6 ms·

YouTube erased more than 700 videos documenting Israeli human rights violations

453 points by rzk 1y ago

DiogenesKynikos 1y ago
It turns out that it's much easier than anyone thought to end freedom of speech in the United States. If no one cares about the Constitution, then it's just paper. Trump sanctions the International Criminal Court and anyone who provides evidence to it, and now pro-Palestinian groups can't post videos of Israeli abuse on YouTube. The First Amendment is nowhere to be seen.
- hobs 1y ago
  Don't forget how this admin cried up and down about the censorship of the previous on Covid misinformation, and said that freedom of speech was paramount; no surprise a lie again.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - gosub100 1y ago
    Both sides are heavily controlled by AIPAC. That's why you'll rarely hear democrat YouTubers calling out the genocide. For example, Brian Tyler Cohen has remained mute about it. It's true for many other partner channels.
    - coliveira 1y ago
      They're both controlled by billionaires, and we know who they are.
  - Mountain_Skies 1y ago
    Tech company censorship during the pandemic was one of the most widely celebrated actions on Hacker News. A few warned that giving tech companies this much control over discourse would have consequences, but the typical poster here didn't care, they just wanted anything that didn't conform with the blessed narrative to be suppressed.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- StarGrit 1y ago
  Freedom of Speech has and will be suppressed by various governments, with various reasons being given. This has been going on for longer than any of us have been alive. e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedition_Act_of_1918 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedition_Act_of_1918 There is nothing unique about what is happening now.
  - rwmj 1y ago
    A peculiar bit of whataboutism.
    - StarGrit 1y ago
      It literally isn't whataboutism. It is a statement of fact about the nature of the US state (and would apply to most western ones tbh). Freedom of Speech is simply a privilege that those in power grant you when it is convenient to do so. It will be taken away when expedient to do so. The post I was replying to seemed to believe it was a novel situation.
- jackjeff 1y ago
  The irony is that JD Vance lectured the Europeans about their lack of freedom of speech in Europe while invited in Germany.
  - saubeidl 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - Herring 1y ago
      Yeah I hope to never say this again, but I'm pretty sure Goebbels was right. Germany took those lessons to heart. Speech and expression related to Nazism is heavily regulated and subjects you to imprisonment. Demonstrations/rallies are often banned. The Nazi party itself is banned. AfD is being monitored by intelligence agencies and might be banned in the future, etc. They do this defensively when groups demonstrate an "actively belligerent, aggressive stance" towards the democratic order. Because it's like pointing a gun at people in public - it's already violent even if you don't pull the trigger.
      - DiogenesKynikos 1y ago
        Germany has never had much of a culture of free speech. The intelligence agencies in charge of monitoring extremists have long had their own problems with extremism. The former head of the agency for "Protection of the Constitution" ("Verfassungsschutz") himself turned out to be a xenophobic right-wing extremist.[0] They have wide authority to spy on citizens based purely on their political views. Unless you really, really trust the agency doing that, this is not a good thing for society. During the war in Gaza, the various restrictions on free speech were used to crack down on pro-Palestinian protesters. For many months after October 7th, many cities (such as Hamburg) issued blanket bans of pro-Palestinian protests. A Jewish German woman was even arrested for standing alone in a public square and holding up a sign about Gaza, because that was supposedly a violation of the ban on protests about Gaza.[1] All sorts of people have been banned from entering the country (including an elected member of the European Parliament, Yannis Varoufakis [2]), purely because of their views on Gaza. A major conference in Berlin was broken up by police because they allowed "banned" individuals to speak over Zoom (banned explicitly for their views on Gaza) [3]. When there's a major event going on in the world (which your government is involved in), and the government tells you you're not allowed to demonstrate about it, that's not a good thing. These supposed protections have not done much of anything to prevent the rise of the far right in Germany. The "Alternative for Germany" (AfD) is a right-wing extremist party filled with "former" neo-Nazis (such as the leader of the party in the state of Thuringia, who used to write neo-Nazi articles under a pseudonym [4]). The AfD is now polling at 25%, making it tied for the most popular party in Germany. Even if the AfD doesn't get into government, the conservatives are imitating them more and more. The Chancellor recently said that German cities no longer look right (because you see too many foreigners). When asked what he meant, he responded, "Ask your daughter" (with the obvious implication). And no, the agency for protection of the constitution is obviously not going to tell him to stop saying things like this. The German system of political censorship is not something that other countries should be imitating. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Georg_Maa%C3%9Fen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Georg_Maa%C3%9Fen 1. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/1/we-jews-are-just-arrested-palestinians-are-beaten-german-protesters https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/1/we-jews-are-just-arr... 2. https://www.newstatesman.com/diary/2024/04/cancelled-germany-yanis-varoufakis-israel-palestine https://www.newstatesman.com/diary/2024/04/cancelled-germany... 3. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pal%C3%A4stina-Kongress_in_Berlin https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pal%C3%A4stina-Kongress_in_Ber... 4. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B6rn_H%C3%B6cke#Pseudonym_%E2%80%9ELandolf_Ladig%E2%80%9C https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B6rn_H%C3%B6cke#Pseudony...
- _heimdall 1y ago
  Did the government force YouTube to take down the videos? Freedom of speech is meant to protect us from government censorship. Trump sanctions would fall into that category, but a social media site censoring what they don't want to host seems like fair game.
