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So Larry Ellison just took over Paramount group which is now looking to bid for Warner Brothers and CNN. And now Ellison is going to take over TikTok. Paramoun

So Larry Ellison just took over Paramount group which is now looking to bid for Warner Brothers and CNN. And now Ellison is going to take over TikTok. Paramount(being run by Larry Ellison's son) is looking to install the pro-israel-propagandist who has variously masqueraded as a liberal, a conservative and anti-woke free-speech champion, Bari Weiss[1] as CBS's editor-in-chief or co-president[2]. It also bears mentioning that Ellison is a life-long zionist, friend of the IDF and close personal friend of Netanyahu to whom he even offered a post at Oracle.[3] This very much looks like a hostile take-over of the American mind by a tech billionaire who just overtook Elon Musk to become the world's richest man. People should be talking about whether they want to go through this all over again. [1] - https://theintercept.com/2018/03/08/the-nyts-bari-weiss-falsely-denies-her-years-of-attacks-on-the-academic-freedom-of-arab-scholars-who-criticize-israel/ https://theintercept.com/2018/03/08/the-nyts-bari-weiss-fals... [2] - https://archive.is/20250916040811/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/10/business/media/cbs-news-bari-weiss-free-press.html https://archive.is/20250916040811/https://www.nytimes.com/20... [3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Larry_Ellison&oldid=1311558388#Political_involvement https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Larry_Ellison&old...

