[HN Gopher] Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garne...
___________________________________________________________________
Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from
US lawmakers
Author : frob
Score : 557 points
Date : 2024-06-05 12:41 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.haaretz.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.haaretz.com)
| throwaway55479 wrote:
| https://archive.ph/sbAPI
| pokepim wrote:
| Just as russian bots, israeli bots spreading fake news are worst
| thing that happened to our society. Crazy that people are falling
| for this but here we are
| greenavocado wrote:
| How many congressmen are dual citizens with Israeli
| citizenship? This is even worse. Also, AIPAC _is allowed to
| exist_. As a thought experiment replace Israeli with Russian
| citizenship for the Israeli dual citizens in Congress and
| replace AIPAC with a hypothetical Russian ARPAC. Imagine how
| crazy this would be. Yet the current situation is somehow
| completely acceptable.
| golergka wrote:
| > As a thought experiment replace Israeli with Russian
| citizenship for the Israeli dual citizens in Congress and
| replace AIPAC with a hypothetical Russian ARPAC
|
| Is Russia the main American ally in the region that
| contributes enormously to American intelligence and R&D,
| while also supporting American military operations?
| Hikikomori wrote:
| South Africa was also their ally in that region.
| throw310822 wrote:
| Have you considered that things might go the other way
| around: if Russia had such a strong influence on the US
| through its political action lobby as Israel does, Russia
| would be considered by politicians the main ally of the US,
| and the economic and military ties between the two
| countries would be unbreakable. Because the purpose of
| these lobbies is exactly to influence how a certain country
| _feels_ and acts about another.
| jhp123 wrote:
| > How many congressmen are dual citizens with Israeli
| citizenship?
|
| Zero? I can't find a reliable source for any congress member
| being an Israeli citizen
| wonderwonder wrote:
| OP means Jews
|
| https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/news/defining-
| antisem...
|
| Lots of people going masks off now that is cool to be anti-
| semitic again but now we call it anti-zionist.
| tumsfestival wrote:
| This post was brought to you by the IDF, remember if you
| don't agree with us you're as bad as Nazis.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| so did OP not mean Jews or are we saying that anyone
| inferring that someone is anti semitic is working for the
| IDF?
| wonderwonder wrote:
| "How many congressmen are dual citizens with Israeli
| citizenship"
|
| By this do you mean Jews? Should be prevent Jewish people
| from being allowed in congress?
|
| "AIPAC is allowed to exist" Should we prevent it from
| existing becuase it supports a Jewish state? You have no
| issue with the hundreds of other lobbying groups, just the
| jewish one.
| throw310822 wrote:
| It's not Jewish, it's pro-Israel (American _Israel_ Public
| Affair Committee). Israel is a foreign country whose
| interests might be conflicting with those of the US. That
| 's different, don't you think?
| wonderwonder wrote:
| you going to ignore OP's mention of "Dual Citizens"
| clearly meaning Jews?
|
| Odd that people are only concerned with AIPAC and not the
| other foreign PACS.
|
| Wonder what the differentiating factor is?
|
| https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-
| pacs...
| mountainofdeath wrote:
| To my knowledge, zero. If you really mean Jews, I think there
| are roughly 40 between both houses of Congress. None of them
| are Israeli citizens. Jews are not automatically citizens of
| Israel though they do have dedicated pathway to obtaining it,
| but it's not as simple as merely showing up and claim you are
| Jewish.
| wk_end wrote:
| > How many congressmen are dual citizens with Israeli
| citizenship?
|
| I don't know. How many? I was curious and Googled, and
| couldn't find any good authoritative lists. This Quora answer
| [0] implies that the answer is zero, as does this Snopes
| article [1]. Both answers mention that there's various
| incorrect lists going around that are white supremacist
| propaganda.
|
| [0] https://www.quora.com/Which-current-members-of-Congress-
| have...
|
| [1] https://www.snopes.com/news/2024/02/05/dual-citizenship-
| elec...
| SkipperCat wrote:
| Not a comment about who's right or wrong in this war, but it is
| fascinating that we have entered the age of the Internet being a
| place where warfare is fought. There have always been people
| posting web content about conflicts but now with Gaza and
| Ukraine, it seems that the nations fighting are actively looking
| at the internet as the fourth field of battle.
|
| Just waiting for a random US future president to create an
| "Internet" branch of the military. Maybe that's already happened.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| Espionage/propaganda/public relations/influence campaigns are
| hardly new. Social media is just a new flavor to go along with
| the others.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| I do think the economy is different. You've always been able
| to just hire a bunch of thugs to stage an event to shape the
| narrative, like old-school cold war style. That takes money
| and effort and a modicum of skill and the risk of being
| caught with your pants down is not negligible.
|
| Difference today is you can stoke the flames of public
| outrage with just a few people, without even setting foot in
| the country, while maintaining a lot of plausible
| deniability, since the modern playbook relies heavily on
| uncertainty and confusion, meaning you can safely target
| allies without significant risk of being caught (even if
| you're caught, you can deny it and say it's hostile
| propaganda).
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Even in the old days, if your operation was caught, you
| could always claim that it was an enemy false flag. (And if
| it was your false flag and you were caught, you could
| always claim that it was an enemy provocation.)
| somenameforme wrote:
| This seems reasonable, but it runs into a little problem.
| If you engage in political discussion anywhere on the
| internet, the first thing you'll find is that people, if
| they have formed an opinion, have exactly 0 interest in
| changing their mind. If you already hold a genuine and
| internally formed view on e.g. the Israel - Palestine
| conflict, then even if somebody sat you (or me) in front of
| 24/7 propaganda for the other side, they'd be unlikely to
| ever change either of our minds.
|
| Propaganda only seems to work in two situations. The first
| is on topics people know nothing about. Each time the US
| invades some places most people couldn't even find on a
| map, support for it rises in accordance with the
| propaganda. But as people learn more, and gradually form
| their own values, that support tends to rapidly decline.
| And there are also long-term consequences, because people
| will remember being lied to. My views on the US war machine
| and geopolitics in general seem unlikely, at this point, to
| ever change. And they were largely formed due to the Iraq
| War. Irrefutable [1] _and_ Undeniable [2] are two 21 year
| old articles I still go back to on occasion.
|
| The other situation is when it's true. During the Cold War
| we spread endless propaganda about things like having
| stocked store shelves. This is doubly effective in the same
| way that lying propaganda is doubly ineffective. Because
| not only does it create a desired perception, but once
| people gradually find out it's really true, it also tends
| to turn them against their own government who invariably
| misrepresents such situations. Again, people don't like
| being lied to.
|
| [1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2003/
| 02/06/i...
|
| [2] -
| https://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/06/opinion/irrefutable-
| and-u...
| syncmaster913n wrote:
| The purpose of propaganda, in its broadest definition,
| isn't to change minds. It is to leverage the existing
| contents of a mind in a way that makes you perform a
| certain _action_ that is desired by the propagandist.
|
| The belief that holding strong opinions protects against
| propaganda is dangerous. Strong opinions is where
| propaganda inserts its levers.
| vharuck wrote:
| People also seem to discount the effects of internet
| operations by enemy states. For example, in 2022, the FBI
| blamed the state of North Korea for a string of hacks on US
| health systems. The "meatspace" equivalent would've been
| North Korean operatives infiltrating dozens of hospitals
| and destroying records or supplies. If that had happened,
| there would've been a bigger response from the government
| than "Mind your physical security, hospitals." But it's the
| internet, so who cares (besides the people immediately
| affected)?
| paul7986 wrote:
| Indeed and one reason i don't watch or pay attention to news
| media(TV, online, etc) especially political news. What to
| believe is real / the truth and with the advent of AI, Deep
| fake voices and deep fake videos the Internet becomes an even
| worse place for deciphering truth.
|
| Here's AI Trump and AI Biden debating live now on Twitch
| (video isnt great as of today but the voices are)
| https://m.twitch.tv/videos/2157689323
| akudha wrote:
| Yes, they're not new. But it is ridiculously easy and cheap
| today to do propaganda than even 30 years ago. We're
| connected to the outrage machine 24/7 now because of
| internet/social media/smartphones, vs say 1980.
|
| God knows what % of the population has mental issues because
| we watch too much Twitter and Facebook and other crap
| gdsdfe wrote:
| we entered the age ?! we've been here for at least a decade
| runarberg wrote:
| I'm of the opinion that what we are witnessing is the first
| information age genocide. Just like how the holocaust was the
| first genocide to use industrial technology and processes to
| conduct the horrors, today, Israel is using information age
| technology to commit and propagandize their genocide.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| The holocaust came of age in the dawn of the information age
| if you count the radio as information technology, albeit a
| very one-sided information technology where you had the
| government giving everyone cheap radios that were only marked
| to tune to German and Austrian radio stations, unless you
| dared to go out at night to get an antenna up to receive
| others. [1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksempf%C3%A4nger
| runarberg wrote:
| This also applies to the Rwandan genocide. A lot of it was
| perpetrated via mass media, especially radio. But you can
| also claim that there were Industrialized genocides before
| the Holocaust, but what sets it apart is just how much it
| was defined by industrialized processes.