  - the_af 1y ago
    > Did the government force YouTube to take down the videos? The article answers this: > YouTube, which is owned by Google, confirmed to The Intercept that it deleted the groups’ accounts as a direct result of State Department sanctions against the group after a review.
    - _heimdall 1y ago
      I could see a court finding that to be a first amendment violation, but that isn't the same as the government directly requesting YouTube to take down videos. Sanctions were put in place and YouTube followed policy to not allow content from sanctioned groups. That sounds like a loophole, and could be found by a court to be a violation, but it isn't nearly as cut and dry as people here seem to be making it out to be.
  - latexr 1y ago
    > Did the government force YouTube to take down the videos? Yes, according to the article. That argument is made over and over in it, it’s hard to miss. “Forcing” doesn’t just mean directly requiring the action, it also means the threat of “this is not going to end up well for you if you don’t comply”. Of course, you can argue that Google could and should fight it, but that doesn’t change what the government is doing. > but a social media site censoring what they don't want to host seems like fair game. Again, the article makes it really clear they are doing this as the direct result of government actions.
    - _heimdall 1y ago
      It doesn't seem that clear in my opinion. There is a lot of smoke there, and I wouldn't be surprised if there was a fire, but I didn't see the article specifically claiming the government directed YouTube to take down the videos. I saw multiple references there to the government sanctioning groups and that YouTube took down videos based on the sanctions. That very well could be a loophole and a court might deem that a first amendment violation, but it isn't as simple as finding communications where the government directly requested those videos to be taken down.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- mpalmer 1y ago
  The ICC is not a beneficiary of the Constitution, nor is YouTube bound by the Constitution. I'm unhappy for the same reasons as you, but this isn't how 1A works.
  - davorak 1y ago
    > nor is YouTube bound by the Constitution. nitpick - Youtube is bound by the US Constitution, it is the highest law of the land. 1A[1] is only about binding the government/congresses power though so youtube is not bound by 1A. [1] https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/ https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/
  - jackjeff 1y ago
    The problem is that these private companies have taken a disproportionate place in public discourse. You are absolutely right that freedom of speech does not guarantee the right to post anything on YouTube (someone else's website). In fact YouTube has the right (protected speech) to censor you and refuse to let you post long as they don't do in a discriminatory way (for instance, only "white people" can post would be discriminatory/illegal). The problem is that in practice, if you can't do YouTube, Facebook, Tiktok, INsta, etc... your speech will not be heard by anyone. It's like if a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, the fact that it makes sound is irrelevant. So effectively, it amounts to censorship, even though the government potentially had no hand in it. Now imagine someone in Trump administration pressured Google with a juicy contract, or the prospect of an expensive lawsuit, and the quid pro quo was dumping these videos that annoy "our Israeli friends". This kind of "pay to play" is at minimum corruption. It may also fall of short of constitutional guarantees for free speech. Ironically, it is exactly the same thing a lot of members of the Trump administration have accused Biden of doing (exhibit: the so called "Twitter Files" etc... ), although I don't believe this went anywhere in federal courts (am I wrong?) I honestly don't know what the answer is. But I would not be surprised if in 50 years time, some of these large companies get regulated as "utilities" and are no longer able to yank "videos" from their platform just because they feel like it. And every time they "abuse" their powers, I feel like we get an inch closer to that onerous regulation.
- EdiX 1y ago
  Where were you in the last 6 years? Ah, I see, people you didn't like were being censored so you didn't care.
  - decremental 1y ago
    [dead]
  - woodpanel 1y ago
    Exactly, it's laughable that this is coming from the same people who cheered on auto de-monetization for even mentioning the word "Covid" in a YT-video or the countless de-platforming and de-banking of individuals. Is this still gaslighting or something else?
    - skulk 1y ago
      Google didn't censor covid-related conspiracies or whatever at the behest of the government. YouTube can censor whoever it wants but the US government cannot. Also, do you have any actual evidence of political debanking in the US? I can't find any references to it other than the propaganda of the current administration.
      - econ 1y ago
        I don't know anything so I tried searching. This was th first result. https://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/google-admits-censorship-under-biden-promises-end-bans-youtube-accounts https://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/google-admi... Make of it what you will.
        acdha 1y ago
        Google’s employees didn’t mention government pressure earlier and the company only started talking about that in conjunction with their PR plan to get favorable treatment from the current administration: https://www.wired.com/story/republicans-claim-biden-censored-youtube/ https://www.wired.com/story/republicans-claim-biden-censored...
- ta20240528 1y ago
  "now pro-Palestinian groups can't post videos of Israeli abuse on YouTube." Perhaps not, but they could courier the evidence on a DVD to the Hague.
- jalapenof 1y ago
  [flagged]
Bender 1y ago
Did anyone mirror the videos on their own servers?
- hsbauauvhabzb 1y ago
  I looked into writing a script that wires yt-dlp to archive.org, iirc one already existed, but archive.org requested that people only upload videos that are at risk of deletion by YouTube. I guess this would be a valid contender. I’d encourage anyone to begin mirroring videos for that reason.
  - 9991 1y ago
    Is that a joke? They're all 'at risk' of deletion.
    - hsbauauvhabzb 1y ago
      No, the vast majority of videos on YouTube are not at a particular risk of deletion. Specific topics are, but the average Linus tech tips video is not.
      - teddyh 1y ago
        Amusingly, Linus Tech Tips has had many videos censored and removed by YouTube.