ecshafer 1y ago
[flagged]
- tensor 1y ago
  The consolidation of US media under a small number of right wing owners is an easily verifiable fact, not some conspiracy. Also, it's bad. Free markets need diversity, both in products AND in ideas.
- TSiege 1y ago
  Is the argument that the Larry Ellison doesn't have huge sway over the companies he's owns outright or in part, or that saying him and Elon Musk have outsized control over America's information environment is conspiratorial? Either seem laughably wrong since these things are all public information
  - ecshafer 1y ago
    The argument is that adding "zionist" multiple times was an irrelevant and conspiracy theorist laden addition.
throwawayqqq11 1y ago
Thank you for providing the media take over angle. I wish the people down voting you would explain why.
- vincnetas 1y ago
  how do you know if anyone is downvoting a comment?
  - dijit 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - 6510 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - dijit 1y ago
        [flagged]
        dns_snek 1y ago
        I don't believe for a second that you're being downvoted by someone with multiple accounts. You're being downvoted because you tried to frame a lukewarm observation (that brought receipts!) as some insane conspiratorial hot take in a really transparent manner, while simultaneously misrepresenting it (zionists vs jews) and ridiculing it (flat earth comparison).
        dijit 1y ago
        [flagged]
  - dfxm12 1y ago
    The text gets lighter in color and harder to read. People may come later and vote for it, darkening the text again.
spacechild1 1y ago
This is just crazy. No single person should have this amount of power, in particular if they have the moral integrity of Larry Ellison...
- Retric 1y ago
  It is two people here. David Ellison who took over Paramount is the son of Larry Ellison of Oracle. http://wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ellison http://wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ellison
  - SSLy 1y ago
    Durin I, Durin II…
- seemaze 1y ago
  >moral integrity of Larry Ellison... Don't anthropomorphize Larry Ellison https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15886728 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15886728
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- seizethecheese 1y ago
  Genuine question: what do you think the alternative is? Ultimately someone will have the power. I don’t know what’s particularly questionable about Larry Ellison. An entrepreneur controlling media seems better than the state or a foreign government.
  - jimbokun 1y ago
    Is Larry Ellison owning TikTok objectively better for US citizens than the current Chinese owners?
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - yoyohello13 1y ago
palmotea 1y ago
> So Larry Ellison just took over Paramount group which is now looking to bid for Warner Brothers and CNN. That's not Larry Ellison, it's his nepo baby David Ellison.
coffeebeqn 1y ago
[flagged]
vFunct 1y ago
[flagged]
- otterley 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - vFunct 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - otterley 1y ago
      You should be emailing the staff with that request, not complaining in a thread. You should also include your evidence.
      - vFunct 1y ago
        They read these threads just fine. I don't recommend emailing since that loses context. Additionally, it makes other people aware of the problem.
        otterley 1y ago
        Alright, then, why don't you cite the relevant "raging genocidal Zionist" posts and comments here?
        vFunct 1y ago
        It's right there in what you wrote. It's why you got downvoted.
        deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
        otterley 1y ago
nineplay 1y ago
> This very much looks like a hostile take-over of the American mind by a tech billionaire who just overtook Elon Musk to become the world's richest man. People should be talking about whether they want to go through this all over again. Again? People should be talking about the hostile take-over currently in progress and how it is getting exponentially worse. But the billionaire mouthpieces gave everyone a shiny new inconsequential talking point and no one cares about anything that matters.
- Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
  > No one cares about anything that matters. Maybe that's what they wanted all along. Why fight a war against class, against oppression when we can sit on a chair and write a comment either defending or arguing against something as petty as religion. It would be maybe the 3rd point worth discussing definitely after concentration of power & how they can influence our opinion of the masses. But people made it the first. There is no such thing as a moral billionaire imo, I saw a video like this and I sorta agree. I wouldn't be comfortable with anyone owning this much amount of control. Religion seems so petty to me yet it seems that the world is coming back to it. Fighting us vs them. We have all forgotten what the people in 1970's esque dreamed of 2025 etc. (I am a genz but I have seen such videos of people thinking what) And the funny thing is, is that we ourselves have forgotten how to dream of what will happen in 2100 Do we really want to grow old in society where even after 70-80 years, one of our children or grandchildren sees yet again some comment like this and writes something like this that I am writing? I feel a little frustrated.
paxys 1y ago
Nothing hostile about it. This is what the American people voted for.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- slg 1y ago
  In 2020, 22.4% of the US population voted for Trump. In 2024, 22.7% of the population voted for Trump. I hate how people draw drastic conclusions regarding what the American people want based off the shift of less than half a percentage point of the population.
  - misnome 1y ago
    Everyone who chooses not to vote is voting “I don’t care” and so voted for whoever won.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - djeastm 1y ago
      I don't think that necessarily follows. An abstention is a voting choice that doesn't imply support for one choice or another in the minds of the voter, regardless of the result.
      - asdff 1y ago
        Abstention is not that, it is saying you are comfortable letting others choose for you. You have to consider the end result of the action not the intention of the action to understand what the choice really means.
    - slg 1y ago
      Everyone who chooses not to vote is voting “I don’t like any candidate” and so voted against all candidates. How is your interpretation more valid than mine?
otterley 1y ago
[flagged]
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > to support Israel? Is that what this is about? It’s for money and power. Because of the partisan nature of the power grab, a certain grab bag of evangelical, fossil fuel and anti-gay tenets are going to get reïnforced. But treating those as the cause dangerously misses that this is being started at home.
  - otterley 1y ago
    I'd like to hear from the person I'm responding to, as it sounds an awful lot like a dog whistle.
    - volleyball 1y ago
      I replied to your original comment. Also, I wasn't invoking some dog-whistle. I was using the same phraseology of the Zionists. From the CEO of the ADL, Jonathan Greenblatt, addressing the Israeli Knesset[1] : "Pushing extremists off Wikipedia might not seem equal to the challenge of pushing Hezbollah to north of the Litani River; capturing TikTok might seem less meaningful than holding on to Mount Hermon ; libelous tweets certainly might seem less deadly than missiles from Yemen but this is urgent because the next war will be decided based on how Israel and its allies perform online as much as offline. Make no mistake it's real we saw that in the propaganda that anti-israel groups pushed out in America on October 7th accusing Israel of committing genocide." He describes Tiktok as a target to be captured, comparing it to a mountain in Syria which Israel conquered late last year in its unannounced invasion of Syria. They make no bones about the fact that our minds are just another battlespace in this war that they're waging. [1] - https://x.com/DelGroyp/status/1856577467596845279 https://x.com/DelGroyp/status/1856577467596845279 https://xcancel.com/DelGroyp/status/1856577467596845279 https://xcancel.com/DelGroyp/status/1856577467596845279
  - andsoitis 1y ago
    > anti-gay Larry Ellison’s daughter is gay. Why do you think her brother and father are going to infuse Paramount with anti-gay bigotry?
JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> hostile take-over of the American mind by a tech billionaire who just overtook Elon Musk to become the world's richest man Ellison read and responded to the political situation more skilfully than Elon. He used Stargate to cement himself as a power broker in AI. He used that influence to provide antitrust assurances that gave his son a leg up for Paramount. Meanwhile he used that proximity to media to get a foot in the door with TikTok. The root cause is the partisan politicisation of the economy. This is a project all the major Trump donors and high-level supporters contributed to. That Ellison is coming up as one of the new aristocrats is closer to a dice roll; that we have oligarchs, now, is very much by design.
- wnc3141 1y ago
  In authoritarian regimes the industrial capacity of an economy is appropriated by the state, where the fruits of the industry are enjoyed by party loyalists. In this case using the state to choose which business is viable, no doubt being businesses that play ball with the party. -its why sectarian conflicts and power delegation is so high stakes in many parts of the world.
- andrekandre 1y ago
  > The root cause is the partisan politicisation of the economy. well, tbf in the old days, it was literally called ‘political economy’ for a reason… maybe the name should make a comeback.
schnable 1y ago
[flagged]
- loverofhumanz 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - cjbgkagh 1y ago
    The most complicated thing about Bari Weiss, who lost in a battle of wits against Joe Rogan (a rather low bar), is how she continues to fail upwards.
    - efavdb 1y ago
      Fail upwards? She started a successful business and sold for a large value.
      - cjbgkagh 1y ago
        Not sure if that counts if it’s part of all the same influence project.
- acdha 1y ago
  Ignoring the genocide topic for the moment, it’s relevant from a speech perspective: that’s an alliance of hard-right groups who have spent the last year conflating criticism of Israel with anti-semitism and trying to shut down voices which disagree with them (e.g. cuts to research grants based on unrelated actions on campus). Consolidating a large chunk of the information space under a unified group opposed to free speech should concern all of us.
  - bananalychee 1y ago
    Your post is fair, but it's not how I read the OP, which seems less concerned with consolidation of power than with people supportive of Israel having power. And while I appreciate that criticism of Israel is not anti-semitism, believing that Israel is a legitimate state that has the right to self-defense is all it takes to be labelled as a "Zionist", and at that point it's practically a euphemism for "Jew". I'm not familiar enough with Bari Weiss's views to tell if that's what's being done here, but the use of a pejorative without clarification, combined with the fixation on "Zionists" and the implication that their intent surely must be to issue pro-Israel propaganda in particular makes it sound a lot like old-school anti-semitism.
redwood 1y ago
[flagged]
thesmtsolver 1y ago
Trying to be neutral. Did we consider China's relationship with Palestine? Were we ok with American minds being swayed by a foreign country?
- farseer 1y ago
  That is one of the prime reasons congress banned TikTok.
- netsharc 1y ago
  If we want neutral, how about a fair arena for opinions and ideas.. at the moment "The Right" yells and screams "Anti-Semite! Terrorist!" if someone protests against the starvation and slaughter of children... So having them control the medium doesn't feel right for me. Ok someone's going to come and say that "The Left" controlled the medium and disallowed "non-mainstream" messaging about Covid... I admit my bias and consider such messaging lunacy too..
- volleyball 1y ago
  I would argue that on this matter and all matters relating to the middle-east, American minds are still being swayed by a foreign country and have been for the last 50 to 80 years. At least, with Chinese Tiktok, Elon's twitter and competition between the various social media platforms, Americans for the first time were exposed to voices from the other side. And between the two sides, were able to make up a more informed decision. This is a desperate attempt to reverse that. I doubt it will work in the long-term and i don't think it is expected to. But I think in near-term this is a measure to control the narrative to prepare for American misadventures in the region over the next couple of years. Which almost certainly includes a second war with Iran, Israeli annexation of the West Bank and even possibly a partial American occupation of Gaza.
hereme888 1y ago
[flagged]
- tomhow 1y ago
  You can't comment like this on Hacker News, no matter how right you are or feel you are. Please take a moment to read the guidelines and make an effort to observe them if you want to participate here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
spookie 1y ago
To be completly frank, its better to focus on the media consolidation part. That's the real problem.
- hvb2 1y ago
  For a large share of the population social media is the only media they consume, so this is part of your real problem
- usefulcat 1y ago
  Actually it's the opposite. Pre-internet, there were a handful of news sources in any given city (mostly newspapers and TV), so they couldn't afford to alienate half of their potential viewers/readers by leaning hard left or right. Today, there are many, many sources of 'news' online. So many that the net effect is that most of those sources lean one way or the other, and by and large people choose to listen mostly or only to those sources they agree with. No wonder political opinions are so highly divided today. Almost no one ever hears anything from the other side.
tinyhouse 1y ago
What's the problem with being pro-israel? Everyone needs to be pro-whatever-you-prefer? I'm pro-israel too.
- cheraderama 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - tinyhouse 1y ago
    The problem is the word 'anti'. Being pro something doesn't mean you're anti something else. I can be pro-israel and still have sympathy for the Palestinians and what they are enduring and hoping for peace.
    - guizadillas 1y ago
      Well I'm pro anti-israel
- Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
  The problem is that the pro stands from problem. Whenever we take a stance, We identify our ego with that stance. We shall die but die a pro X or pro Y As such many debates happen in bad faith as well. Of course everyone has their agenda but one has to understand that agenda is just a framework for understanding the world. And we need to understand the world because it has no inherent meaning. So like, if we really have to deduce meaning, if we really have to be pro something that we can die on a hill towards, I'd rather have it be a humanitarian thing. I am not saying that palestine is good either but rather that in genocide/wars, the people fighting the war/military/families displaced suffer, not the old man causing the war. I feel like I am a humanist. Wishing to understand the world, yet I feel like some people in this world have hurt me so much that sometimes I just wish the world to burn. I am sure that people are gonna comment on something like "oh do you support a genocide etc." But I am trying to make the point that the world should really be just anti suffering,accepting. Yes I am naive but surely with all of this technological improvements, we can improve the structure of society to not be fucking brewing with hate and bullying and resentment. We can do so much better as a society without even trying much. Just small acts of kindness and basically creating a environment that rewards it and punishes bullying/hate speech etc. might be really nice if I am being honest. Not sure why we can't be pro this instead of defining ourselves with the confict of two other foreign nations
hn_throw_250915 1y ago
Larry the lawnmower Ellison?
- volleyball 1y ago
  The lawnmower in question is a big-time donor to the Israel state and the IDF. Regarding the IDF the lawnmover seems to have caught some feelings: Through all of the perilous times since Israel’s founding, we have called on the brave men and women of the IDF to defend our home. In my mind, there is no greater honor than supporting some of the bravest people in the world, and I thank Friends of the IDF for allowing us to celebrate and support these soldiers year after year. We should do all we can to show these heroic soldiers that they are not alone. When Oracle opened a data-center in Jerusalem, his colleague and CEO Safra Katz had this to say : ...when you connect with Oracle you understand that we are committed to the U.S. and Israel. We are not flexible regarding our mission, and our commitment to Israel is second to none. This is a free world and I love my employees, and if they don't agree with our mission to support the State of Israel then maybe we aren't the right company for them. Larry (Ellison, co-founder of Oracle) and I are publicly committed to Israel and devote personal time to the country and no one should be surprised by that. "our commitment to Israel is second to none". Does America fall under [none] here? Something to consider when looking at these acquisitions.