|
| The Gaza Genocide is similar, the use of AI for target
| selection (or rather generation), the social media
| campaigns, using drones for killings, etc. We haven't seen
| a genocide before which uses information technology to the
| extent it really defines whole processes of the genocide.
| hedora wrote:
| Germany pioneered a lot of modern propaganda techniques
| in WWII:
|
| The first television broadcast on earth was of Hitler,
| and his chief propagandist, Goebbles, continues to have
| significant influence on modern propagandists. For
| instance, Biden's publicly compared the tactics Trump
| used in the 2020 "Big Lie" campaign to those of Goebbles.
| Of course, there was also the Hitler Youth, which was a
| pretty successful social engineering campaign.
|
| On the computer side of things: IBM mainframes were
| famously an enabling technology for the holocaust and
| german war machine.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Just look at how that's evolved into what's now referred to
| a "talk radio". Only, you have multiple stations available
| so you can choose your particular firebrand to listen.
| hedgehog wrote:
| Tigray region and Mynamar are two earlier candidates.
| megous wrote:
| A lot of people have both mechanisms to record what's
| happening, and share it.
|
| It's been that way with Syria conflict, too, though. A lot
| was shared in twitter/youtube during that one.
|
| One thing that's seemingly a bit new is how much ordinary
| Israeli soldiers are sharing their behavior, empowered by
| their self-righteousness, I guess. Videos from shooting
| unarmed deaf people up close in their homes, to all kinds of
| calls for atrocities, actual assaults on international
| humanitarian aid trucks and violence against the drivers,
| cheerful mocking of starving people, dedicating videos of
| them blowing up peoples homes as gifts to their spouses back
| home in Israel, looting and stealing, wanton destruction of
| property (like going around and breaking things in someone's
| gift shop), burning people's houses down, etc. There's so
| much of this.
|
| Entire 130k strong Israeli telegram channels are dedicated to
| collective cheering on and mocking of dead and suffering
| people: https://t.me/s/dead_terrorists Total dehumanization.
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _empowered by their self-righteousness_ ... _Total
| dehumanisation_
|
| Jeez, just like those supremacists of the yesteryears
| Hollywood made movies to warn us about, then?
| megous wrote:
| Those warned us that we westerners are not immune from
| getting manipulated into engaging in, and turning a blind
| eye to mass atrocities against entire groups of people.
| Even to attempts at their eradication. It was a lesson
| about the west and humanity.
|
| We didn't learn though.
| nsguy wrote:
| I think you got this the wrong way around. It's the first
| time in the information age that a country [is] forced to
| yield a war via false claims propagated through social media.
| dang wrote:
| Your account has continued to use HN primarily for political
| battle after we asked you recently to stop:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40519369 (May 2024)
|
| If you keep this up we're going to have to ban you, for
| reasons explained on many past occasions: https://hn.algolia.
| com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme....
|
| Edit for anyone concerned: yes, this principle applies
| regardless of which side of any political conflict an account
| is identified with.
| oddtuple wrote:
| Dang, We get you're frustrated but he's just stating his
| opinion. It's not out of line relative to the other
| discourse in this thread.
| sir0010010 wrote:
| I think if you read the guide that dang linked to, it is
| clear that the account is breaking the rules for
| flamebait.
| oddtuple wrote:
| I have read the guide, although i appreciate reaffirming
| it as the source of truth. What's hard is from a glance
| at the posters history their comments don't seem to break
| the guidelines, but instead fall into the camp of
| spirited (albeit strongly so) opinions. Are there
| specific comments made that weren't in the spirit of the
| guidelines? It feels "primarily for ideological purposes"
| is hard to counter in a discussion because "ideological"
| itself is a murky term at best.
| dang wrote:
| The issue, in this case, isn't opinions nor the other
| discourse in the thread. Rather, it is the account's
| comments over a long stretch of time.
|
| The question "has an account been using HN primarily for
| political or ideological battle?" is one of the most
| important criteria we use in HN moderation. When it is
| the case, we ask an account to stop and/or end up banning
| it.
|
| This rule has many advantages. One is that it's a
| reasonably objective call to make (and for readers to
| verify) regardless of the specific views a user is
| arguing for or against. Another is that it allows for a
| certain amount of political and ideological discussion
| (as long as it doesn't break the site guidelines in other
| ways, of course:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).
|
| More at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40589862
| runarberg wrote:
| I'm sorry, I did not mean for this comment to be a
| political point, but rather an observation on how
| technology is used in mass atrocities. I was hoping to
| raise a point which I find interesting, which other may or
| may not agree with. I've gotten a couple of excellent
| replies here raising interesting counterpoints.
|
| After posting this, and reading the replies, I'm actually
| less convinced about my original point. That is, I've
| learned something.
| dang wrote:
| I believe you, but it's too fine a distinction to make a
| difference on the important point. Your account has
| obviously been primarily (even exclusively) focused on
| this one topic for quite a while now. That's not allowed
| on HN because if we did allow it, HN would dramatically
| shift towards becoming a current-affairs site, which is
| not its mandate.
|
| This is not to say that the topic doesn't matter. Of
| course it matters, a great deal--more than almost
| anything that gets discussed here. But that not only
| doesn't change the above point, it makes it even more
| important.
|
| As I said the last time I replied to you, I appreciate
| that your comments have mostly not been breaking the site
| guidelines in other ways. But the "primarily" test
| applies regardless.
|
| I don't want to ban you as you've been here a long time
| and have used the site as intended in the past. But I
| have to go quite a long way back into the past before
| that becomes visible. This is not ok.
| racional wrote:
| It seems you've been triggered by the mention of the
| g-word. But when we calmly consider what the commenter is
| saying: Israel is using information age
| technology to commit and propagandize their genocide
|
| It's plainly not an unreasonable proposition, nor does it
| seem to be intended to engage in battle or provoke. They're
| simply describing a perfectly horrible situation that
| happening on the ground (that some recognized experts in
| the field _do_ consider to be a form of genocide per the UN
| definition of such) and the fact that modern information
| technologies seem to be a part of the mechanism that is
| bringing it about.
|
| The post expresses an opinion, but it definitely wasn't
| flamebait.
| dang wrote:
| I wasn't responding to any proposition, but rather to the
| pattern of how the account is using Hacker News over a
| long stretch of time. That's what the word "primarily"
| refers to, and it's the most important thing to
| understand.
|
| Of course I _replied_ to a specific post because any
| reply has to do that; but I was _responding_ to the
| account 's use of HN over time. That's the issue here.
|
| I wrote the GP in haste and can see how this point wasn't
| obvious. On the other hand it should quickly become
| obvious to anyone who clicks on the link I provided (http
| s://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme.
| ..), which is the purpose of providing the link.
|
| (more at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40589978)
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Oh come on, it's obviously flamebait to say Israel is
| conducting a genocide even if you agree with the claim.
| wordofx wrote:
| There is no genocide. Why do people keep spreading this
| false narrative.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Its not at all, even if you mean "social media age", and not
| "information age", it's just one of the first (there are
| other disputed candidates, e.g., in Ukraine) that are getting
| first world attention other than after-the-fact.
|
| The Rohingya genocide in Myanmar in which Facebook's role was
| widely discussed (largely, in the first world, after the
| fact) was probably the first social media age genocide, if
| you don't restrict it to ones with immediate first-world
| attention at a significant level.
| runarberg wrote:
| I'm thinking in terms of processes _and_ propaganda. While
| other genocides use information technology for
| communication and propaganda, this one is unique in that
| information technology is used throughout, including in
| target selection and killings. The Rohingya Genocide does
| not e.g. use drones to carry out killings with targets
| selected by AI.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > While other genocides use information technology for
| communication and propaganda, this one is unique in that
| information technology is used throughout, including in
| target selection and killings.
|
| No, its not. Heck, the _Holocaust_ used information
| technology for target selection.
|
| > The Rohingya Genocide does not e.g. use drones
|
| The genocides in the former Yugoslavia used most of the
| weapons of then-modern warfare, which may not have
| included drones but certainly involved plenty of weapons
| systems that incorporate "information technology" in
| doing the killings.
| vitus wrote:
| > Just waiting for a random US future president to create an
| "Internet" branch of the military. Maybe that's already
| happened.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Cyber_Command is
| the closest thing that we have today. It's not a formal branch,
| though, but rather a joint effort across the existing branches.
| jowea wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cyber_warfare_forces
|
| A cursory look and it seems Germany and China were first to
| having a specific branch, but China dissolved theirs
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber_and_Information_Domain_S.
| ..
