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That's correct and IMHO its the right thing to do when shooting begins because when people shoot each other this is no longer a discussion and the press is part
by mrtksn 3y ago
That's correct and IMHO its the right thing to do when shooting begins because when people shoot each other this is no longer a discussion and the press is part of the warfare. Remember all the Russian media and social media accounts claiming that its American hysteria that they will invade Ukraine? They denied and mocked anyone who claimed that they will invade up until the tanks rolled in.
Personally, I'm critical of the Israeli government but I think it's in their right to try to control information flow as they are in process of driving people from their homes and mass killing people in retaliation of a terrorist attack that claimed the lives of over thousand innocent people.
I really dislike glorification war and pretending that it has rules or honour or something like that. People are taking lives en masse and its more than normal to try to control the information flow when doing it.
- Loquebantur 3y agoI find it downright perverse to call genocide "retaliatory" and the act of covering it up "normal".
- mrtksn 3y ago[flagged]
- kelnos 3y agoI think the issue is that you are saying things are "normal" without addressing whether or not they are right and good. I would probably agree with you that it's normal for a country at war to want to control information flow. But that's absolutely a bad thing! Obviously not all "information" is created equal: some of it is high-quality and objective, and some of it is lies (and everything in between). I don't trust pretty much any government entity to be objective about these sorts of bans, though. The ultimate consequence of these sorts of things is a poorly-informed, propagandized public.
- ipaddr 3y agoTo parse your statement we need to understand what genocide means to you. For most it means the systemic killing of every person of a certain genetic identity. Is that what you believe is happening or something else? If genocide is illegal than covering up would be the only logical move. Therefore it would be normal.
- runarberg 3y agoGenocide has a precise definition and has been codified in international law. I believe this internationally recognized definition mirrors what most people mean when they use the term. It does not necessitate the systemic killing of every person of a certain genetic identity. Genocide is outlined in the Genocide convention from 1948[1]. It is short so I’ll give you the whole definition here: > In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: > (a) Killing members of the group; > (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; > (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; > (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; > (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. Genocide is illegal under international humanitarian law, there is no justification admissible for the crime of genocide. It is not normal to cover it up. Israel is currently being investigated by the ICJ for the crime of genocide. Israel has argued that whatever it is doing in Gaza is not genocide. 1: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Prevention_and_Punishment_of_the_Crime_of_Genocide https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Prevention_...
- kragen 3y ago> That's correct and IMHO [censorship is] the right thing to do when shooting begins it's been a common observation since aischylos that the truth is the first casualty of war it's quite different to assert that the truth should be the first casualty of war, which seems to be your position
- dlubarov 3y agoFew questioned Ukraine's decision to ban RT's operations. This doesn't seem terribly different - Al Jazeera has very deep ties to Hamas, the enemy Israel is at war with, and has arguably been acting as their mouthpiece for propaganda.
- kragen 3y agoi did and do. banning your citizens from reading the 'propaganda' of your enemy reduces them to subjects and foments further armed conflict. it's also a power invariably used to avoid accountability for petty corruption such as beria's garden full of young, beautiful women
- twixfel 3y ago[flagged]
- kragen 3y agoif it was abject shite nobody wanted to read or watch, they wouldn't bother to ban it
- _djo_ 3y agoPropaganda is still dangerous, and a country at war has no obligation to allow the country it is at war with to continue to openly spread it. Banning RT makes sense in that context. I don't see the banning of Al Jazeera in the same light, as it's not like it's a Hamas-run outlet.
- 3y ago
- Aerbil313 3y ago> That's correct and IMHO its the right thing to do I'm in awe. I'm pro-censorship myself as a general principle (though not in this obviously unjustifiable instance of it), but please be coherent. How come the current semi-popular opinion on HN happens to be pro-censorship, when HN community is against censorship in every other situation?
- mrtksn 3y agoI’m not pro-censorship at all. I just think media is part of the warfare and it’s normal to try to control it during a war. I am anti war in first place, if you don’t want censorship don’t start a war.
- Supermancho 3y agoAs a complete aside, I enjoy your posts. Cheers.
- mrtksn 3y agoThanks!
- edanm 3y ago> How come the current semi-popular opinion on HN happens to be pro-censorship, when HN community is against censorship in every other situation? The answer to most questions like this is: there are many different users on HN. You might think the "general consensus" of HN is one thing, but you're talking to a specific person commenting on a specific article, who has their own views, not to a generic "HN user". And note that different threads will have a different makeup of users clicking on it. E.g. I wouldn't necessarily be interested in a random "censorship" thread, but this one is about Israel, so (as an Israeli) I am interested. Since this logic probably extends to other users as well, that will give the thread a specific bias, depending on its subject matter and framing.
- guappa 3y ago[flagged]
- medo-bear 3y agoIt is at least the biggest insult to your adult citizens to say to them, "you are not allowed to read this because you are too stupid."
- mrtksn 3y agoI don’t think it’s that at all, it’s about controlling the narrative for your advantage. You might be lying as well, be doing horrible things and you don’t want the people you control to know that or to think that way. It’s not a noble thing, it’s a war weapon.
- medo-bear 3y agoI dont think the EU is at war
- actionfromafar 3y agoSomeone is blowing up military facilities in the EU though. So if at war or not is starting to be open to interpretation.
- medo-bear 3y agoWhats open to interpretation? If sabotage = war we would have seen ww3 several decades ago.
- Supermancho 3y agoIt is not clear that the pipeline was an act of war, but acts of war can be that simple. "WW3" is a conceptualization of existential fear, rather than a singular event. The world rallying to one of two sides to make war (or neutrality), is highly unlikely.
- medo-bear 3y agoI think that denying that ww3 would pose an existential threat to everyone is akin to being a flatearther and an anti waxer. However given todays unfortunate climate it is infinitely more dangerous and war mongorers should be exposed more ferrociously than Russian bots
- guappa 3y agoIt's a bit ironic how we are constantly reminded that china isn't a democracy because they have censorship, while we are free and democratic and don't have censorship (except we do). Italy is passing laws to be able to block websites within 30 minutes, without any oversight from any judge. (more details here, link in italian https://stop-piracy-shield.it/ https://stop-piracy-shield.it/)
- mda 3y agoOne of them is 100 times more extensive. Ideal is to have none, but lets not pretend that magnitude and severity is not relevant.
- cies 3y agoRelevant to the people living in it. Not relevant to the ideals set forth, which our moderns free democracies are based on. This is fundamental, so it's actually worse than when it happens in China.
- llamaimperative 3y agoNot really. Compromise and nuance have always been necessary features of democracies. This has also frequently been seized upon by autocratic apologists with this framing (“it’s actually worse here because of our idealism!”) and yet autocracies remain reliably worse off than democracies in practice.
- guappa 3y agoEvery country calls their enemy "undemocratic"
- llamaimperative 3y agoStunningly, not all of them are correct. It’s actually not a sign of intelligence or honesty to be able to squint so hard that you see no meaningful differences between e.g. the US and Russia/Iran/China. It’s just called closing your eyes.
- Aeolun 3y agoJust because it’s normal doesn’t mean it’s morally correct. If they had nothing to fear from it they wouldn’t do it. Israel fearing anything from Hamas is laughable, so what they really fear is their own citizens.
- mrtksn 3y agoThey have a lot to fear from their citizens knowing that what they hear from their officials is not all the truth. Some time in the future, when someone mentions the Jewish genocide, people will ask if they mean the one happened to them or the one they did. Obviously the current Israeli government will want to control the information flow so they can proceed with their final solution to the Gaza issue. They will also try to control what comes out of Gaza to avoid the consequences of their actions.