ecshafer 1y ago

[flagged]

tensor 1y ago
The consolidation of US media under a small number of right wing owners is an easily verifiable fact, not some conspiracy. Also, it's bad. Free markets need diversity, both in products AND in ideas.
TSiege 1y ago
Is the argument that the Larry Ellison doesn't have huge sway over the companies he's owns outright or in part, or that saying him and Elon Musk have outsized control over America's information environment is conspiratorial? Either seem laughably wrong since these things are all public information
- ecshafer 1y ago
  The argument is that adding "zionist" multiple times was an irrelevant and conspiracy theorist laden addition.

throwawayqqq11 1y ago

Thank you for providing the media take over angle. I wish the people down voting you would explain why.

vincnetas 1y ago
how do you know if anyone is downvoting a comment?
- dijit 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - 6510 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - dijit 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - dns_snek 1y ago
        I don't believe for a second that you're being downvoted by someone with multiple accounts. You're being downvoted because you tried to frame a lukewarm observation (that brought receipts!) as some insane conspiratorial hot take in a really transparent manner, while simultaneously misrepresenting it (zionists vs jews) and ridiculing it (flat earth comparison).
        dijit 1y ago
        [flagged]
- dfxm12 1y ago
  The text gets lighter in color and harder to read. People may come later and vote for it, darkening the text again.

spacechild1 1y ago

This is just crazy. No single person should have this amount of power, in particular if they have the moral integrity of Larry Ellison...