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Liberation_Army_Str.
| ..
| greentxt wrote:
| China's was disbanded like 1 wikipedia edit ago (46 days),
| if you believe that.
| caycep wrote:
| edit made by whatever APT hacking group du jour the PLA
| has in operation at the moment!
| lucubratory wrote:
| That's much more oriented to network security, spectrum and
| hardware, stuff like that. For an American military
| organisation engaged in internet influence operations you'd
| want to look at the signature reduction program. Something
| like 50,000 people strong at this point, insane amounts of
| resources going into that.
| axus wrote:
| I've always been a keyboard warrior, volunteering to defend my
| country on message boards.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| We entered that some time ago; or rather, the Internet
| accelerates the use of such information operations. This is
| (imho) why Musk bought Twitter.
| pradn wrote:
| There's a whole term for this:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth-generation_warfare
| wruza wrote:
| The internet created a whole stratum of people who don't use
| tv, radio and newspaper anymore. It's not that we _entered_
| internet warfare, we just exited absolute control of large mass
| media. Now every TLA has to deal with it somehow.
|
| Why internet is the battlefield? Because everything in our
| world is based on an opinion. You can sell a lot of bs to your
| "client" if he has "correct" opinion.
|
| Bad news, our opinion system was designed for groups and
| villages, not for the internet.
| xanthor wrote:
| The Internet as we think of it is already a military project.
| Why do you think so much emphasis is put on countries that
| assert sovereignty over their own information space?
| dfxm12 wrote:
| "Manufacturing Consent" was written in the 80s mostly in
| response to newspapers, but the ideas have been adapted to the
| Internet for some time (and talk radio, and cable news, etc.).
| I'm old enough to remember this from the Iraq war. Yeah, we
| didn't have microblogging back then, but there were Email
| campaigns, blogs, message boards, chat rooms, etc.
| akudha wrote:
| Propaganda, false news etc are as old as time. It was the
| radio, TV and newspapers before, now it is social media and
| the internet.
|
| The difference now is the speed, cost and scale. It is super
| cheap to spread crap today than ever. Also it is quick and
| the reach is massive.
|
| By the way, _Manufacturing Consent_ is a depressing book.
| You'd lose what little faith you have in media, if you read
| it...
| SCUSKU wrote:
| I think one of the big takeaways for me was aside from
| deliberate manipulation of media by the government and
| willing media partners, that journalists also self censor
| in a way because they are operating in a professional
| environment and within a certain Overton Window.
|
| Maybe it's not what I should remember most, but it did help
| remind me that when your livelihood is based on what you
| say you will be much more measured, regardless of the
| subject.
|
| Probably why people look to social media or Substack for
| more independent people who have a longer leash, less on
| the line, and more to gain, since that's where you get your
| interesting although many times wrong takes (e.g.
| Ivermectin for Covid, or Lab Leak Theory)
| bostik wrote:
| And let's keep in mind that the term "Public Relations" was
| _explicitly_ chosen as a Newspeak-term because Edward Bernays
| realised that the actual term for a war time methodology,
| "propaganda", was too loaded.[0] And honest.
|
| Internet is a communications medium. It was destined to be
| flooded with propaganda, whatever you try to call your
| particular flavour.
|
| Or as I have been saying since the 1990's, the only
| difference between marketing and propaganda is that with
| marketing at least you are trying to peddle a product instead
| of an ideology.
|
| 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays
| Terr_ wrote:
| > Or as I have been saying since the 1990's, the only
| difference between marketing and propaganda is that with
| marketing at least you are trying to peddle a product
| instead of an ideology.
|
| I disagree, ideologies are often already in there, even
| when they are simplistic "power-tools are for men and all
| men require power-tools", or "having better stuff than your
| neighbors is a virtue, failing to do so will lead to
| dangerous ostracization."
|
| Very tame "Our blender spins twice as fast as the
| competition" marketing might be arguably free of ideology,
| but that's a decreasing minority.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > "propaganda", was too loaded.[0] And honest.
|
| Quite often I default to the word propaganda when talking
| about anyone's PR campaigns in my own personal battle with
| trying to undo this. I ratchet it up when talking directly
| to marketing/PR people. Pretty much every time I'm just
| looked at as yet another crazy person.
| chimpanzee wrote:
| > the only difference between marketing and propaganda is
| that with marketing at least you are trying to peddle a
| product instead of an ideology
|
| Marketing often includes the peddling of an ideology as a
| foundation for the product buying, especially for big-
| ticket items. (One buys the product that fits and signals
| one's ideology.) To me, this makes marketing even more
| insidious as we often focus on the product rather than the
| message. Think Ford, Tesla, Apple ...
| netsharc wrote:
| My brain just came up with the phrase "You can't spell
| propaganda without PR", which I think is clever. But I'm
| going to put it into a search engine now and see that it's
| not original...
| trogdor wrote:
| You also can't spell propaganda without pagan. I wonder
| what that means.
| shrubble wrote:
| Eglin Air Force Base and their involvement with Reddit...
| sva_ wrote:
| Wasn't there something with the Canadian military fighting
| (what they called) misinformation on social media during the
| pandemic? Seems like it's already ongoing.
| betaby wrote:
| Canadian government was the source of misinformation on
| social media during the pandemic! Literal curfews were in
| place with propaganda machine saying how good idea it was.
| dylan604 wrote:
| For purposes of conversation and allowing for a moment your
| idea is true, to what purpose was the curfews imposed? Who
| benefited? How? Why were the curfews necessary to achieve
| those goals?
| tredre3 wrote:
| > to what purpose was the curfews imposed?
|
| The stated purpose was to flatten the curve.
|
| > Who benefited?
|
| The government.
|
| > How?
|
| By giving the impression that they were doing something.
|
| > Why were the curfews necessary to achieve those goals?
|
| They weren't, as far as we know. In Quebec's case they
| were still scrambling to justify them a few hours before
| the press conference:
|
| https://www.thesuburban.com/news/legault-s-curfew-
| decision-w...
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/curfew-legality-
| queb...
| dylan604 wrote:
| No, man, this is the problem I have conspiracy nutters.
| They don't actually answer the questions. What was the
| purpose, not the stated purpose. There's a huge
| difference, and they know it. That's why people of their
| tilt do not answer the questions. Lots of times, they
| don't know and are actually just parroting someone else.
|
| You believe there was ulterior motives for the curfew
| being put in place. You say the used the reason to
| flatten the curve, which clearly implies that's not what
| you believe was the actual purpose. So, please, tell
| me/us what you believe the actual purpose of the action
| taken.
| sva_ wrote:
| I think the person you replied to named the purpose as _"
| giving the impression that they were doing something"_,
| which is shockingly often the case with politicians:
| They'll do what they believe will get them voted for
| again.
|
| I don't think it is necessary to insult people as
| 'conspiracy nutters' on here. If you don't want to
| discuss something with someone, just give them a downvote
| and move on. No need to be uncivil.
| tintor wrote:
| US already has
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Cyber_Command
| bitcurious wrote:
| >https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-Q-Tel
|
| The US hasn't been especially loud about it, but it's been a
| dominant force in 'internet warfare.'
| caycep wrote:
| https://www.cybercom.mil
|
| how competent they actually are at this, who knows...
| dwater wrote:
| My first semester of college in Fall of 1999, I wrote a paper
| about cyber warfare and the summary was that the superpowers
| were already doing it, and the only thing expected to change in
| the future was the resources that were online and susceptible
| would increase the scale of cyber war.
| s1k3s wrote:
| Go to the Wikipedia pages of these events and click on "Talk"
| at the top or see the history of those pages. The amount of
| people fighting over this information war is mindblowing.
|
| If anything, this makes me question the accuracy of historical
| events that happened before humanity had access to such tools.
| poincaredisk wrote:
| My understanding is, historians know that the source material
| is 90% bullshit (texts written to appease an ego of some
| lord, chronicles of war against "subhuman" enemies, religious
| scriptures), they just know how to find the remaining 10%.
| throwup238 wrote:
| _> Just waiting for a random US future president to create an
| "Internet" branch of the military. Maybe that's already
| happened._
|
| Cyber Force!
|
| They have cyber marines, cyber carriers, cyber destroyers,
| cyber bombers, cyber jets, and cyber drones. They even have
| their own sister agency called Veterans Affairs where veterans
| can go to get virtual healthcare treatment.
