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His feed is an archive of war crimes documented under conditions of imposed starvation and an information blackout, in a "conflict" that has had the highest jou

His feed is an archive of war crimes documented under conditions of imposed starvation and an information blackout, in a "conflict" that has had the highest journalist mortality rate by far. First, he's under no obligation to archive his posts. It's on the world to archive them and prosecute the perpetrators of the documented crimes. Second, the platform in question has, at the highest levels, intelligence officers from the entity committing those crimes. Third, humanity has failed in its moral duty yet again, and this sort of "neutral" commentary that ends with a glib remark directed at a murdered non-combatant is shocking to the conscience.

terminalshort 1y ago
Is he under an obligation? No. Is he, and any other professional who doesn't, an idiot for not backing up his data? Yes.
- luaybs 1y ago
  Are you calling a man that was living under a g*nocide documenting the horrific war crimes an idiot because he didn't back up his data, do you hear yourself??
  - terminalshort 1y ago
    If you can upload it to Meta's servers, you can back it up too.
    - luaybs 1y ago
      The number one priority was for him to spread the information as fast as possible to as many people as possible. Given the limited bandwidth, limited electricity, limited availability for physical storage devices, and limited everything, do you really think that backing up his data was his priority? Have some empathy...
      - terminalshort 1y ago
        Given the circumstances, actually yes, I would think that contingencies and backups would be top priority. Google Drive would have been sufficient. Unlike the hell that is social media, you own your data, and your friends can access it and post to Instagram from outside the war zone.
    - jasonlotito 1y ago
      Technically there was a backup we knew about that was taken down, too.
  - dima55 1y ago
    This is HN. This thread is about data and backups. Yes.
    - tclancy 1y ago
      Begging the question there, aren’t we? I can’t imagine that as the takeaway.
- jasonlotito 1y ago
  You are making some assumptions here. He is dead. Any backups he might have made might be long gone, or otherwise, unknown. What we do know is that the IG posts AND the backups done via the Internet Archive are gone. So, my question to you is: where can you set a backup for no cost, available from Gaza, and that won't be taken down 3rd parties. Note, anything online has the potential to have data removed, and even then, we don't know what other backup locations he might have been using. We just know what was available now to the public. In addition, let's say he had hardware backups (which are now gone after he was killed), or let's say just a random S3 bucket. We have to know about it. Know how to get access to it. And hope that AWS doesn't nuke it because someone asks them to do it. It's a big mess, and blaming him for not having more backups than an entire country is incredible.
  - terminalshort 1y ago
    Google Drive would be good enough (if you can access Meta, you can access Google Drive) or any other cloud storage where you maintain ownership of your data. You can give people anywhere in the world the credentials to access it and upload to any social media. Internet Archive allows takedown requests from content owners, so it's not really a backup. Meta probably automatically sends one when it deletes an Instagram page.
    - jasonlotito 1y ago
      > Google Drive would be good enough It gets deleted. TOS violation. > (if you can access Meta, you can access Google Drive) Not necessarily. No capable person that understands tech at all would think this. > or any other cloud storage where you maintain ownership of your data. If you don't own the infrastructure, do you really own it? And none of these are resilient to takedown requests, or other means of removal. > Internet Archive allows takedown requests from content owners, That's not what happened here. He was the content owner. Also, you pretend like other groups don't also do that. > You can give people anywhere in the world the credentials to access it: Like IG did? None of your solutions meet my criteria in the slightest.
      - 1y ago
- vasco 1y ago
  If you die right now, will people on the internet know how to restore your backups or that you had them or are you an idiot?
  - terminalshort 1y ago
    People on the internet, no. People involved in my work, yes.
- elygre 1y ago
  I think we don’t know if he backed up his data. We do know that he is dead, though.
dghlsakjg 1y ago
I intentionally chose not to comment on the politics, and I won’t here either. Please respect that. My comment only addressed the possible failure to understand the importance, and controversy, of this work and publishing exclusively on social media. Important and controversial things should not be entrusted to social media. I say this as a former AP photo stringer, who has been in handcuffs, forest fires, and shoot outs in that job. My concern is, genuinely, that socially relevant documentary work needs to be held outside of social media for this exact reason.
- propagandist 1y ago
  For what it's worth, my opinion is that there was no a better platform than social media to host that material. The media companies are virtually all editorially aligned with one side, and they put their thumbs on the scale when it comes to the news about this subject. The mainstream reporting is so clinically sanitized that it loses all potency and the sense of urgency. They were never going to be conduits for this material. The best platform is the one that allows you to reach a wide audience so the onus is on them to archive, not on the vulnerable people being hunted with impunity.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]

terminalshort 1y ago

Is he under an obligation? No. Is he, and any other professional who doesn't, an idiot for not backing up his data? Yes.

