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Original DHS Announcement on Social Media Screening: https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/news-releases/dhs-to-begin-screening-aliens-social-media-activity-for-antise

by _dke7 1y ago

Original DHS Announcement on Social Media Screening: https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/news-releases/dhs-to-begin-screening-aliens-social-media-activity-for-antisemitism https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/news-releases/dhs-to-begin-sc... State Dept on what is considered Antisemitism: https://www.state.gov/defining-antisemitism/ https://www.state.gov/defining-antisemitism/ These definitions are intentionally broad and designed to censor criticism of Israel. You have more freedom to criticize the US Government than to criticize a foreign country.

chasd00 1y ago
Thanks for some actual information. I’m trying to find the directive to force student social media profiles to be public but can’t find anything yet. This article mentions everything in the wsj article that I could read (no sub) but makes no mention of requiring profiles be “public”. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/18/social-media-screening-student-visas-00413160 https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/18/social-media-screen...
- ddeck 1y ago
  >I’m trying to find the directive to force student social media profiles to be public but can’t find anything yet. It's on all the US embassy sites, although it says "are requested": Effective immediately, all individuals applying for an F, M, or J nonimmigrant visa are requested to adjust the privacy settings on all of their social media accounts to ‘public’ to facilitate vetting necessary to establish their identity and admissibility to the United States under U.S. law. https://uk.usembassy.gov/visas/ https://uk.usembassy.gov/visas/ https://ca.usembassy.gov/visas/ https://ca.usembassy.gov/visas/ https://in.usembassy.gov/visas/ https://in.usembassy.gov/visas/ etc.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > It's on all the US embassy sites, although it says "are requested" The smart ones won’t sign to it. The dumb ones will take too long to arrest and charge.
    - ascorbic 1y ago
      They'll just deny them a visa.
keernan 1y ago
>>You have more freedom to criticize the US Government than to criticize a foreign country. I doubt that. I would honestly be shocked if anyone with anti-Trump posts would 'pass' DHS screening.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- TimorousBestie 1y ago
  The IHRA definition of antisemitism is so vague that it includes otherwise innocuous and/or factual statements. > “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.” In IHRA’s defense, this definition was never intended for legal use. But here we are.
  - timr 1y ago
    They go on to discuss more than a page of examples, all of which sound completely reasonable to me. Or perhaps you could just quote the very next paragraph, which is pretty specific: > Manifestations might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity. However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic. Antisemitism frequently charges Jews with conspiring to harm humanity, and it is often used to blame Jews for “why things go wrong.” It is expressed in speech, writing, visual forms and action, and employs sinister stereotypes and negative character traits.
    - KingMob 1y ago
      Many are reasonable, but several are not. > Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor. One does not entail the other. You can support our right to self-determination while not supporting Israel's apartheid-style policies, but this sentence conflates them. > Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation. This is pure whataboutism. Israel is actually given incredible leeway by America, and I usually see this trotted out to shut down legitimate criticism. There's a good discussion to be had about why we don't criticize China, or why we ignore atrocities in African countries, but none of that absolves Israel from its misdeeds. > Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis. Call it "sparkling ethnic cleansing" then. Ironically, actual genocide scholars have pointed out that when the Shoah is your metric, then almost nothing can compare, rendering the word useless.
georgeburdell 1y ago
The criticism of Israel thing is not what you think it’s for.
- lurk2 1y ago
  What do you think it is for?
  - georgeburdell 1y ago
    It’s Trump’s latest incarnation of a “Muslim ban”. As a side bonus, it also targets the Left
    - somenameforme 1y ago
      This is nonsense. At this point in time anybody who isn't of a very specific political persuasion is going to be criticizing Israel, including most Israelis!
      - KingMob 1y ago
        > including most Israelis! Not quite. Don't confuse criticism of Netanyahu with criticism of Israel. Many dislike Netanyahu for various reasons, but are still broadly supportive of Israeli policies.
        somenameforme 1y ago