Retric 1y ago
It is two people here. David Ellison who took over Paramount is the son of Larry Ellison of Oracle. http://wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ellison http://wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ellison
- SSLy 1y ago
  Durin I, Durin II…
seemaze 1y ago
>moral integrity of Larry Ellison... Don't anthropomorphize Larry Ellison https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15886728 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15886728
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
seizethecheese 1y ago
Genuine question: what do you think the alternative is? Ultimately someone will have the power. I don’t know what’s particularly questionable about Larry Ellison. An entrepreneur controlling media seems better than the state or a foreign government.
- jimbokun 1y ago
  Is Larry Ellison owning TikTok objectively better for US citizens than the current Chinese owners?
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- yoyohello13 1y ago

palmotea 1y ago

> So Larry Ellison just took over Paramount group which is now looking to bid for Warner Brothers and CNN. That's not Larry Ellison, it's his nepo baby David Ellison.

coffeebeqn 1y ago

[flagged]

vFunct 1y ago

[flagged]

otterley 1y ago
[flagged]
- vFunct 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - otterley 1y ago
    You should be emailing the staff with that request, not complaining in a thread. You should also include your evidence.
    - vFunct 1y ago
      They read these threads just fine. I don't recommend emailing since that loses context. Additionally, it makes other people aware of the problem.
      - otterley 1y ago
        Alright, then, why don't you cite the relevant "raging genocidal Zionist" posts and comments here?
        vFunct 1y ago
        It's right there in what you wrote. It's why you got downvoted.
        deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
        otterley 1y ago

nineplay 1y ago

> This very much looks like a hostile take-over of the American mind by a tech billionaire who just overtook Elon Musk to become the world's richest man. People should be talking about whether they want to go through this all over again. Again? People should be talking about the hostile take-over currently in progress and how it is getting exponentially worse. But the billionaire mouthpieces gave everyone a shiny new inconsequential talking point and no one cares about anything that matters.

Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
> No one cares about anything that matters. Maybe that's what they wanted all along. Why fight a war against class, against oppression when we can sit on a chair and write a comment either defending or arguing against something as petty as religion. It would be maybe the 3rd point worth discussing definitely after concentration of power & how they can influence our opinion of the masses. But people made it the first. There is no such thing as a moral billionaire imo, I saw a video like this and I sorta agree. I wouldn't be comfortable with anyone owning this much amount of control. Religion seems so petty to me yet it seems that the world is coming back to it. Fighting us vs them. We have all forgotten what the people in 1970's esque dreamed of 2025 etc. (I am a genz but I have seen such videos of people thinking what) And the funny thing is, is that we ourselves have forgotten how to dream of what will happen in 2100 Do we really want to grow old in society where even after 70-80 years, one of our children or grandchildren sees yet again some comment like this and writes something like this that I am writing? I feel a little frustrated.

paxys 1y ago

Nothing hostile about it. This is what the American people voted for.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
slg 1y ago
In 2020, 22.4% of the US population voted for Trump. In 2024, 22.7% of the population voted for Trump. I hate how people draw drastic conclusions regarding what the American people want based off the shift of less than half a percentage point of the population.
- misnome 1y ago
  Everyone who chooses not to vote is voting “I don’t care” and so voted for whoever won.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - djeastm 1y ago
    I don't think that necessarily follows. An abstention is a voting choice that doesn't imply support for one choice or another in the minds of the voter, regardless of the result.
    - asdff 1y ago
      Abstention is not that, it is saying you are comfortable letting others choose for you. You have to consider the end result of the action not the intention of the action to understand what the choice really means.
  - slg 1y ago
    Everyone who chooses not to vote is voting “I don’t like any candidate” and so voted against all candidates. How is your interpretation more valid than mine?

otterley 1y ago

[flagged]