        hsbauauvhabzb 1y ago
        I think it’s pretty obvious when they’re gonna get removed. Almost certainly someone has a local mirror of that channel.
        serf 1y ago
        it is not at all obvious when some automated check somewhere will flag or remove a youtube video. all YT videos are in danger of deletion. You can argue whether or not they're worthy of the merit of saving, but you cannot deny their risk for sudden removal.
yahoozoo 1y ago
[flagged]
isodev 1y ago
That's why we have Peertube and your personal (not hosted by a corp) website. It's amazing how people forgot to use the internet in exchange for "easier" UX.
- the_af 1y ago
  I don't think it's about UX at this point. It's more about critical mass. Unfortunately, YouTube is where the videos and audience are... yes, it's a Catch-22 situation.
  - gloxkiqcza 1y ago
    In case of YouTube I wouldn’t be so sure. Yes, it’s the central hub for making your name but many YouTubers came up with their own platforms for exclusive content to have more control over their business once they got big. PeerTube is inline with that idea and because of that might be promoted by big creators soon.
    - Lionga 1y ago
      This will be the year of PeerTube on the Desktop!!!
  - Bender 1y ago
    Youtube is certainly useful for discovery and monetization but if the goal is to share a video that may be censored I would suggest everyone should upload to {n+2} locations at a minimum and link to both YT and the self hosted mirrors from a blog after linking to the blog from YT. It's easier than friends of YT would suggest.
- konart 1y ago
  >It's amazing how people forgot to use the internet in exchange for "easier" UX. What's so amazing here? This a normal and expected human behaviour. >forgot to use the internet What does this even mean in this context?
  - 1y ago
uriee 1y ago
[flagged]
- jackjeff 1y ago
  The article has a very long list of alleged Israeli violations of international law and human rights. Here's a quick summary. Genocide in Gaza. It is described as a "genocidal campaign" implying systematic targeting of a national, ethnic, or religious group, prohibited under the 1948 Genocide Convention. This is what the ICC is investigating now. War Crimes: - Killing of Palestinian civilians, including children and families. - Killing of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, a violation of the Geneva Conventions protecting civilians and journalists in conflict zones. - Destruction of Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank, possibly constituting collective punishment or unlawful destruction of property under the Fourth Geneva Convention. - Intentionally starving civilians by blocking humanitarian aid into Gaza, explicitly prohibited under Article 54 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions and cited in ICC arrest warrants for Israeli officials. - Torture of Palestinian detainees by Israeli forces, a violation of the UN Convention Against Torture. The article also alleges complicity from the US authorities and corporations (YouTube, Google, MailChimp).
  - stopthebullshit 1y ago
    [dead]
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- gosub100 1y ago
  Blowing up buildings with people inside.
  - boxed 1y ago
    [flagged]
notorandit 1y ago
If all this is true, then it's another step towards freedom. Freedom to delete and rewrite history.
- dncornholio 1y ago
  We shouldn't rely on YouTube to write our history. It's just an American entertainment website that makes money of ads. It has no other obligations. It can do whatever it wants, or what the US government wants. This is not news.
- FridayoLeary 1y ago
  I'm sure it's technically true, with absolutely no nuance. You can say "BBC pull documentary of life inside gaza" which is completely accurate. What is also true is that the boy who was the main focus of the documentary was the son of a Hamas official which throws the whole thing into question. YT normally takes down any video depicting violence.
metalman 1y ago
more than 700 genocide video's ,confirmed to have been removed, with countless others, errased, along with the person who took the video too quickly to be noticed. the strong implication is that utube has dedicated resources and staff working 24/7 to do this, or has allowed "outside" entities privlages to do so. though given the demographics in the NYC race, real support for the genocide is weak.
neonate 1y ago
https://archive.li/sGz40 https://archive.li/sGz40
manyaoman 1y ago
Not gonna lie, Boot Bullwinkle is an awesome name.
CommanderData 1y ago
Facebook have a Zionist censorship team. YouTube probably has far worse. All US social media are bound to US foreign policy which enables Israel to continue it's invasion and systematic cleansing of Palestinians.
- sciencesama 1y ago
  With even a small percent of population they can do so much !!
  - eldgfipo 1y ago
    Neocons/Zionist is a huge percentage of people in power (including the ones appointed or who ruthlessly climbed up the corporate ladder)
    - kiicia 1y ago
      Yes they are, what was conspiracy theory for years turned out to be true And if someone is not, then they have material for blackmail
- kiicia 1y ago
  For months now word „zionist” is officially banned on Facebook and hasbara bots are ready to tell you that you are antisemite
xyzal 1y ago
Fed up by status quo? Consider donating. https://www.hindrajabfoundation.org/donate https://www.hindrajabfoundation.org/donate
- nujabe 1y ago
  Done
- bjoli 1y ago
  For those not clicking random links: this foundation tries to find evidence of atrocities by people with dual citizenship so that they can be prosecuted in their other home country.
  - js212 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - justacrow 1y ago
      It's also not mandatory for the majority of jews, as they are not Israeli citizens
boxed 1y ago
Youtube takes down snuff. News at 11. It doesn't matter if the snuff is an Israeli shooting a Palestinian, or a jihadi beheading a cartoonist. It's all removed because YouTube doesn't accept snuff on its platform.
- teddyh 1y ago
  Technically, “snuff” is usually defined as at least being made for entertainment (I say “usually”, since commonly other requirements are added as well). But beheading videos and the like are meant to scare their enemies, not to entertain weirdos on the internet. So these are not “snuff” videos.
  - fluoridation 1y ago
    If you want to get technical, then >A film or video clip which involves a real non-acted murder. It seems like any video depicting a real murder would count as snuff. In any case, has YouTube ever allowed either kind?
    - teddyh 1y ago