        This is definitely not true. For instance 69% of Israelis support(ed) ending the Gaza 'war' after a hostage exchange. [1] Only 21% opposed. It's going to be impossible to get reliable polling on Iran right now because Israel's going extremely authoritarian with domestic 'information warfare.' But it's fairly certain that most Israelis will oppose what's happening, once they can speak again. For instance in early 2024 Israeli decided to destroy the Iranian embassy in Syria, killing multiple generals amongst others. This led to a largely performative counter-strike by Iran. And here 74% of Israelis opposed continued escalation if it harmed security alliances. [2] And the Israeli government decided to carry out the recent invasion when global support for Israel is already at record lows, which means it is obviously going to hurt security alliances, especially in the mid-term (double entendre intended). Search my post history and you'll find I've been notably favorable towards most Trump policies. If an election was held tomorrow I'd happily vote against him (and anybody else who supports this stupidity), a million times over, if he drags us into another forever war. And I think that corresponds to a sizable chunk of his support. People think "we" wanted out of Ukraine out of preference to Russia. In reality "we" just want the US to stop getting involved, and wasting money (to say nothing of lives), in stupid wars all around the world, period. [1] - https://www.timesofisrael.com/69-of-israelis-54-of-coalition-voters-back-ending-war-in-exchange-for-hostages-poll/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/69-of-israelis-54-of-coalition... [2] - https://www.timesofisrael.com/poll-74-of-israelis-oppose-counterstrike-on-iran-if-it-harms-security-alliances/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/poll-74-of-israelis-oppose-cou...
hearsathought 1y ago
Does the DHS also screen for people who post anti-chinese, anti-russian, anti-canadian, anti-mexican, etc social media posts? Why screen for anti-israel comments only? I'm guessing they are not screening for anti-palestinian or anti-muslim posts. Imagine if DHS said they are going to ban anyone who criticizes china or russia or saudi arabia from traveling to the US? Both the republicans and democratics would be raising hell. Why the silence when it comes to israel? What Homeland is DHS securing? The US or Israel? Why is it that so much of our political class openly and unabashedly act like agents of israel? Doesn't matter who you vote for. Republican or democrat. As soon as they are elected, they all grovel for israel. How many wars are we going to fight for israel? How many american colleges are we going to attack for israel? How many people are we going to censor for israel? Just doesn't make any sense.
- petre 1y ago
  > What Homeland is DHS securing? The US or Israel? There are more Jewish people in the US than Israel. I guess this is what they're securing against? https://www.adl.org/resources/report/audit-antisemitic-incidents-2024 https://www.adl.org/resources/report/audit-antisemitic-incid... Or who knows, maybe they ban Trump critics or commies from entering the US? I will definitely avoid travelling to the US due to the Trump Administration's hostility towards immigrants. These screening policies will probably remain in place under the next administration.
  - hearsathought 1y ago
    > There are more Jewish people in the US than Israel. I guess this is what they're securing against? There are more chinese in the US than jews. So is DHS going to ban anyone who makes anti-china posts? We have a lot of arabs and palestinians. Why isn't DHS protecting them? Shouldn't DHS check every israeli's social media for anti-palestinian comments? > Or who knows, maybe they ban Trump critics or commies from entering the US. What does that have to do with israel and "antisemitism"?
    - subjectsigma 1y ago
barbazoo 1y ago
> However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.
- KingMob 1y ago
  ...which is immediately followed by a bunch of counter-statements carving out exceptions.
  - barbazoo 1y ago
    Not really at least not most of them. > Contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere could, taking into account the overall context, include, but are not limited to One stands out though > Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis. That seems to be a perfectly fine thing to do, comparing one government's policies with another. Maybe instead of saying "Nazis", maybe one can say "Government of Nazi Germany" and one wouldn't be labelled as an antisemite.
- somenameforme 1y ago
  Of course when people's applications are rejected, exactly 0 reason will be given other than that they failed the screening process. So nuances like this are, in practice, irrelevant. When the obvious motivation is to eliminate criticism of the Israel, all they're going be looking for is criticism of the Israel.
  - Aeolun 1y ago
    I find it very hard to believe any current student would not be critical of Israel. They haven’t exactly been model citizens these past few years.
- krunck 1y ago
  It's easy for one to criticize Israel in a way that one does not criticize other countries because there are no countries acting like Israel is at the moment: Genocide, apartheid, unprovoked war, etc, etc. Plus it acts this way with the blessing of so-called liberal democracies so that we must confront the absolute hypocrisy by voicing our criticism.
WatchDog 1y ago
Wow these are incredibly broad, in particular: > Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations. There are plenty of dual citizens that would proudly admit that their first loyalty is to Israel. Other examples from the document use the term "Jews as a people", whereas this example seems to apply to accusing any individual. Although perhaps a generous interpretation of the example, is that it excludes Israeli dual citizens, because Israel would be one of "their own nations"
- slg 1y ago
  That is a strange one to call out as too broad because it is literally an ancient form of antisemitism going back to the Romans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_loyalty#Jewish_Believers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_loyalty#Jewish_Believers https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/us/politics/jews-disloyal-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/us/politics/jews-disloyal...
  - f33d5173 1y ago