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> to support Israel? Is that what this is about? It’s for money and power. Because of the partisan nature of the power grab, a certain grab bag of evangelical, fossil fuel and anti-gay tenets are going to get reïnforced. But treating those as the cause dangerously misses that this is being started at home.
- otterley 1y ago
  I'd like to hear from the person I'm responding to, as it sounds an awful lot like a dog whistle.
  - volleyball 1y ago
    I replied to your original comment. Also, I wasn't invoking some dog-whistle. I was using the same phraseology of the Zionists. From the CEO of the ADL, Jonathan Greenblatt, addressing the Israeli Knesset[1] : "Pushing extremists off Wikipedia might not seem equal to the challenge of pushing Hezbollah to north of the Litani River; capturing TikTok might seem less meaningful than holding on to Mount Hermon ; libelous tweets certainly might seem less deadly than missiles from Yemen but this is urgent because the next war will be decided based on how Israel and its allies perform online as much as offline. Make no mistake it's real we saw that in the propaganda that anti-israel groups pushed out in America on October 7th accusing Israel of committing genocide." He describes Tiktok as a target to be captured, comparing it to a mountain in Syria which Israel conquered late last year in its unannounced invasion of Syria. They make no bones about the fact that our minds are just another battlespace in this war that they're waging. [1] - https://x.com/DelGroyp/status/1856577467596845279 https://x.com/DelGroyp/status/1856577467596845279 https://xcancel.com/DelGroyp/status/1856577467596845279 https://xcancel.com/DelGroyp/status/1856577467596845279
- andsoitis 1y ago
  > anti-gay Larry Ellison’s daughter is gay. Why do you think her brother and father are going to infuse Paramount with anti-gay bigotry?

JumpCrisscross 1y ago

> hostile take-over of the American mind by a tech billionaire who just overtook Elon Musk to become the world's richest man Ellison read and responded to the political situation more skilfully than Elon. He used Stargate to cement himself as a power broker in AI. He used that influence to provide antitrust assurances that gave his son a leg up for Paramount. Meanwhile he used that proximity to media to get a foot in the door with TikTok. The root cause is the partisan politicisation of the economy. This is a project all the major Trump donors and high-level supporters contributed to. That Ellison is coming up as one of the new aristocrats is closer to a dice roll; that we have oligarchs, now, is very much by design.

wnc3141 1y ago
In authoritarian regimes the industrial capacity of an economy is appropriated by the state, where the fruits of the industry are enjoyed by party loyalists. In this case using the state to choose which business is viable, no doubt being businesses that play ball with the party. -its why sectarian conflicts and power delegation is so high stakes in many parts of the world.
andrekandre 1y ago
> The root cause is the partisan politicisation of the economy. well, tbf in the old days, it was literally called ‘political economy’ for a reason… maybe the name should make a comeback.

schnable 1y ago

[flagged]

loverofhumanz 1y ago
[flagged]
- cjbgkagh 1y ago
  The most complicated thing about Bari Weiss, who lost in a battle of wits against Joe Rogan (a rather low bar), is how she continues to fail upwards.
  - efavdb 1y ago
    Fail upwards? She started a successful business and sold for a large value.
    - cjbgkagh 1y ago
      Not sure if that counts if it’s part of all the same influence project.
acdha 1y ago
Ignoring the genocide topic for the moment, it’s relevant from a speech perspective: that’s an alliance of hard-right groups who have spent the last year conflating criticism of Israel with anti-semitism and trying to shut down voices which disagree with them (e.g. cuts to research grants based on unrelated actions on campus). Consolidating a large chunk of the information space under a unified group opposed to free speech should concern all of us.
- bananalychee 1y ago
  Your post is fair, but it's not how I read the OP, which seems less concerned with consolidation of power than with people supportive of Israel having power. And while I appreciate that criticism of Israel is not anti-semitism, believing that Israel is a legitimate state that has the right to self-defense is all it takes to be labelled as a "Zionist", and at that point it's practically a euphemism for "Jew". I'm not familiar enough with Bari Weiss's views to tell if that's what's being done here, but the use of a pejorative without clarification, combined with the fixation on "Zionists" and the implication that their intent surely must be to issue pro-Israel propaganda in particular makes it sound a lot like old-school anti-semitism.

redwood 1y ago

[flagged]

thesmtsolver 1y ago

Trying to be neutral. Did we consider China's relationship with Palestine? Were we ok with American minds being swayed by a foreign country?