      I dispute that definition: <https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/a-pinch-of-snuff/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/a-pinch-of-snuff/>
  - boxed 1y ago
    I would think the "for entertainment" is in the eye of the beholder, and the production part is irrelevant. In either case, YouTube has never allowed this stuff.
    - lern_too_spel 1y ago
      These were documentaries made by nonprofits, not snuff films. As the article states, they were removed due to sanctions, not for violating YouTube policies.
laincide 1y ago
[flagged]
elihu 1y ago
Another form of tech industry Gaza atrocity denialism and gaslighting is satellite maps of Gaza. Bing maps seems to be entirely pre-war as far as I can tell. In a way, that's kind of useful, as it can serve as a reference for what Gaza used to look like in A/B comparisons. Google maps on the other hand has had at least some updates. Southern Gaza appears basically unscathed, but the Northern part shows some wide swathes where there's very little left but dust and rubble. I think Google did that update a couple months ago. Before that it was kind of hard to find any serious damage at all. (Jabalia refugee camp has shown as a ruin before that update.) To some extent it's understandable that neither company wants to be updating all of their satellite images all the time. Still, the war has been going on for years and this is a place that a huge number of people really want to know what's going on. Updating slowly (Google) or not at all (Microsoft) at this point seem like deliberate policies, and I'd imagine they're probably highly contentious within those companies.
alsetmusic 1y ago
There was an article yesterday about Jimmy Wales commenting on edit wars on the Wikipedia entry for Genocide in Gaza (or similar title). The article didn't indicate his taking one side or the other, but I'd prefer if people didn't use name-recognition to influence such things (yes, even if they take the same side as me because others will do the same in the other direction). Fwiw, I downloaded a torrent of footage documenting the genocide last year. I don't think it would be considered appropriate for me to link to it here on HN, but I wanted to raise awareness that torrents such as this exist. I'm also on a torrent full of CDC data that was taken down by the current admin plus a couple of other public-service torrents. You can find stuff like this too. I got mine from a certain federated clone of the R site.
- underdeserver 1y ago
  He's not trying to influence anything - he's trying to safeguard Wikipedia's stated neutral point-of-view policy. His statement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gaza_genocide#Statement_from_Jimbo_Wales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gaza_genocide#Statement_f... Whatever your point of view is, he explains clearly why the article is biased: > At present, the lede and the overall presentation state, in Wikipedia’s voice, that Israel is committing genocide, although that claim is highly contested. This is a violation of WP:NPOV and WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV that requires immediate correction. > A neutral approach would begin with a formulation such as: “Multiple governments, NGOs, and legal bodies have described or rejected the characterization of Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide.”
- dlubarov 1y ago
  The position Wales was taking was that Wikipedia shouldn't be calling it a genocide in its own voice ("wikivoice"), which means taking a side rather than neutrally documenting the controversy. Larry Sanger also made a similar statement. The two Wikipedia founders had a falling out back in the day, and it's the first time in a long time that they've publicly agreed on anything. Neither has any special power on the wiki though. One might hope that both founders pointing out NPOV issues could be a wake-up call to stop interpreting the NPOV policy "creatively" to push an agenda,[3] but realistically nothing seems likely to change. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gaza_genocide#Statement_from_Jimbo_Wales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gaza_genocide#Statement_f... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gaza_genocide#Statement_from_Larry_Sanger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gaza_genocide#Statement_f... [3] As an example of "creative workarounds" to Wikipedia's neutrality policy, one of the justifications for renaming "Allegations ..." to "Gaza genocide" was a rather bizarre idea that neutrality doesn't apply to titles since they're "topics", not statements. The statement implied by the new title was then predictably used as one of the justifications for changing the article body to use "genocide" in wikivoice.
AraceliHarker 1y ago
The deleted videos did, in fact, violate YouTube's rules, but it's questionable whether YouTube would have taken them down if they hadn't shown an Israeli soldier carrying out a lynching.
- thisislife2 1y ago
  You are not spouting any fringe consipracy theory. Videos commenting on Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza ( see https://genocide.live/locations https://genocide.live/locations ) on TikTok played a huge role in publicising the genocide to the world. And it is also the primary reason why the western backers of Israel were so hell bent on acquiring TikTok - an IDF soldier, who is a "proud American Jew" and Zionist, already oversees "hate speech" and "antisemitism" policies on TikTok ( see https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/tiktok-hires-former-idf-reservist-as-new-hate-speech-policy-manager/ https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/tiktok-hires-former-idf-reservi... ). And Netanyahu also publicly affirmed that social media was Israel’s new ‘weapon’ after the TikTok acquisition ( see https://www.newarab.com/news/netanyahu-says-social-media-israels-new-weapon https://www.newarab.com/news/netanyahu-says-social-media-isr... ).
  - raxxorraxor 1y ago
    Most of these were probably one-sided propaganda videos. Ironically these are mostly policies against "fake news" that were pushed by a political faction that now complains about censorship. People that are mad about the death of their revolution, developed an inferiority complex, looked at propaganda on TikTok and are now disliking Jews. You can argue the position to be more sophisticated, but sometimes it is not and it wouldn't be the first time. And of course there is ample and valid criticism of policies of Israel but I heavily doubt that these videos were informative. Granted, this is entirely based on some assumptions.
aristofun 1y ago
Afaik they also remove hamas atrocities and genocide videos. So it's a fair game at least.