    The point is that is may be admitedly true on the part of the one accused. In general, you should be wary of "forms of antisemitism" (or similar "forms of x-ism/x-phobia/etc"). Such things usually consists of the defensible but vacuous notion that "doing X in an antisemetic way is antisemetic", while attempting to imply that doing X is antisemetic in general, regardless how it's done, or at the least that doing X is suspect. But the only proof that has been provided in such cases is that X has ocassionally been done in an antisemetic way, which you could say for just about anything. Since X in these cases is not per se anti semetic, it is more helpful to identify what antisemetic thing has often been done alongside it, and be on the lookout for that, instead of for X.
    - slg 1y ago
      What is a context in which it is acceptable to say that an American's loyalty to this country can't be trusted because of their ethnicity/religion? Some of these definitions are too broad, but this is not the example to use in that argument. Accusations of dual loyalty are widely recognized as antisemitism.
huevosabio 1y ago
> Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations. > Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor > Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation. > Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis. ... Many of the examples make sense, but these four above are absurd.
- dlubarov 1y ago
  How so? Double standards for the only Jewish state seems like a pretty clear example of antisemitism, at least. (It's usually difficult to decisively prove that someone is applying a double standard, but I think here we're assuming that was somehow firmly established.)
  - huevosabio 1y ago
    On that one (and many of the Israel-related ones) I think the problem is that it implicitly assumes that because you do, you do it because of antisemitism. But I could have double standards for all type of countries! I tend to hold the US at a higher standard than most countries for almost anything, and I think everyone holds Germany to a much higher standards with respect to minority rights (particularly, Jews) than other countries. I think people overindex on Israel as "the only Jewish state", and less as "just another country". I wish we could entirely separate the identity of the Jewish people and the state of Israel at least in the discourse. It would make everything healthier.
    - birn559 1y ago
      All of the mentioned bullet points could be applied to other countries. While I think there's quite a lot of antisemitism out there, I find it questionable trying to deduce antisemitism. Explicitly expressed antisemitism itself is something else. I also find it very questionable to redefine the term that it includes deductions.
    - 1y ago
CommanderData 1y ago
It's always been about Israel. Everything from Tiktok bans to banning social media for teens. Who's going to fight US wars if your canon fodder witnessed Israel's inhumane behaviour as teens growing up. Nothing todo with China. It's a national security threat alright.
mrkramer 1y ago
This is dystopia in the making, 1984 coming alive, first of all; why someone's social media activity would be the matter of the government? Everybody in the world has freedom of speech, it is a human right. US will no longer be free if it peruses politically motivated persecution and segregation. This is political hysteria akin to anti-communist and anti-Japanese hysteria during WW2 and after. And secondly why would US government target only anti-semits, will they check for anti-white racism, African-American racism, anti native-American racism, homophobia etc. This is a mess of a policy. And Trump is openly homophobic and anti-LGBTQ+, what that should tell us? Abraham Lincoln said: "At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."
- iLoveOncall 1y ago
  > Everybody in the world has freedom of speech, it is a human right This is absolutely not true. There isn't a single country in the world with absolute freedom of speech to begin with. And even if we take the very permissive freedom of speech of the US, it is matched by only very few countries, even in the west. As a simple example, here's a map of the countries where it's at least an offence to insult the head of state: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Lese-majeste.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Lese-maj...
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - immibis 1y ago
    The US doesn't even have free speech, as we can see from this event happening right now. Many European and European-style countries have weaker constitutional protections, but stronger actual protections in reality, than the USA. The USA's constitution significantly differs from the USA's reality.
    - 1y ago
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
claudiulodro 1y ago
For context, I'd also recommend the Heritage Foundation's Project Esther playbook which the administration has clearly been following: https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/report/project-esther-national-strategy-combat-antisemitism https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/report/project-esther...
834h3o9hf 1y ago
The facts are in — just delete social media.
- Aerbil313 1y ago
  Couldn't be happier - I am the single person I know among my peers (college) who doesn't have social media (except HN). The reason is not some concern for privacy though, I have ADHD and can't handle having social media installed on my phone lol, I become dysfunctional pretty quick.
cyanydeez 1y ago
Its mostly strange because antisemitism is bad, but Holocaust denial, pronazi viewpoints are ok. Just a bundle of mixed messages and doublethink to allow the right kind of hate.