| mrcartmeneses wrote:
| How luxurious of you to have such thoughts in the face of
| genocide
| moate wrote:
| I think we've been here for a while, and I don't think you make
| an overt branch to fight covert wars, you just roll it into the
| NSA or ops for some (all?) other branches of the military.
| throw_a_grenade wrote:
| related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40583661
| dang wrote:
| We merged that one hither.
| r721 wrote:
| There is some discussion here too:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40587325
| dang wrote:
| Merged. Thanks!
| guerrilla wrote:
| Of course it did. This is modern warfare. Welcome to the future.
|
| Just like how we knew everyone was always spying on everyone else
| long before Snowden, we should all know that everyone is doing
| this to everyone else long before all the revaluations come down
| to us. There is no benefit to assuming good faith here.
| frob wrote:
| This was on the front-page for a brief moment and is now nowhere
| in the top 150. The irony writes itself.
| dang wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40586961
| nextstep wrote:
| Also reported on by NY Times and posted here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40583068
|
| but like most articles about Israeli hacking, US Big Tech
| involvement in the war, etc it was immediately flagged once it
| reached the front page.
|
| I don't know how much of this is moderators removing posts, or if
| there is a pro-Israel brigade that is censoring HN's front page.
| dang wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40586961
| 123yawaworht456 wrote:
| they used to be really unapologetic about it
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Internet_Defense_Force
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWD5xiiafBc
|
| it's prudent to assume such operations are still ongoing
| Animats wrote:
| JIDF turned out to be one guy. That was a sideshow.
|
| This article is from Hareetz, which is a major newspaper in
| Israel.
|
| There's a huge, organized Israel lobby aimed at the US. It's
| no secret. There's AIPAC, the American-Israel Political
| Action Committee. "Lobbying for Pro-Israel Policies", it says
| on their web site. There are official organizations in the
| government of Israel which do "public diplomacy".[1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_diplomacy_of_Israel
| nickff wrote:
| I'm one of the people who flags some of these articles (though
| not this one), because they're generally uninteresting, and
| repetitive. I'm not Jewish, have never been to Israel, and am
| not part of any brigade.
| davesque wrote:
| I flagged it because it's really boring to see people go
| through the same predictable, tribal motions on a topic that's
| been covered to death by every media outlet.
| Metacelsus wrote:
| This was related to OpenAI announcing that they had shut down
| several covert influence campaigns using ChatGPT-generated social
| media posts. https://openai.com/index/disrupting-deceptive-uses-
| of-AI-by-...
| dang wrote:
| _Disrupting deceptive uses of AI by covert influence
| operations_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40526068 -
| May 2024 (70 comments)
| sva_ wrote:
| This article itself seems to be written by chatgpt to some
| degree at least? I've developed trust-issues with bullet point
| lists in that format.
| rfw300 wrote:
| If anything, OpenAI's affection for bullet lists is probably
| a window into why ChatGPT uses them so frequently.
| choxi wrote:
| Claude does bullet lists a lot too, I think people just
| like bullet lists over blobs of text
| dmix wrote:
| > As of May 2024, these campaigns do not appear to have
| meaningfully increased their audience engagement or reach as a
| result of our services.
|
| Just like I've predicted many times on HN.
|
| Text generation is low on the list of things needed to
| successfully engage in automated spam. Social media is built on
| reputation, not who can write generic believable text the
| quickest. And funny enough the ex-OpenAI people (mostly Helen)
| calling for gov regulation said GPT should not have been
| released to the public because of this risk.
| sillyfluke wrote:
| In a way, I find your comment unintentionally hilarious.
| Sure, this may actually be true. Consider the source,
| however. Congratulating yourself by quoting the tobacco
| company's own research of (the lack of) adverse effects of
| tobacco seems a tad ill-conceived. The talk of reputation
| makes it doubly so, since on this topic Sam Altman or any
| official OpenAI post has no credibility whatsoever.
| cyclecount wrote:
| ...and like that, it's flagged and gone. Discussion averted,
| thanks mods!
| dang wrote:
| Mods didn't touch it*. Users flag things.
|
| * (before I turned off the flags a few minutes ago)
|
| edit: see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40586961 for
| more
| erellsworth wrote:
| Why is this flagged? What rule does it violate?
| raxxorraxor wrote:
| Articles get flagged if users perceive it to not be desired
| content and not necessarily because it violates a specific
| rule.
| dang wrote:
| Posts on all sides of this topic get flagged quickly (by
| users), and mods turn off the flags on limited occasions--
| mostly when some significant new information arises and there's
| at least some chance of a substantive discussion about it.
|
| It's pretty important that most stories about this conflict and
| similar current affairs get flagged, because otherwise HN's
| front page would consist of little else, and that's not the
| purpose of the site. But it's also important that the topics
| not be ignored completely, even though they're painful. There's
| no happy medium here, unfortunately.
|
| Here are some links to previous explanations. If you (or
| anyone, of course) have a look at these and still have a
| question that isn't answered there, I'd be happy to take a
| crack at it.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40418881 (May 2024)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39920732 (April 2024)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39618973 (March 2024)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39435324 (Feb 2024)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39435024 (Feb 2024)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39237176 (Feb 2024)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39161344 (Jan 2024)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38947003 (Jan 2024)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38749162 (Dec 2023)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38657527 (Dec 2023)
| erellsworth wrote:
| Thank you for the explanation.
| jakupovic wrote:
| Thanks Dang this is much better than previously.
| DevX101 wrote:
| Appreciate the case by case basis approach to moderation
| here. There are quite a few topics where discussion becomes
| suppressed when blanket bans are enforced.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| The problem is that we've already solved these issues many
| times over on other sites that are decades old. HN simply
| refuses to implement 21st-century forum enhancements.
|
| Brigaded reports? 4chan solved it by adding a mandatory enum
| to reports to specify what the report is reporting for.
| Identifying bad reports and banning users as a result becomes
| trivial.
|
| Flooding with stories about a particular topic? That's what
| stickies are for and they work particularly well so that mods
| can auto-delete any non-sticky stories pertaining to the MOT.
|
| Flamewar on a MOT? Add a sticky to the top of the thread like
| reddit does saying moderation will be minimal and to enter
| the thread at your own risk.
| dannyobrien wrote:
| I think I prefer dang's approach, at least at the scale
| that HN operates.
| zen928 wrote:
| Use the appropriate forum to debate topics in the manner
| you prefer instead of trying to force others to conform to
| your standards.
| pessimizer wrote:
| There is no planet where the opinion above represents
| "force." Stop telling people who disagree with you to
| shut up.
| zen928 wrote:
| > There is no planet where the opinion above represents
| "force."
|
| How about one of the standard Merriam Webster definitions
| of force: (verb) "to compel by physical, moral, or
| intellectual means" i.e. by framing their argument to
| compel by convincing it's from an intellectual
| standpoint. Not too interested on your hangups for
| definitions of basic words to be honest here though.
|
| Throwing a tantrum about being unable to redirect outrage
| freely onto others while masquerading adding
| functionality to enable that discourse as an "already
| solved problem implemented by others" with lack of
| complying to their personal standards being perceived as
| refusing "enhancements" isn't a discussion, its an
| emotion driven stance attempting to make the other party
| look unreasonable.
| oddtuple wrote:
| Gentle reminder that this is against the guidelines, it
| comes across somewhat as sneering and dismissive (which i
| don't think was the intent, but is there none the less).
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| > HN simply refuses to implement 21st-century forum
| enhancements.
|
| I'd argue that the reason most of us are on HN is that it
| doesn't use 21st century forum enhancements.
| jules-jules wrote:
| Thank you dang. Doing the lords work.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| Lord Sauron, obviously :P
| pandeiro wrote:
| Reasonable approach and I applaud your effort to maintain the
| site's purpose while also not ignoring these issues (that do
| have some relation to the tech industry, as we've seen).
| Thank you.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Where I can view all of the posts that had flags turned off?
| KenArrari wrote:
| Wow it's been up for a full hour.
| jules-jules wrote:
| No it's gone. We would need admin support to get it unflagged
| again, most likely.
| KenArrari wrote:
| Woops. Hasbara-bots got it.
| partiallypro wrote:
| I'm sure the story is true, but I doubt it was effective. I don't
| think most politicians are really looking at their social media
| given most of it is trolling junk. I'm sure Russia/Iran/Hamas
| adjacent countries were doing the same. I just don't think they
| have been that effective in getting politician support. Direct
| lobbying or phone/email is much more effective than an online
| troll farm to get the attention of a politician in DC. I have
| worked in DC and this still feels very true to this day.
|
| I think the more worrying is going after the low information
| voter. I didn't think Russia's election interference had much
| effect in 2016, but now when you look at US Media (largely
| conservative outlets) their footprint is very visible.
| PurpleRamen wrote:
| It's not just for the politicians, but the people around them,
| the companies researching the mood, the normal citizen who will
| carry the mood to others. It not simply to quantify the effect
| of this type of social engineering.
| partiallypro wrote:
| I'm aware how it works. But those numbers just aren't that
| compelling, because as I said every large social media
| platform is full of large troll farms. It's more about
| influencing actual constituents to write their Congress
| person.
| dylan604 wrote:
| We're just arguing semantics at that point though aren't
| we?
|
| If the purpose of the trolling is to influence a decision,
| does it matter if the target reads it and is trolled
| directly or trolls enough constituents to call for action?
| Either way, the influence was asserted making the effort
| worthwhile.
| Hikikomori wrote:
| Politicians are already influenced by AIPAC and other powerful
| groups working for Israel, doubt they needed more. They've
| managed to push anti-bds laws/orders in most states.