453 points by rzk 1y ago

It turns out that it's much easier than anyone thought to end freedom of speech in the United States. If no one cares about the Constitution, then it's just paper. Trump sanctions the International Criminal Court and anyone who provides evidence to it, and now pro-Palestinian groups can't post videos of Israeli abuse on YouTube. The First Amendment is nowhere to be seen.

hobs 1y ago
Don't forget how this admin cried up and down about the censorship of the previous on Covid misinformation, and said that freedom of speech was paramount; no surprise a lie again.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- gosub100 1y ago
  Both sides are heavily controlled by AIPAC. That's why you'll rarely hear democrat YouTubers calling out the genocide. For example, Brian Tyler Cohen has remained mute about it. It's true for many other partner channels.
  - coliveira 1y ago
    They're both controlled by billionaires, and we know who they are.
- Mountain_Skies 1y ago
  Tech company censorship during the pandemic was one of the most widely celebrated actions on Hacker News. A few warned that giving tech companies this much control over discourse would have consequences, but the typical poster here didn't care, they just wanted anything that didn't conform with the blessed narrative to be suppressed.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
StarGrit 1y ago
Freedom of Speech has and will be suppressed by various governments, with various reasons being given. This has been going on for longer than any of us have been alive. e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedition_Act_of_1918 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedition_Act_of_1918 There is nothing unique about what is happening now.
- rwmj 1y ago
  A peculiar bit of whataboutism.
  - StarGrit 1y ago
    It literally isn't whataboutism. It is a statement of fact about the nature of the US state (and would apply to most western ones tbh). Freedom of Speech is simply a privilege that those in power grant you when it is convenient to do so. It will be taken away when expedient to do so. The post I was replying to seemed to believe it was a novel situation.
jackjeff 1y ago
The irony is that JD Vance lectured the Europeans about their lack of freedom of speech in Europe while invited in Germany.
- saubeidl 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - Herring 1y ago
    Yeah I hope to never say this again, but I'm pretty sure Goebbels was right. Germany took those lessons to heart. Speech and expression related to Nazism is heavily regulated and subjects you to imprisonment. Demonstrations/rallies are often banned. The Nazi party itself is banned. AfD is being monitored by intelligence agencies and might be banned in the future, etc. They do this defensively when groups demonstrate an "actively belligerent, aggressive stance" towards the democratic order. Because it's like pointing a gun at people in public - it's already violent even if you don't pull the trigger.
    - DiogenesKynikos 1y ago
      Germany has never had much of a culture of free speech. The intelligence agencies in charge of monitoring extremists have long had their own problems with extremism. The former head of the agency for "Protection of the Constitution" ("Verfassungsschutz") himself turned out to be a xenophobic right-wing extremist.[0] They have wide authority to spy on citizens based purely on their political views. Unless you really, really trust the agency doing that, this is not a good thing for society. During the war in Gaza, the various restrictions on free speech were used to crack down on pro-Palestinian protesters. For many months after October 7th, many cities (such as Hamburg) issued blanket bans of pro-Palestinian protests. A Jewish German woman was even arrested for standing alone in a public square and holding up a sign about Gaza, because that was supposedly a violation of the ban on protests about Gaza.[1] All sorts of people have been banned from entering the country (including an elected member of the European Parliament, Yannis Varoufakis [2]), purely because of their views on Gaza. A major conference in Berlin was broken up by police because they allowed "banned" individuals to speak over Zoom (banned explicitly for their views on Gaza) [3]. When there's a major event going on in the world (which your government is involved in), and the government tells you you're not allowed to demonstrate about it, that's not a good thing. These supposed protections have not done much of anything to prevent the rise of the far right in Germany. The "Alternative for Germany" (AfD) is a right-wing extremist party filled with "former" neo-Nazis (such as the leader of the party in the state of Thuringia, who used to write neo-Nazi articles under a pseudonym [4]). The AfD is now polling at 25%, making it tied for the most popular party in Germany. Even if the AfD doesn't get into government, the conservatives are imitating them more and more. The Chancellor recently said that German cities no longer look right (because you see too many foreigners). When asked what he meant, he responded, "Ask your daughter" (with the obvious implication). And no, the agency for protection of the constitution is obviously not going to tell him to stop saying things like this. The German system of political censorship is not something that other countries should be imitating. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Georg_Maa%C3%9Fen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Georg_Maa%C3%9Fen 1. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/1/we-jews-are-just-arrested-palestinians-are-beaten-german-protesters https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/1/we-jews-are-just-arr... 2. https://www.newstatesman.com/diary/2024/04/cancelled-germany-yanis-varoufakis-israel-palestine https://www.newstatesman.com/diary/2024/04/cancelled-germany... 3. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pal%C3%A4stina-Kongress_in_Berlin https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pal%C3%A4stina-Kongress_in_Ber... 4. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B6rn_H%C3%B6cke#Pseudonym_%E2%80%9ELandolf_Ladig%E2%80%9C https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B6rn_H%C3%B6cke#Pseudony...