by _dke7 1y ago

chasd00 1y ago

Thanks for some actual information. I’m trying to find the directive to force student social media profiles to be public but can’t find anything yet. This article mentions everything in the wsj article that I could read (no sub) but makes no mention of requiring profiles be “public”. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/18/social-media-screening-student-visas-00413160 https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/18/social-media-screen...

ddeck 1y ago
>I’m trying to find the directive to force student social media profiles to be public but can’t find anything yet. It's on all the US embassy sites, although it says "are requested": Effective immediately, all individuals applying for an F, M, or J nonimmigrant visa are requested to adjust the privacy settings on all of their social media accounts to ‘public’ to facilitate vetting necessary to establish their identity and admissibility to the United States under U.S. law. https://uk.usembassy.gov/visas/ https://uk.usembassy.gov/visas/ https://ca.usembassy.gov/visas/ https://ca.usembassy.gov/visas/ https://in.usembassy.gov/visas/ https://in.usembassy.gov/visas/ etc.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > It's on all the US embassy sites, although it says "are requested" The smart ones won’t sign to it. The dumb ones will take too long to arrest and charge.
  - ascorbic 1y ago
    They'll just deny them a visa.

keernan 1y ago

>>You have more freedom to criticize the US Government than to criticize a foreign country. I doubt that. I would honestly be shocked if anyone with anti-Trump posts would 'pass' DHS screening.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
TimorousBestie 1y ago
The IHRA definition of antisemitism is so vague that it includes otherwise innocuous and/or factual statements. > “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.” In IHRA’s defense, this definition was never intended for legal use. But here we are.
- timr 1y ago
  They go on to discuss more than a page of examples, all of which sound completely reasonable to me. Or perhaps you could just quote the very next paragraph, which is pretty specific: > Manifestations might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity. However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic. Antisemitism frequently charges Jews with conspiring to harm humanity, and it is often used to blame Jews for “why things go wrong.” It is expressed in speech, writing, visual forms and action, and employs sinister stereotypes and negative character traits.
  - KingMob 1y ago
    Many are reasonable, but several are not. > Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor. One does not entail the other. You can support our right to self-determination while not supporting Israel's apartheid-style policies, but this sentence conflates them. > Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation. This is pure whataboutism. Israel is actually given incredible leeway by America, and I usually see this trotted out to shut down legitimate criticism. There's a good discussion to be had about why we don't criticize China, or why we ignore atrocities in African countries, but none of that absolves Israel from its misdeeds. > Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis. Call it "sparkling ethnic cleansing" then. Ironically, actual genocide scholars have pointed out that when the Shoah is your metric, then almost nothing can compare, rendering the word useless.

georgeburdell 1y ago

The criticism of Israel thing is not what you think it’s for.

lurk2 1y ago
What do you think it is for?
- georgeburdell 1y ago
  It’s Trump’s latest incarnation of a “Muslim ban”. As a side bonus, it also targets the Left
  - somenameforme 1y ago
    This is nonsense. At this point in time anybody who isn't of a very specific political persuasion is going to be criticizing Israel, including most Israelis!
    - KingMob 1y ago
      > including most Israelis! Not quite. Don't confuse criticism of Netanyahu with criticism of Israel. Many dislike Netanyahu for various reasons, but are still broadly supportive of Israeli policies.
      - somenameforme 1y ago
        This is definitely not true. For instance 69% of Israelis support(ed) ending the Gaza 'war' after a hostage exchange. [1] Only 21% opposed. It's going to be impossible to get reliable polling on Iran right now because Israel's going extremely authoritarian with domestic 'information warfare.' But it's fairly certain that most Israelis will oppose what's happening, once they can speak again. For instance in early 2024 Israeli decided to destroy the Iranian embassy in Syria, killing multiple generals amongst others. This led to a largely performative counter-strike by Iran. And here 74% of Israelis opposed continued escalation if it harmed security alliances. [2] And the Israeli government decided to carry out the recent invasion when global support for Israel is already at record lows, which means it is obviously going to hurt security alliances, especially in the mid-term (double entendre intended). Search my post history and you'll find I've been notably favorable towards most Trump policies. If an election was held tomorrow I'd happily vote against him (and anybody else who supports this stupidity), a million times over, if he drags us into another forever war. And I think that corresponds to a sizable chunk of his support. People think "we" wanted out of Ukraine out of preference to Russia. In reality "we" just want the US to stop getting involved, and wasting money (to say nothing of lives), in stupid wars all around the world, period. [1] - https://www.timesofisrael.com/69-of-israelis-54-of-coalition-voters-back-ending-war-in-exchange-for-hostages-poll/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/69-of-israelis-54-of-coalition... [2] - https://www.timesofisrael.com/poll-74-of-israelis-oppose-counterstrike-on-iran-if-it-harms-security-alliances/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/poll-74-of-israelis-oppose-cou...