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| One thing I've learned about old people (and in the US, the
| people in charge are _OLD_) is that they have no concept of
| being scammed like this.
|
| So they may recognize trolling, but if you tell them "Hey, the
| President of Israel tweeted at you," they just assume it was
| the President of Israel.
| partiallypro wrote:
| Aside from the terminally online politicians (like Mike Lee,
| AOC, Cruz, MTG) most do not use their own accounts or even
| look at them. They might have a firm that measure constituent
| engagement, but still to this day the most effective way to
| complain to your congress person is a phone call or email. If
| we're being serious, the latter is what these bot farms, etc
| are after. They want to influence actual constituents to do
| their ultimate bidding. Now if we can get evidence of a huge
| phone campaign using AI voice, that would be much more
| alarming. Israel is doing it, and Iran/Russia/Hamas adjacent
| are doing it. There's absolutely no denying it.
| cafard wrote:
| I am in my upper 60s--if a bit junior for Congress, let alone
| the White House--but like to think of myself as a bit more
| skeptical than that.
| some-guy wrote:
| Helping my parents in their mid-70s is a constant uphill
| battle with these things. I simply tell her to ignore
| *everything* and if she needs confirmation to get in
| contact with me.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| So the logic is something like this:
|
| * my grandmother can't recognize fake information
|
| * my grandmother is old
|
| * politicians are old
|
| * therefore politicians can't recognize fake information
|
| Politics has always been full of deception, people doing
| politics professionally for decades should know a bit or two
| about it.
| digging wrote:
| > Politics has always been full of deception, people doing
| politics professionally for decades should know a bit or
| two about it.
|
| I think it's worth pushing back on this. Deception works
| when it's unexpected, and if the medium is something
| politicians aren't familiar with, they may not even be
| looking for the kinds of deception they're being targeted
| with. They think themselves hardened to deception, but they
| may not be open-minded enough to even realize there are
| forms of deception they haven't prepared for.
| seydor wrote:
| OTOH i ve seen politicians care about social media much more
| than average joe does.
| greg_V wrote:
| I'm not in the US but am familiar with some politicians here,
| and they too have a problem with recognizing that the feed they
| received is personalized, the comments are not representative,
| etc.
|
| If you're wondering why politics sometimes seem out of touch,
| it's because politicians, their media and the commentariat are
| locked into an echo chamber already.
|
| If I were an actor interested in influencing the policy of
| another country, why would I spend $$$ on manipulating the
| voting populace if I can poison the feed of the people who
| matter for far less?
| hightrix wrote:
| I would argue it is extremely effective.
|
| Take a look a r/worldnews vs any other subreddit discussing
| this topic. r/worldnews is controlled. Negative comments
| towards Israel get comments deleted and users banned. Any other
| subreddit, there are people arguing from multiple directions.
| On r/worldnews, you only see dissenting opinions for the first
| hour or so until the mods "clean up the thread".
|
| Obviously, this is anecdotal information and probably slightly
| biased.
| objektif wrote:
| This is not anecdotal come on. Worldnews is 100% now a
| narrative control ops by pro Israel forces. Just looking at
| one thread is enough to confirm this.
| hersko wrote:
| The only difference with r/worldnews vs r/news or the vast
| majority of subreddits is that it leans right instead of far
| left.
|
| It's just a different echo chamber...
| matteoraso wrote:
| r/worldnews has been astroturfed by questionable entities for
| a long time now. I'll never forget when they censored all
| information about blood drives after the Pulse Nightclub
| shooting.
| mathgradthrow wrote:
| Perhaps they are trying to achieve parity with the propaganda of
| their adversaries, Russia, China, and Qatar.
| hartator wrote:
| Didn't we almost go to war against Russia for doing precisely
| that?
| 0xcafefood wrote:
| Yes, but Israel is our Greatest Ally, so it's different when
| they do it.
| adolph wrote:
| Isn't the US already in a (barely-proxy) war with Russia?
| TillE wrote:
| It's certainly striking that the quality of the propaganda is
| very much on par with that of Russia. It's clumsy, it often
| espouses political views (eg, the faux-anarchist stuff) which
| are incoherent in America or really anywhere in the West.
| pessimizer wrote:
| You can't make a religious argument to people who don't share
| your religion, so they're stuck with harassment and bald-
| faced lies. Even non-Israelis who agree with them on
| everything end up with a bad taste in their mouth after
| reading or listening to it.
|
| They don't have any practice making a secular argument about
| the Palestinian situation, how could they? They fall back to
| assuring people that Israel is a friend to the US, that
| Israel is a democracy (a ton of its inhabitants are forced to
| live in ghettos and refugee camps), that Israel loves gay
| people (Israel doesn't have gay marriage, or even secular
| marriage except by treaty), and the worst: "Why don't you
| give America back to the Indians?"
|
| Russian propaganda is bad, but it's also lazy: it gets them
| nothing and they don't put a lot of effort into it. Israel is
| trying as hard as it can. To not ethnically cleanse Israel
| leaves a population that Europe _tried its best to
| exterminate_ drifting the stormy seas of having to compromise
| with their neighbors. This is a population whose neighbors
| once built factories in order to slaughter them more
| efficiently.
| dang wrote:
| We changed the URL from
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2024/06/05/israel-...
| to what looks like a more original source.
| cjk2 wrote:
| Well their enemies used social accounts to garner support from US
| citizens so you've got to start somewhere!
|
| It's not like we haven't done this either. I worked for a company
| in 2005 which was doing this paid for by politicians. Moment I
| worked this out, I quit.
| Kapura wrote:
| This seems extremely unethical no matter who is doing it.
| cjk2 wrote:
| 100% agree (hence my point about quitting) but the problem is
| it's a difficult position to be in when everything is
| narrative driven and misreporting and propaganda are rife.
|
| You can sit there and do nothing and wait for your enemy to
| paint you in a bad light and the next thing you know your
| usual political allies are throwing money and aid at your
| enemy. Or you protect your citizens as best as possible by
| entering the game. The moral high ground may have a higher
| body count.
|
| This point applies to both sides for ref. And because it's a
| war, the rules of fair play go out of the window until people
| are on trial afterwards.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"until people are on trial afterwards"
|
| Speaking of trials: U.S. lawmakers had voted to sanction
| ICC if it tries to prosecute citizens of the US or it's
| allies.
|
| I guess it is always one rule for thee and another one for
| me. So much for rules based order.
| cjk2 wrote:
| Well there's a problem here. There are rules. But no one
| really has to abide to them. There are no consequences
| against a sovereign nation other than political
| allegiance risk or travel risks for convicts.
| gmdrd wrote:
| > Or you protect your citizens as best as possible by
| entering the game.
|
| It doesn't seem reasonable to me to assume that the main
| objective of any government is to protect its citizens.
| cjk2 wrote:
| I think that's just paranoia. The citizens generally are
| the government. It's not optimal but without the citizens
| there is no government.
| croes wrote:
| So it's ok to do something wrong, if others do it too?
| cjk2 wrote:
| It's a war. It's about doing wrong things until someone
| capitulates.
|
| I mean it'd be nice not to have them but as a species we're
| stupid animals with stupid ideas so there's no end of it in
| sight.
|
| I don't agree with any of it for ref.
| CommanderData wrote:
| I think killing 15,000 children would garner organic support
| from any human with a functioning conscious.
|
| It is why Israel has already lost support globally with normal
| people especially the young.
|
| Those people are only to get more polarised, the political
| stooges in government however (who are easily pressured - which
| Israel does extremely effectively) have had to tow the line.
|
| (before any Israeli PR bot tries to discredit the number of
| children murders, Hamas's health ministry has historically been
| extremely accurate in past conflicts, with past figures
| verified by various external impartial authorities and there is
| zero reason to not believe them, I scrutinized the number
| myself before I decided to pick a side ... What's more is the
| number is probably higher as children lay dead in collapsed
| buildings)
|
| Children do not deserve to die. Let alone be tortured, which
| Israel has done without punishment.