_heimdall 1y ago
Did the government force YouTube to take down the videos? Freedom of speech is meant to protect us from government censorship. Trump sanctions would fall into that category, but a social media site censoring what they don't want to host seems like fair game.
- the_af 1y ago
  > Did the government force YouTube to take down the videos? The article answers this: > YouTube, which is owned by Google, confirmed to The Intercept that it deleted the groups’ accounts as a direct result of State Department sanctions against the group after a review.
  - _heimdall 1y ago
    I could see a court finding that to be a first amendment violation, but that isn't the same as the government directly requesting YouTube to take down videos. Sanctions were put in place and YouTube followed policy to not allow content from sanctioned groups. That sounds like a loophole, and could be found by a court to be a violation, but it isn't nearly as cut and dry as people here seem to be making it out to be.
- latexr 1y ago
  > Did the government force YouTube to take down the videos? Yes, according to the article. That argument is made over and over in it, it’s hard to miss. “Forcing” doesn’t just mean directly requiring the action, it also means the threat of “this is not going to end up well for you if you don’t comply”. Of course, you can argue that Google could and should fight it, but that doesn’t change what the government is doing. > but a social media site censoring what they don't want to host seems like fair game. Again, the article makes it really clear they are doing this as the direct result of government actions.
  - _heimdall 1y ago
    It doesn't seem that clear in my opinion. There is a lot of smoke there, and I wouldn't be surprised if there was a fire, but I didn't see the article specifically claiming the government directed YouTube to take down the videos. I saw multiple references there to the government sanctioning groups and that YouTube took down videos based on the sanctions. That very well could be a loophole and a court might deem that a first amendment violation, but it isn't as simple as finding communications where the government directly requested those videos to be taken down.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
mpalmer 1y ago
The ICC is not a beneficiary of the Constitution, nor is YouTube bound by the Constitution. I'm unhappy for the same reasons as you, but this isn't how 1A works.
- davorak 1y ago
  > nor is YouTube bound by the Constitution. nitpick - Youtube is bound by the US Constitution, it is the highest law of the land. 1A[1] is only about binding the government/congresses power though so youtube is not bound by 1A. [1] https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/ https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/
- jackjeff 1y ago
  The problem is that these private companies have taken a disproportionate place in public discourse. You are absolutely right that freedom of speech does not guarantee the right to post anything on YouTube (someone else's website). In fact YouTube has the right (protected speech) to censor you and refuse to let you post long as they don't do in a discriminatory way (for instance, only "white people" can post would be discriminatory/illegal). The problem is that in practice, if you can't do YouTube, Facebook, Tiktok, INsta, etc... your speech will not be heard by anyone. It's like if a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, the fact that it makes sound is irrelevant. So effectively, it amounts to censorship, even though the government potentially had no hand in it. Now imagine someone in Trump administration pressured Google with a juicy contract, or the prospect of an expensive lawsuit, and the quid pro quo was dumping these videos that annoy "our Israeli friends". This kind of "pay to play" is at minimum corruption. It may also fall of short of constitutional guarantees for free speech. Ironically, it is exactly the same thing a lot of members of the Trump administration have accused Biden of doing (exhibit: the so called "Twitter Files" etc... ), although I don't believe this went anywhere in federal courts (am I wrong?) I honestly don't know what the answer is. But I would not be surprised if in 50 years time, some of these large companies get regulated as "utilities" and are no longer able to yank "videos" from their platform just because they feel like it. And every time they "abuse" their powers, I feel like we get an inch closer to that onerous regulation.
EdiX 1y ago
Where were you in the last 6 years? Ah, I see, people you didn't like were being censored so you didn't care.
- decremental 1y ago
  [dead]
- woodpanel 1y ago
  Exactly, it's laughable that this is coming from the same people who cheered on auto de-monetization for even mentioning the word "Covid" in a YT-video or the countless de-platforming and de-banking of individuals. Is this still gaslighting or something else?
  - skulk 1y ago
    Google didn't censor covid-related conspiracies or whatever at the behest of the government. YouTube can censor whoever it wants but the US government cannot. Also, do you have any actual evidence of political debanking in the US? I can't find any references to it other than the propaganda of the current administration.
    - econ 1y ago
      I don't know anything so I tried searching. This was th first result. https://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/google-admits-censorship-under-biden-promises-end-bans-youtube-accounts https://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/google-admi... Make of it what you will.
      - acdha 1y ago
        Google’s employees didn’t mention government pressure earlier and the company only started talking about that in conjunction with their PR plan to get favorable treatment from the current administration: https://www.wired.com/story/republicans-claim-biden-censored-youtube/ https://www.wired.com/story/republicans-claim-biden-censored...
ta20240528 1y ago
"now pro-Palestinian groups can't post videos of Israeli abuse on YouTube." Perhaps not, but they could courier the evidence on a DVD to the Hague.
jalapenof 1y ago
[flagged]