hearsathought 1y ago

Does the DHS also screen for people who post anti-chinese, anti-russian, anti-canadian, anti-mexican, etc social media posts? Why screen for anti-israel comments only? I'm guessing they are not screening for anti-palestinian or anti-muslim posts. Imagine if DHS said they are going to ban anyone who criticizes china or russia or saudi arabia from traveling to the US? Both the republicans and democratics would be raising hell. Why the silence when it comes to israel? What Homeland is DHS securing? The US or Israel? Why is it that so much of our political class openly and unabashedly act like agents of israel? Doesn't matter who you vote for. Republican or democrat. As soon as they are elected, they all grovel for israel. How many wars are we going to fight for israel? How many american colleges are we going to attack for israel? How many people are we going to censor for israel? Just doesn't make any sense.

petre 1y ago
> What Homeland is DHS securing? The US or Israel? There are more Jewish people in the US than Israel. I guess this is what they're securing against? https://www.adl.org/resources/report/audit-antisemitic-incidents-2024 https://www.adl.org/resources/report/audit-antisemitic-incid... Or who knows, maybe they ban Trump critics or commies from entering the US? I will definitely avoid travelling to the US due to the Trump Administration's hostility towards immigrants. These screening policies will probably remain in place under the next administration.
- hearsathought 1y ago
  > There are more Jewish people in the US than Israel. I guess this is what they're securing against? There are more chinese in the US than jews. So is DHS going to ban anyone who makes anti-china posts? We have a lot of arabs and palestinians. Why isn't DHS protecting them? Shouldn't DHS check every israeli's social media for anti-palestinian comments? > Or who knows, maybe they ban Trump critics or commies from entering the US. What does that have to do with israel and "antisemitism"?
  - subjectsigma 1y ago

barbazoo 1y ago

> However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.

KingMob 1y ago
...which is immediately followed by a bunch of counter-statements carving out exceptions.
- barbazoo 1y ago
  Not really at least not most of them. > Contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere could, taking into account the overall context, include, but are not limited to One stands out though > Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis. That seems to be a perfectly fine thing to do, comparing one government's policies with another. Maybe instead of saying "Nazis", maybe one can say "Government of Nazi Germany" and one wouldn't be labelled as an antisemite.
somenameforme 1y ago
Of course when people's applications are rejected, exactly 0 reason will be given other than that they failed the screening process. So nuances like this are, in practice, irrelevant. When the obvious motivation is to eliminate criticism of the Israel, all they're going be looking for is criticism of the Israel.
- Aeolun 1y ago
  I find it very hard to believe any current student would not be critical of Israel. They haven’t exactly been model citizens these past few years.
krunck 1y ago
It's easy for one to criticize Israel in a way that one does not criticize other countries because there are no countries acting like Israel is at the moment: Genocide, apartheid, unprovoked war, etc, etc. Plus it acts this way with the blessing of so-called liberal democracies so that we must confront the absolute hypocrisy by voicing our criticism.