| cjk2 wrote:
| An exercise with war casualty stats you can do is look at
| previous wars and look at the variation in estimates in body
| counts for each side. Then factor that into the news you are
| reading it.
|
| End game is there has _never_ been a credible body count from
| even a small scale war. So to claim _anyone_ is right here on
| either side is probably selective bias on your part. At best
| when the dust has figuratively and literally settled, it 'll
| be a decade before anyone has an even remotely credible
| count.
|
| Manipulation of the body counts is easy material for
| propaganda. It has been since the dawn of war.
|
| Factor child soldiers into these arguments and it gets very
| grey. The number itself without compounding facts has little
| meaning.
|
| And for the sake of credibility, the figures were later
| revised so you're not even quoting their current estimates
| and compromising your own credibility!
|
| https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-
| territory/...
| jedimind wrote:
| "Two officials from the Palestinian Ministry of Health have
| told CNN that although the ministry keeps a separate death
| toll for identified and unidentified individuals, the total
| number of people killed remains unchanged.
|
| The total number of dead also does not include the
| approximately 10,000 people who are still missing and
| trapped under the rubble, the officials added.
|
| CNN has seen a daily report from the Palestinian health
| ministry which matches the number OCHA published in the
| revised version. A total of 15,103 children and 9,961 women
| have been killed in Gaza since October 7, the Gaza ministry
| of health said in its latest report."
|
| [0] https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/13/middleeast/death-toll-
| gaza-fa... - Updated 2:12 AM EDT, Tue May 14, 2024
| CommanderData wrote:
| For the record I didn't verify the deaths, I looked at
| information release in past conflicts for the last 10 or so
| years *.
|
| "MoH statistics have also been verified by Human Rights
| Watch and used by the United States Department of State in
| past conflicts and as recently as March 2023, despite US
| President Joe Biden questioning those numbers without
| evidence."
|
| https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/14/has-the-un-
| really-s...
|
| Palestinian authorities were found to be releasing counts
| in good faith and never inflated numbers for the sake of an
| information war. This is a key point, why doubt an
| organisation that hasn't lied about it's death count
| before.
|
| Deny, Discredit, Disinform, Diffuse and Defray are things
| you'll see time and time again in threads like these.
|
| Now, it's a sobering thought 15,000+ children have been
| murdered, in 2023/2024. With full support of the US,
| 'ironclad' apparently.
| cjk2 wrote:
| I've just gone through your post history. I encourage
| other people to have a look. You are biased and are
| pushing an agenda. I will stop replying now.
| nsguy wrote:
| The Palestinians did lie in the past about the
| composition of those numbers.
|
| https://time.com/3035937/gaza-israel-hamas-palestinian-
| casua...
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/16/opinion/hamas-israel-
| medi...
|
| I don't think the claim that Palestinian authorities were
| found to be releasing numbers "in good faith" has much of
| a leg to stand on. Do you have some authoritative sources
| that are not Al-Jazeera (the propaganda arm of Qatar, the
| country that hosts the Hamas leadership) for this claim?
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/gaza-women-children-death-
| toll...
|
| UN ... "revised its tallies last week to show that
| approximately 5,000 women and 7,800 children have been
| killed as of April 30. "
|
| We also need to keep in mind that e.g. the US considers
| children to be <15yo when account for civilian casualties
| in its wars vs. the <18yo definition used here. This
| distinction is important given Hamas uses teenagers (and
| children, but anyways) as combatants.
|
| > Deny, Discredit, Disinform, Diffuse and Defray are
| things you'll see time and time again in threads like
| these.
|
| I would say you're engaging in similar tactics by pushing
| the 15,000+ children murdered narrative. I think that
| claim is just false on many levels. The numbers are
| almost certainly false. The "murdered" is false. If we
| can't get facts right we can't have a discussion.
| Levitz wrote:
| >Well their enemies used social accounts to garner support from
| US citizens so you've got to start somewhere!
|
| I mean, if Israel started bombing me, I'd try to garner support
| from US citizens too? There is a world of difference between
| that and faking social media accounts
| WhackyIdeas wrote:
| Israel never got the memo about calming their propaganda
| campaigns down - now even the most average Joe (at least in the
| UK) can spot them a mile off. They aren't subtle about it.
|
| For a country which is meant to be one of the smartest out there,
| their propaganda campaigns are an utter disaster giveaway to
| anyone with a pulse and a few dozen brain cells.
| diggan wrote:
| > For a country which is meant to be one of the smartest out
| there
|
| Seems their propaganda works just fine if that's a commonly
| held belief :)
| tehjoker wrote:
| Yea, US propaganda is the same way. It's not subtle, it's
| just so many people are onboard with it they don't really
| care.
| WhackyIdeas wrote:
| Maybe that is just the dregs of a time when they used to be
| half decent at propaganda ;)
|
| I take it back. They are smart with their hacking and that's
| where it ends.
| jajko wrote:
| > They are smart with their hacking and that's where it
| ends
|
| So are often russians, or chinese. Maybe the concentration
| is on another level, they are a tiny country but highly
| educated for generations.
|
| I'd bet if we properly educated and developed whole world
| we would discover Einsteins and Bolts in many many places
| out there. Ie elite athletes often come from places around
| where they could do sport, ie mountaineers but also many
| others.
| some-guy wrote:
| My wife lived in Israel on and off for years, I got to visit
| her for awhile during her dissertation work in the West Bank.
| Only a few blocks of Tel Aviv deserve the "modern Middle
| Eastern country" label in my mind. And even then it wasn't
| nearly as impressive as I thought. Haifa is a lovely town
| though :)
| cjk2 wrote:
| To be fair propagandists generally don't have to aim high. They
| only have to shift the undecided and uninformed opinions a
| little bit.
|
| You want to see some of the crap the agencies were pushing out
| pre-Brexit and it worked, so I wouldn't classify the average UK
| citizen as much to be contended with (I am UK as well for ref).
| WhackyIdeas wrote:
| The only good thing to come from Brexit is that for some
| people they woke up and smelt the more expensive coffee than
| it used to be and had some self reflection. I have spoke with
| a good few people now that were like 'I was lied to'... well
| duh.
| cjk2 wrote:
| Unfortunately it was mostly "I was lied to, but I agree
| with it anyway because of X" where X is some loose
| justification to absolve themselves of the self-inflicted
| mess they got themselves into.
|
| My father was a fine one. His staff fucked off back to
| Europe, he couldn't hire anyone else and had to fold his
| company and retire. Then he found out he got cancer and
| that the NHS had staffing problems due to Brexit.
|
| Me, I am better off for it as I fill a niche demand, but I
| voted against it because it was generally bad for society
| and I do not always vote in self-interest.
| WhackyIdeas wrote:
| Our business lost around 90% of European customers. Then
| the odd customer now from Europe emails in a rage because
| they had to pay import duties... so then having to tell
| them that 'Brexit' happened!
|
| You are so right though - most people just will refuse to
| accept they were taken for fools with all the nasty
| rhetoric about 'people coming in to our country'... and
| so many have even been convinced that ripping up the
| Human Rights act is somehow a good thing (??? Wtf!).
|
| Rich people manipulating the minds of poor people was
| what Brexit was all about. At the time I was convinced
| this was a Russian move to make UK weaker. But then
| again, I was convinced for many years that Trump was a
| Russian asset to make America implode (which is kind of
| what happened).
|
| All this hate for foreigners. It's disgusting.
| jjk166 wrote:
| Same playbook as scammers, you want to focus your efforts
| where they are most likely to have the desired effect, and
| those who fall for the obvious lies will always be more
| easily manipulated than those who require a more subtle
| approach.
| r00fus wrote:
| See, this is the thing - this propaganda is only meant as the
| "rationale" that goes along with the real bribe - campaign
| funding from the likes of AIPAC and DMfI.
|
| The funding is what secures these politicians' votes. The
| propaganda is what the politicians can use to justify their
| actions to everyone else. That it's laughably bad is a function
| less of the capabilities of Israel than the utter fealty that
| these politicans have to the Israeli cause.
| Simon_ORourke wrote:
| How are those guys not treated as some hostile foreign power and
| have half their embassy staff expelled is beyond me.
| lprd wrote:
| I've often pondered the same. Seems like Israel gets a lot of
| special treatment from the US.
| imzadi wrote:
| Because anti-Semitism is used to derail any conversation
| about Israel. If you criticize Israel, you're accused of
| being an anti-Semite, and actual anti-Semites flood the
| conversation with actual anti-Semitism that immediately shuts
| everything down.