luaybs 1y ago
Are you calling a man that was living under a g*nocide documenting the horrific war crimes an idiot because he didn't back up his data, do you hear yourself??
- terminalshort 1y ago
  If you can upload it to Meta's servers, you can back it up too.
  - luaybs 1y ago
    The number one priority was for him to spread the information as fast as possible to as many people as possible. Given the limited bandwidth, limited electricity, limited availability for physical storage devices, and limited everything, do you really think that backing up his data was his priority? Have some empathy...
    - terminalshort 1y ago
      Given the circumstances, actually yes, I would think that contingencies and backups would be top priority. Google Drive would have been sufficient. Unlike the hell that is social media, you own your data, and your friends can access it and post to Instagram from outside the war zone.
  - jasonlotito 1y ago
    Technically there was a backup we knew about that was taken down, too.
- dima55 1y ago
  This is HN. This thread is about data and backups. Yes.
  - tclancy 1y ago
    Begging the question there, aren’t we? I can’t imagine that as the takeaway.
jasonlotito 1y ago
You are making some assumptions here. He is dead. Any backups he might have made might be long gone, or otherwise, unknown. What we do know is that the IG posts AND the backups done via the Internet Archive are gone. So, my question to you is: where can you set a backup for no cost, available from Gaza, and that won't be taken down 3rd parties. Note, anything online has the potential to have data removed, and even then, we don't know what other backup locations he might have been using. We just know what was available now to the public. In addition, let's say he had hardware backups (which are now gone after he was killed), or let's say just a random S3 bucket. We have to know about it. Know how to get access to it. And hope that AWS doesn't nuke it because someone asks them to do it. It's a big mess, and blaming him for not having more backups than an entire country is incredible.
- terminalshort 1y ago
  Google Drive would be good enough (if you can access Meta, you can access Google Drive) or any other cloud storage where you maintain ownership of your data. You can give people anywhere in the world the credentials to access it and upload to any social media. Internet Archive allows takedown requests from content owners, so it's not really a backup. Meta probably automatically sends one when it deletes an Instagram page.
  - jasonlotito 1y ago
    > Google Drive would be good enough It gets deleted. TOS violation. > (if you can access Meta, you can access Google Drive) Not necessarily. No capable person that understands tech at all would think this. > or any other cloud storage where you maintain ownership of your data. If you don't own the infrastructure, do you really own it? And none of these are resilient to takedown requests, or other means of removal. > Internet Archive allows takedown requests from content owners, That's not what happened here. He was the content owner. Also, you pretend like other groups don't also do that. > You can give people anywhere in the world the credentials to access it: Like IG did? None of your solutions meet my criteria in the slightest.
    - 1y ago
vasco 1y ago
If you die right now, will people on the internet know how to restore your backups or that you had them or are you an idiot?
- terminalshort 1y ago
  People on the internet, no. People involved in my work, yes.
elygre 1y ago
I think we don’t know if he backed up his data. We do know that he is dead, though.

dghlsakjg 1y ago

I intentionally chose not to comment on the politics, and I won’t here either. Please respect that. My comment only addressed the possible failure to understand the importance, and controversy, of this work and publishing exclusively on social media. Important and controversial things should not be entrusted to social media. I say this as a former AP photo stringer, who has been in handcuffs, forest fires, and shoot outs in that job. My concern is, genuinely, that socially relevant documentary work needs to be held outside of social media for this exact reason.

propagandist 1y ago
For what it's worth, my opinion is that there was no a better platform than social media to host that material. The media companies are virtually all editorially aligned with one side, and they put their thumbs on the scale when it comes to the news about this subject. The mainstream reporting is so clinically sanitized that it loses all potency and the sense of urgency. They were never going to be conduits for this material. The best platform is the one that allows you to reach a wide audience so the onus is on them to archive, not on the vulnerable people being hunted with impunity.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]