Bender 1y ago

Did anyone mirror the videos on their own servers?

hsbauauvhabzb 1y ago
I looked into writing a script that wires yt-dlp to archive.org, iirc one already existed, but archive.org requested that people only upload videos that are at risk of deletion by YouTube. I guess this would be a valid contender. I’d encourage anyone to begin mirroring videos for that reason.
- 9991 1y ago
  Is that a joke? They're all 'at risk' of deletion.
  - hsbauauvhabzb 1y ago
    No, the vast majority of videos on YouTube are not at a particular risk of deletion. Specific topics are, but the average Linus tech tips video is not.
    - teddyh 1y ago
      Amusingly, Linus Tech Tips has had many videos censored and removed by YouTube.
      - hsbauauvhabzb 1y ago
        I think it’s pretty obvious when they’re gonna get removed. Almost certainly someone has a local mirror of that channel.
        serf 1y ago
        it is not at all obvious when some automated check somewhere will flag or remove a youtube video. all YT videos are in danger of deletion. You can argue whether or not they're worthy of the merit of saving, but you cannot deny their risk for sudden removal.

yahoozoo 1y ago

[flagged]

isodev 1y ago

That's why we have Peertube and your personal (not hosted by a corp) website. It's amazing how people forgot to use the internet in exchange for "easier" UX.

the_af 1y ago
I don't think it's about UX at this point. It's more about critical mass. Unfortunately, YouTube is where the videos and audience are... yes, it's a Catch-22 situation.
- gloxkiqcza 1y ago
  In case of YouTube I wouldn’t be so sure. Yes, it’s the central hub for making your name but many YouTubers came up with their own platforms for exclusive content to have more control over their business once they got big. PeerTube is inline with that idea and because of that might be promoted by big creators soon.
  - Lionga 1y ago
    This will be the year of PeerTube on the Desktop!!!
- Bender 1y ago
  Youtube is certainly useful for discovery and monetization but if the goal is to share a video that may be censored I would suggest everyone should upload to {n+2} locations at a minimum and link to both YT and the self hosted mirrors from a blog after linking to the blog from YT. It's easier than friends of YT would suggest.
konart 1y ago
>It's amazing how people forgot to use the internet in exchange for "easier" UX. What's so amazing here? This a normal and expected human behaviour. >forgot to use the internet What does this even mean in this context?
- 1y ago

uriee 1y ago

[flagged]

jackjeff 1y ago
The article has a very long list of alleged Israeli violations of international law and human rights. Here's a quick summary. Genocide in Gaza. It is described as a "genocidal campaign" implying systematic targeting of a national, ethnic, or religious group, prohibited under the 1948 Genocide Convention. This is what the ICC is investigating now. War Crimes: - Killing of Palestinian civilians, including children and families. - Killing of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, a violation of the Geneva Conventions protecting civilians and journalists in conflict zones. - Destruction of Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank, possibly constituting collective punishment or unlawful destruction of property under the Fourth Geneva Convention. - Intentionally starving civilians by blocking humanitarian aid into Gaza, explicitly prohibited under Article 54 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions and cited in ICC arrest warrants for Israeli officials. - Torture of Palestinian detainees by Israeli forces, a violation of the UN Convention Against Torture. The article also alleges complicity from the US authorities and corporations (YouTube, Google, MailChimp).
- stopthebullshit 1y ago
  [dead]
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
gosub100 1y ago
Blowing up buildings with people inside.
- boxed 1y ago
  [flagged]

notorandit 1y ago

If all this is true, then it's another step towards freedom. Freedom to delete and rewrite history.

dncornholio 1y ago
We shouldn't rely on YouTube to write our history. It's just an American entertainment website that makes money of ads. It has no other obligations. It can do whatever it wants, or what the US government wants. This is not news.
FridayoLeary 1y ago
I'm sure it's technically true, with absolutely no nuance. You can say "BBC pull documentary of life inside gaza" which is completely accurate. What is also true is that the boy who was the main focus of the documentary was the son of a Hamas official which throws the whole thing into question. YT normally takes down any video depicting violence.

metalman 1y ago

more than 700 genocide video's ,confirmed to have been removed, with countless others, errased, along with the person who took the video too quickly to be noticed. the strong implication is that utube has dedicated resources and staff working 24/7 to do this, or has allowed "outside" entities privlages to do so. though given the demographics in the NYC race, real support for the genocide is weak.

neonate 1y ago

https://archive.li/sGz40 https://archive.li/sGz40

manyaoman 1y ago

Not gonna lie, Boot Bullwinkle is an awesome name.

CommanderData 1y ago

Facebook have a Zionist censorship team. YouTube probably has far worse. All US social media are bound to US foreign policy which enables Israel to continue it's invasion and systematic cleansing of Palestinians.

sciencesama 1y ago
With even a small percent of population they can do so much !!
- eldgfipo 1y ago
  Neocons/Zionist is a huge percentage of people in power (including the ones appointed or who ruthlessly climbed up the corporate ladder)
  - kiicia 1y ago
    Yes they are, what was conspiracy theory for years turned out to be true And if someone is not, then they have material for blackmail
kiicia 1y ago
For months now word „zionist” is officially banned on Facebook and hasbara bots are ready to tell you that you are antisemite

xyzal 1y ago

Fed up by status quo? Consider donating. https://www.hindrajabfoundation.org/donate https://www.hindrajabfoundation.org/donate

nujabe 1y ago
Done
bjoli 1y ago
For those not clicking random links: this foundation tries to find evidence of atrocities by people with dual citizenship so that they can be prosecuted in their other home country.
- js212 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - justacrow 1y ago
    It's also not mandatory for the majority of jews, as they are not Israeli citizens

boxed 1y ago

Youtube takes down snuff. News at 11. It doesn't matter if the snuff is an Israeli shooting a Palestinian, or a jihadi beheading a cartoonist. It's all removed because YouTube doesn't accept snuff on its platform.