| recursivedoubts wrote:
| if i were a government and any conversation that criticized
| me could be shut down by calling it something I would pay
| people to do that something
| issafram wrote:
| Also, people ignore that Palestinians are Semites as well.
| nsguy wrote:
| The word antisemitism is reserved for hate against Jews.
| It has nothing to do with people that speak semitic
| languages. This statement, which is often repeated, is
| IMO a good example of antisemitic speech because it's an
| attempt to claim that hating Jews is not antisemitic
| since others are also "semites".
| bell-cot wrote:
| You might want to ask a few old politicians about what
| effects "being perceived as insufficiently pro-Israel" has
| historically had, on Election Day.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| General lack of countries with something even vaguely
| resembling representative government in the Middle East.
|
| Israel seems to only extend that sort of courtesy to a part of
| its citizenry, but when you remember that the "stable"
| countries in the region are all more-or-less absolute
| monarchies, it becomes obvious why the US is willing to at
| least work with Israel.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > Israel seems to only extend that sort of courtesy to a part
| of its citizenry
|
| There have been over 100 Arabs in the Israeli parliament: htt
| ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arab_members_of_the_Kn...
| lenerdenator wrote:
| Good for them. But if you're Arab Israeli, you don't have
| the same slate of rights and representation that Jewish
| Israelis have. See: freedom of movement to and from the
| Gaza Strip prior to October 7th.
| idunnoman1222 wrote:
| Hilarious go be a Jew in any Muslim country
| pphysch wrote:
| > Israel seems to only extend that sort of courtesy to a part
| of its citizenry, but when you remember that the "stable"
| countries in the region are all more-or-less absolute
| monarchies, it becomes obvious why the US is willing to at
| least work with Israel.
|
| More directly: apartheid "democracy" > monarchy?
| lenerdenator wrote:
| According to the wisdom of US foreign policy, yes.
|
| For what it's worth, the US has also tried to work a two-
| state solution over the last 30 years with various degrees
| of vigor. That became much harder to accomplish when the
| Gaza Strip decided to elect Hamas to lead its government in
| 2006-07.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > For what it's worth, the US has also tried to work a
| two-state solution over the last 30 years with various
| degrees of vigor. That became much harder to accomplish
| when the Gaza Strip decided to elect Hamas to lead its
| government in 2006-07.
|
| It became much harder when the Israeli hard Right
| murdered Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 and then took over the
| Israeli government with Netanyahu's election in 1996.
|
| Both fairly explicitly in reaction against the idea of
| ever accepting a Palestinian State.
| Levitz wrote:
| >That became much harder to accomplish when the Gaza
| Strip decided to elect Hamas to lead its government in
| 2006-07.
|
| Which Israel can't be blamed for enough.
|
| Let's just leave this place filled with insurgents
| without any coordination with the authority. I wonder
| what will happen.
| tacheiordache wrote:
| > the US is willing to at least work with Israel
|
| What do you mean at least work with Israel? The US is
| propping up Israel and without that ally Israel would
| probably implode. What's messed up is how disrespectful
| Israel and some of their politicians are to US and their
| citizens. One thing I like about Israel is that they have a
| variety of oppinions and schools of thought. What we're
| currently seeing is coming from the radical right wing and
| those atrocities will unfortunately stain Israelis of all
| types. Hope they do at the next elections.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| Israel is a postindustrial economy with a 600,000-man
| military reserve and (unofficially) a nuclear arsenal of
| the size and capability needed to destroy the society of
| any industrialized nation on Earth.
|
| Almost all of the support and protection they've received
| from the US since October has been mainly to keep leverage
| on Netanyahu and to keep the war from spreading across the
| Middle East. For example, if Iran's missiles had bombarded
| Tel Aviv, you're probably going to see Israel bombarding
| Tehran, which could pull in Iraq, etc., and Israel has yet
| to lose a fight against its regional neighbors.
|
| They don't need the US to prop them up economically or
| militarily, which should bring about a conversation about
| support come next budget, but I doubt it.
|
| I too would like to see a more moderate group in charge.
| mike50 wrote:
| Which Israeli defense contractors build airplanes and
| tanks? Without aircraft and spares you cannot have a
| modern military. The US absolutely props up Israeli with
| weapons and military technology that they do not produce
| in country. Waving around nuclear weapons and a massive
| number of troops are the actions of states that are
| weaker then project as (Russia DPRK).
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Which Israeli defense contractors build airplanes and
| tanks?_
|
| Neither do the North Koreans [1][2]? (Caveats [3][4].)
|
| America dropping Israel simply means it finds a new
| supplier. Russia is out of the picture, given its
| dependence on Iran, but China and India would be more
| than willing to supply.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_People's_Army_
| Air_For...
|
| [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanks_of_North_Korea
|
| [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokpung-ho
|
| [4] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkava
| mrkeen wrote:
| > What we're currently seeing is coming from the radical
| right wing and those atrocities will unfortunately stain
| Israelis of all types. Hope they do at the next elections.
|
| Wishful thinking, regardless of which elections your
| talking about. In the US, both sides are working hard to
| prop up Israel. In Israel before October, Netanyahu was on
| trial for fraud, bribery and breach of trust. Who's even
| talking about that anymore? Now he gets to be a war Prime
| Minister.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Iraq and Lebanon both more closely "vaguely resemble"
| representative government than Israel does. For all their
| problems, at least all the people they rule over are allowed
| to be citizens and vote.
| amitport wrote:
| 500k Palestinians in Lebanon, 2nd-3rd generation
| "refugees", are not allowed to be citizens and do not have
| a vote. (Palestinians are the only people in the world who
| the UN allow to inherit this status)
|
| And now... Iraq?! you must be joking or cynic
| umanwizard wrote:
| That is a fair point. The way Lebanon treats Palestinians
| is terrible and they should not get a free pass when
| people criticize Israel.
| nsguy wrote:
| Iraq and Lebanon are far from free and democratic
| countries.
|
| https://freedomhouse.org/country/iraq/freedom-world/2024
| https://freedomhouse.org/country/lebanon/freedom-world/2024
| https://freedomhouse.org/country/israel/freedom-world/2024
| umanwizard wrote:
| That does not contradict my point.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| Most Americans have no idea how Israel is governed. Even
| grasping the basics of how the United States government works
| is sadly not guaranteed.
|
| All most people know is the spin they've gotten from the
| media and politicians. Both tend to be very pro Israel in the
| US. That's changed a little recently, but not much.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Because all the aid for Israel comes back to arms dealers and
| other wealthy creeps in the US, and they own our politics.
|
| Israelis are just doing what their version of Judaism is
| telling them to do, it's the neocon Zionists in the US that
| finance it that are the real danger. It isn't just that they
| don't care about Palestinian lives, they don't care about
| Israeli lives, either. They care about Israeli contracts.
| notaustinpowers wrote:
| Because of the 535 politicians we have, 45 of them have
| received donations just during the 2024 election cycle. Big
| names like Ted Cruz, Marsha Blackburn, Rick Scott, Mitt Romney,
| Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, etc.
|
| It's bipartisan enough that I don't believe the parties will be
| able to come to an agreement to enact any meaningful change.
| This goes beyond the Republican vs. Democrat issues so it's
| much more difficult to make this a partisan issue to rally mass
| support from either party.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _How are those guys not treated as some hostile foreign
| power_
|
| Americans' views of the Israeli people are broadly positive
| [1].
|
| [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/05/30/how-
| ameri... _64%_
| pedalpete wrote:
| So would you also expel Russian and Chinese embassy staff?
|
| Allies influencing other allies is part of the process. Don't
| just think that it is Israel doing it in America. America is
| also doing similar actions in other countries where they want
| to win favour.
| pessimizer wrote:
| They really targeted the dumbest, most venal people in Congress.
| These particular people will fight for anyone but the people who
| elected them, so afraid to lose their jackpot.
| michaeljhg wrote:
| Is there a country that doesn't do this?
| some-guy wrote:
| Not the point here: Israel is our "greatest ally" and the
| target is our lawmakers.
| tptacek wrote:
| I think you would be surprised by the list of countries the
| US IC believes are our most important intelligence
| "adversaries"; the list includes many of our allies.
| rcpt wrote:
| As far as I can tell "greatest ally" is just something these
| accounts say.
|
| Jordan seems to be a much stronger friend to us in the
| region.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| Jordan never sunk a US Navy ship and then machine-gunned
| the sailors trying to escape in lifeboats. But if they did,
| they wouldn't have painted over the jet's markings first.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| "greatest ally" according to whose claim? that reads like
| propaganda, just plain nonsense. perhaps a contender for
| greatest external funding liability? not sure how the hard
| data would rank such numerically.