farseer 1y ago
That is one of the prime reasons congress banned TikTok.
netsharc 1y ago
If we want neutral, how about a fair arena for opinions and ideas.. at the moment "The Right" yells and screams "Anti-Semite! Terrorist!" if someone protests against the starvation and slaughter of children... So having them control the medium doesn't feel right for me. Ok someone's going to come and say that "The Left" controlled the medium and disallowed "non-mainstream" messaging about Covid... I admit my bias and consider such messaging lunacy too..
volleyball 1y ago
I would argue that on this matter and all matters relating to the middle-east, American minds are still being swayed by a foreign country and have been for the last 50 to 80 years. At least, with Chinese Tiktok, Elon's twitter and competition between the various social media platforms, Americans for the first time were exposed to voices from the other side. And between the two sides, were able to make up a more informed decision. This is a desperate attempt to reverse that. I doubt it will work in the long-term and i don't think it is expected to. But I think in near-term this is a measure to control the narrative to prepare for American misadventures in the region over the next couple of years. Which almost certainly includes a second war with Iran, Israeli annexation of the West Bank and even possibly a partial American occupation of Gaza.

hereme888 1y ago

[flagged]

tomhow 1y ago
You can't comment like this on Hacker News, no matter how right you are or feel you are. Please take a moment to read the guidelines and make an effort to observe them if you want to participate here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

spookie 1y ago

To be completly frank, its better to focus on the media consolidation part. That's the real problem.

hvb2 1y ago
For a large share of the population social media is the only media they consume, so this is part of your real problem
usefulcat 1y ago
Actually it's the opposite. Pre-internet, there were a handful of news sources in any given city (mostly newspapers and TV), so they couldn't afford to alienate half of their potential viewers/readers by leaning hard left or right. Today, there are many, many sources of 'news' online. So many that the net effect is that most of those sources lean one way or the other, and by and large people choose to listen mostly or only to those sources they agree with. No wonder political opinions are so highly divided today. Almost no one ever hears anything from the other side.

tinyhouse 1y ago

What's the problem with being pro-israel? Everyone needs to be pro-whatever-you-prefer? I'm pro-israel too.

cheraderama 1y ago
[flagged]
- tinyhouse 1y ago
  The problem is the word 'anti'. Being pro something doesn't mean you're anti something else. I can be pro-israel and still have sympathy for the Palestinians and what they are enduring and hoping for peace.
  - guizadillas 1y ago
    Well I'm pro anti-israel
Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
The problem is that the pro stands from problem. Whenever we take a stance, We identify our ego with that stance. We shall die but die a pro X or pro Y As such many debates happen in bad faith as well. Of course everyone has their agenda but one has to understand that agenda is just a framework for understanding the world. And we need to understand the world because it has no inherent meaning. So like, if we really have to deduce meaning, if we really have to be pro something that we can die on a hill towards, I'd rather have it be a humanitarian thing. I am not saying that palestine is good either but rather that in genocide/wars, the people fighting the war/military/families displaced suffer, not the old man causing the war. I feel like I am a humanist. Wishing to understand the world, yet I feel like some people in this world have hurt me so much that sometimes I just wish the world to burn. I am sure that people are gonna comment on something like "oh do you support a genocide etc." But I am trying to make the point that the world should really be just anti suffering,accepting. Yes I am naive but surely with all of this technological improvements, we can improve the structure of society to not be fucking brewing with hate and bullying and resentment. We can do so much better as a society without even trying much. Just small acts of kindness and basically creating a environment that rewards it and punishes bullying/hate speech etc. might be really nice if I am being honest. Not sure why we can't be pro this instead of defining ourselves with the confict of two other foreign nations

hn_throw_250915 1y ago

Larry the lawnmower Ellison?

volleyball 1y ago
The lawnmower in question is a big-time donor to the Israel state and the IDF. Regarding the IDF the lawnmover seems to have caught some feelings: Through all of the perilous times since Israel’s founding, we have called on the brave men and women of the IDF to defend our home. In my mind, there is no greater honor than supporting some of the bravest people in the world, and I thank Friends of the IDF for allowing us to celebrate and support these soldiers year after year. We should do all we can to show these heroic soldiers that they are not alone. When Oracle opened a data-center in Jerusalem, his colleague and CEO Safra Katz had this to say : ...when you connect with Oracle you understand that we are committed to the U.S. and Israel. We are not flexible regarding our mission, and our commitment to Israel is second to none. This is a free world and I love my employees, and if they don't agree with our mission to support the State of Israel then maybe we aren't the right company for them. Larry (Ellison, co-founder of Oracle) and I are publicly committed to Israel and devote personal time to the country and no one should be surprised by that. "our commitment to Israel is second to none". Does America fall under [none] here? Something to consider when looking at these acquisitions.