teddyh 1y ago
Technically, “snuff” is usually defined as at least being made for entertainment (I say “usually”, since commonly other requirements are added as well). But beheading videos and the like are meant to scare their enemies, not to entertain weirdos on the internet. So these are not “snuff” videos.
- fluoridation 1y ago
  If you want to get technical, then >A film or video clip which involves a real non-acted murder. It seems like any video depicting a real murder would count as snuff. In any case, has YouTube ever allowed either kind?
  - teddyh 1y ago
    I dispute that definition: <https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/a-pinch-of-snuff/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/a-pinch-of-snuff/>
- boxed 1y ago
  I would think the "for entertainment" is in the eye of the beholder, and the production part is irrelevant. In either case, YouTube has never allowed this stuff.
  - lern_too_spel 1y ago
    These were documentaries made by nonprofits, not snuff films. As the article states, they were removed due to sanctions, not for violating YouTube policies.

laincide 1y ago

[flagged]

elihu 1y ago

Another form of tech industry Gaza atrocity denialism and gaslighting is satellite maps of Gaza. Bing maps seems to be entirely pre-war as far as I can tell. In a way, that's kind of useful, as it can serve as a reference for what Gaza used to look like in A/B comparisons. Google maps on the other hand has had at least some updates. Southern Gaza appears basically unscathed, but the Northern part shows some wide swathes where there's very little left but dust and rubble. I think Google did that update a couple months ago. Before that it was kind of hard to find any serious damage at all. (Jabalia refugee camp has shown as a ruin before that update.) To some extent it's understandable that neither company wants to be updating all of their satellite images all the time. Still, the war has been going on for years and this is a place that a huge number of people really want to know what's going on. Updating slowly (Google) or not at all (Microsoft) at this point seem like deliberate policies, and I'd imagine they're probably highly contentious within those companies.

alsetmusic 1y ago

There was an article yesterday about Jimmy Wales commenting on edit wars on the Wikipedia entry for Genocide in Gaza (or similar title). The article didn't indicate his taking one side or the other, but I'd prefer if people didn't use name-recognition to influence such things (yes, even if they take the same side as me because others will do the same in the other direction). Fwiw, I downloaded a torrent of footage documenting the genocide last year. I don't think it would be considered appropriate for me to link to it here on HN, but I wanted to raise awareness that torrents such as this exist. I'm also on a torrent full of CDC data that was taken down by the current admin plus a couple of other public-service torrents. You can find stuff like this too. I got mine from a certain federated clone of the R site.

underdeserver 1y ago
He's not trying to influence anything - he's trying to safeguard Wikipedia's stated neutral point-of-view policy. His statement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gaza_genocide#Statement_from_Jimbo_Wales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gaza_genocide#Statement_f... Whatever your point of view is, he explains clearly why the article is biased: > At present, the lede and the overall presentation state, in Wikipedia’s voice, that Israel is committing genocide, although that claim is highly contested. This is a violation of WP:NPOV and WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV that requires immediate correction. > A neutral approach would begin with a formulation such as: “Multiple governments, NGOs, and legal bodies have described or rejected the characterization of Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide.”
dlubarov 1y ago
The position Wales was taking was that Wikipedia shouldn't be calling it a genocide in its own voice ("wikivoice"), which means taking a side rather than neutrally documenting the controversy. Larry Sanger also made a similar statement. The two Wikipedia founders had a falling out back in the day, and it's the first time in a long time that they've publicly agreed on anything. Neither has any special power on the wiki though. One might hope that both founders pointing out NPOV issues could be a wake-up call to stop interpreting the NPOV policy "creatively" to push an agenda,[3] but realistically nothing seems likely to change. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gaza_genocide#Statement_from_Jimbo_Wales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gaza_genocide#Statement_f... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gaza_genocide#Statement_from_Larry_Sanger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gaza_genocide#Statement_f... [3] As an example of "creative workarounds" to Wikipedia's neutrality policy, one of the justifications for renaming "Allegations ..." to "Gaza genocide" was a rather bizarre idea that neutrality doesn't apply to titles since they're "topics", not statements. The statement implied by the new title was then predictably used as one of the justifications for changing the article body to use "genocide" in wikivoice.

AraceliHarker 1y ago

The deleted videos did, in fact, violate YouTube's rules, but it's questionable whether YouTube would have taken them down if they hadn't shown an Israeli soldier carrying out a lynching.

thisislife2 1y ago
You are not spouting any fringe consipracy theory. Videos commenting on Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza ( see https://genocide.live/locations https://genocide.live/locations ) on TikTok played a huge role in publicising the genocide to the world. And it is also the primary reason why the western backers of Israel were so hell bent on acquiring TikTok - an IDF soldier, who is a "proud American Jew" and Zionist, already oversees "hate speech" and "antisemitism" policies on TikTok ( see https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/tiktok-hires-former-idf-reservist-as-new-hate-speech-policy-manager/ https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/tiktok-hires-former-idf-reservi... ). And Netanyahu also publicly affirmed that social media was Israel’s new ‘weapon’ after the TikTok acquisition ( see https://www.newarab.com/news/netanyahu-says-social-media-israels-new-weapon https://www.newarab.com/news/netanyahu-says-social-media-isr... ).
- raxxorraxor 1y ago
  Most of these were probably one-sided propaganda videos. Ironically these are mostly policies against "fake news" that were pushed by a political faction that now complains about censorship. People that are mad about the death of their revolution, developed an inferiority complex, looked at propaganda on TikTok and are now disliking Jews. You can argue the position to be more sophisticated, but sometimes it is not and it wouldn't be the first time. And of course there is ample and valid criticism of policies of Israel but I heavily doubt that these videos were informative. Granted, this is entirely based on some assumptions.

aristofun 1y ago

Afaik they also remove hamas atrocities and genocide videos. So it's a fair game at least.