not have to select the reason you're flagging sometihing? Is flagging something that you don't understand or just don't like abusing their reporting system?
    - anileated 3y ago
      Personally, I always select the correct reason and it does not seem to help. I don’t think “disagree” is a valid reason, I report obvious misinformation/racial hate/threats/gore.