WatchDog 1y ago

Wow these are incredibly broad, in particular: > Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations. There are plenty of dual citizens that would proudly admit that their first loyalty is to Israel. Other examples from the document use the term "Jews as a people", whereas this example seems to apply to accusing any individual. Although perhaps a generous interpretation of the example, is that it excludes Israeli dual citizens, because Israel would be one of "their own nations"

slg 1y ago
That is a strange one to call out as too broad because it is literally an ancient form of antisemitism going back to the Romans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_loyalty#Jewish_Believers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_loyalty#Jewish_Believers https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/us/politics/jews-disloyal-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/us/politics/jews-disloyal...
- f33d5173 1y ago
  The point is that is may be admitedly true on the part of the one accused. In general, you should be wary of "forms of antisemitism" (or similar "forms of x-ism/x-phobia/etc"). Such things usually consists of the defensible but vacuous notion that "doing X in an antisemetic way is antisemetic", while attempting to imply that doing X is antisemetic in general, regardless how it's done, or at the least that doing X is suspect. But the only proof that has been provided in such cases is that X has ocassionally been done in an antisemetic way, which you could say for just about anything. Since X in these cases is not per se anti semetic, it is more helpful to identify what antisemetic thing has often been done alongside it, and be on the lookout for that, instead of for X.
  - slg 1y ago
    What is a context in which it is acceptable to say that an American's loyalty to this country can't be trusted because of their ethnicity/religion? Some of these definitions are too broad, but this is not the example to use in that argument. Accusations of dual loyalty are widely recognized as antisemitism.

huevosabio 1y ago

> Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations. > Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor > Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation. > Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis. ... Many of the examples make sense, but these four above are absurd.

dlubarov 1y ago
How so? Double standards for the only Jewish state seems like a pretty clear example of antisemitism, at least. (It's usually difficult to decisively prove that someone is applying a double standard, but I think here we're assuming that was somehow firmly established.)
- huevosabio 1y ago
  On that one (and many of the Israel-related ones) I think the problem is that it implicitly assumes that because you do, you do it because of antisemitism. But I could have double standards for all type of countries! I tend to hold the US at a higher standard than most countries for almost anything, and I think everyone holds Germany to a much higher standards with respect to minority rights (particularly, Jews) than other countries. I think people overindex on Israel as "the only Jewish state", and less as "just another country". I wish we could entirely separate the identity of the Jewish people and the state of Israel at least in the discourse. It would make everything healthier.
  - birn559 1y ago
    All of the mentioned bullet points could be applied to other countries. While I think there's quite a lot of antisemitism out there, I find it questionable trying to deduce antisemitism. Explicitly expressed antisemitism itself is something else. I also find it very questionable to redefine the term that it includes deductions.
  - 1y ago

CommanderData 1y ago

It's always been about Israel. Everything from Tiktok bans to banning social media for teens. Who's going to fight US wars if your canon fodder witnessed Israel's inhumane behaviour as teens growing up. Nothing todo with China. It's a national security threat alright.

mrkramer 1y ago

This is dystopia in the making, 1984 coming alive, first of all; why someone's social media activity would be the matter of the government? Everybody in the world has freedom of speech, it is a human right. US will no longer be free if it peruses politically motivated persecution and segregation. This is political hysteria akin to anti-communist and anti-Japanese hysteria during WW2 and after. And secondly why would US government target only anti-semits, will they check for anti-white racism, African-American racism, anti native-American racism, homophobia etc. This is a mess of a policy. And Trump is openly homophobic and anti-LGBTQ+, what that should tell us? Abraham Lincoln said: "At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."

iLoveOncall 1y ago
> Everybody in the world has freedom of speech, it is a human right This is absolutely not true. There isn't a single country in the world with absolute freedom of speech to begin with. And even if we take the very permissive freedom of speech of the US, it is matched by only very few countries, even in the west. As a simple example, here's a map of the countries where it's at least an offence to insult the head of state: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Lese-majeste.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Lese-maj...
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- immibis 1y ago
  The US doesn't even have free speech, as we can see from this event happening right now. Many European and European-style countries have weaker constitutional protections, but stronger actual protections in reality, than the USA. The USA's constitution significantly differs from the USA's reality.
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claudiulodro 1y ago

For context, I'd also recommend the Heritage Foundation's Project Esther playbook which the administration has clearly been following: https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/report/project-esther-national-strategy-combat-antisemitism https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/report/project-esther...

834h3o9hf 1y ago

The facts are in — just delete social media.

Aerbil313 1y ago
Couldn't be happier - I am the single person I know among my peers (college) who doesn't have social media (except HN). The reason is not some concern for privacy though, I have ADHD and can't handle having social media installed on my phone lol, I become dysfunctional pretty quick.

cyanydeez 1y ago

Its mostly strange because antisemitism is bad, but Holocaust denial, pronazi viewpoints are ok. Just a bundle of mixed messages and doublethink to allow the right kind of hate.