| CorrectingYou wrote:
| I believe this was sarcarsm, since American politicians
| like to always pitch Israel as "America's Greatest Ally",
| thus making it a common target of sarcasm
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| ahhh....that makes sense then.
|
| as i think of it, it's strange that the US supposedly has
| a separation of religion from state, in the
| constitution+amendments, yet funds an external country
| based on a religion. i wonder what fraction of donations
| to Israel come back as lobbyists paying politicians to
| fund the next round of donations. there must be datasets
| recorded somewhere, but i have no idea where to look.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _American politicians like to always pitch Israel as
| "America's Greatest Ally"_
|
| In the Middle East. Which is sort of true. (Cairo, Riyadh
| and Doha aren't as reliable.)
|
| Our traditional greatest ally is the U.K.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| France and Poland from the revolutionary war, too,
| perhaps.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _France and Poland from the revolutionary war_
|
| France is our oldest ally. But it (and Poland) are weaker
| and have been less reliably at our side than Britain has
| been.
| silisili wrote:
| Yeah, AIPAC really opened my eyes to how deep the ties go.
| They spend tons of money to put their preferred lawmakers in
| place, and openly brag on Twitter about how much they spend
| and their extremely successful track record. It just -feels-
| like it should be illegal, seeing as it's a foreign country.
| kergonath wrote:
| So, enlighten us: is there? Any example of this sort of things
| between allies? Or is this just an extreme case of both-sides?
|
| Spying and keeping tabs on your friends is one thing. Influence
| campaigns among close allies are generally not the way it
| works.
| gmarx wrote:
| before the US entered WWII the british had an office of
| propaganda with offices in New York that was dedicated to
| getting the US to enter the war.
| neves wrote:
| USA censor Social Networks that don't allow them to do it.
| Maxatar wrote:
| I don't know of any government department in Canada, Mexico,
| the UK, France, Germany, Australia that target U.S. law makers
| with fake social media accounts.
|
| Do you know of any? Can you cite them?
| cooper_ganglia wrote:
| I don't know of them, that's why I'm sure it's happening. I'd
| assume that the US is doing this to our allied nations, too.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I'm not saying it's _not_ happening, however, the US has a
| much bigger stick to use by withholding funds /arms/aid
| before stooping to this level of influence*. Pretty much no
| other country has the reciprocal influence to the US, so
| these kinds of machinations is kind of expected.
|
| *Historical examples of other forms of US
| meddling/interference is not being ignored, and paves the
| way to why I would not say _not_ being done.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| I have a question of my own. Is there another country whose
| citizens are regularly elected to Congress? Dual citizens are
| not barred from holding office in Congress, and certainly
| there are more than a few English Americans and French
| Americans who hold citizens in both respective countries, but
| I have never heard of any winning office (or even running,
| for that matter).
| burkaman wrote:
| It is relatively common for people born outside the US to
| be elected to Congress
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_foreign-
| born_United_St...,
| https://www.senate.gov/senators/Foreign_born.htm), but
| there is no requirement to publicly disclose dual
| citizenship. Ted Cruz and Michelle Bachmann are the most
| famous examples of holding dual citizenship during a
| congressional career, there may be more examples that I'm
| not aware of.
| samatman wrote:
| I'm not aware of any dual citizens in Congress, could you
| provide some names please?
| burkaman wrote:
| I could be wrong but I think it's an intentional
| misrepresentation of Israel's Law of Return
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Return), which
| allows any Jewish person to move to Israel and then
| become a citizen. It doesn't mean that every Jewish
| person anywhere in the world is automatically an Israeli
| citizen whether they want to be or not, but some people
| like to say that.
| seydor wrote:
| It's not common at all in liberal countries. Perhaps azerbaijan
| or china do it
| shmatt wrote:
| Out: blame AIPAC for congress funding israel
|
| In: blame FB comments for congress funding Israel
|
| Is it really that hard to imagine congress supporting the
| democratic country with one of the biggest pride parades in the
| world vs the country that hasn't had elections in 18 years and is
| split between 2 leaders who disagree on pretty much everything?
| notaustinpowers wrote:
| > biggest pride parades in the world
|
| Do you mean NYC Pride or Sao Paolo Gay Pride Parade?
| AzzyHN wrote:
| Truly shocking. Who could've seen this coming.
|
| On a more serious note, I figured the majority of US lawmakers
| already supported the genocide. I'm surprised Israel feels the
| need to use propaganda for this
| nerdjon wrote:
| I find it quite concerning just how much propaganda the US seems
| to get from Israel. Where I live there are big billboards around,
| I regularly see ads on YouTube.
|
| I know propaganda is a thing, but it feels like we are getting
| more about a foreign government than our own.
|
| I feel like before what is going on now I was aware of some of
| the groups responsible for this being a thing, but was not fully
| aware just how much money there was in it those organizations
| until recently.
|
| Some of the practices are concerning, like I found out recently
| apparently the Boston police regularly go over to Israel for
| training?
|
| Regardless of what is going on right now, I don't understand how
| this much power over the US was ever deemed acceptable?
| cempaka wrote:
| The best part is when it comes from our own "newspaper of
| record" i.e. with the extraordinarily dubious "mass rape"
| article the NYT published. They finally dismissed the one
| Israel-connected reporter who had liked tweets calling for a
| brutal response against Gaza, but that of course has seen about
| one billionth the attention that her original claims continue
| to receive.
|
| You also get stuff like the POTUS repeating lies like "40
| beheaded babies" and "a mother and child had kerosene poured on
| them" with none of the usual media freakout you usually see
| over "misinformation."
| nerdjon wrote:
| I have struggled to even look at my News app anymore.
|
| Next to articles about the protests or other things, there
| are the articles about the hostages or something else that
| just feels like a propaganda piece aimed at one thing.
|
| And that is just the headlines.
| segasaturn wrote:
| The wiki article on Media Coverage of the Iraq War[0] is an
| enlightening read. Most of the same tactics for
| manufacturing consent that the mainstream media used during
| the Iraq War are still being used in today's conflicts.
|
| > An investigation by the New York Times discovered that
| top Pentagon officials met with news analysts where they
| gave the analysts 'special information' and then tried to
| convince them to speak favorably about the Iraq war. The
| discovery was based on 8000 pages of secret information
| that had been revealed to The New York Times through a
| lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act. The article
| states that top Pentagon officials would invite news
| analysts to secret meetings, and urge the analysts to speak
| positively of the war. Often, the US would give "classified
| information," trips, and contracts to the news analysts.
|
| 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_coverage_of_the_Iraq
| _War
| megous wrote:
| > You also get stuff like the POTUS repeating lies like "40
| beheaded babies" and "a mother and child had kerosene poured
| on them" with none of the usual media freakout you usually
| see over "misinformation."
|
| Yeah. The politicians who repeated this also never apologized
| for inflaming tensions without any evidence or investigation
| whatsoever. But anything Israel is accused of, requires
| thorough investigation by Israel (or sometimes independently
| - without ever mentioning Israel will not allow independent
| investigators into Gaza), before we can even think about
| trusting the people they're killing currently, regardless of
| affiliation.
|
| Then you read https://www.france24.com/en/live-
| news/20231215-israel-social...
|
| And you see that 20 children 15 and younger were killed in
| total, and out of them 10 by rockets, which starts to paint
| very different picture. So militants killed 20-36 children
| depending on how you wish to define a child, out of 1200
| people in total. So that's 1.7-3% of killed victims.
|
| On the other hand, you get at least 16 000 killed children by
| Israel in just the last 8 months. 60 a day at least.
|
| https://time.com/6909636/gaza-death-toll/
|
| And you can see 10-5 a day individually just scrolling
| through video posts on telegram https://t.me/eyeonpal/
|
| And we're supposed to think that Hamas are child killing
| monsters and Israel is not and somehow uniquely righteous.
| Yeah, right. Just the math alone on this doesn't compute for
| me, at all.
| neves wrote:
| Imagine if it were Russia or China
| croisillon wrote:
| Well it can't be China because China don't kill their muslim
| popula... oooh...
| Retric wrote:
| > I don't understand how this much power over the US was ever
| deemed acceptable?
|
| Free speech sometimes applies to things you don't like. There's
| pro and anti propaganda for just about any foreign interest.
| Some of it's just more subtle such as recommendations on
| TikTok.
|
| Ukraine had really obvious pro Ukraine requests for military
| aid and images of destruction, but quite a bit of pro Russia
| propaganda was more subtle aiming for people to stay out of it.
|
| With Israel you see some really blatant pro Israel propaganda,
| but both sides also have a lot of more subtle stuff.
| ESTheComposer wrote:
| I believe the issue here is how much sway Israel has on the
| US and how rabid many US politicians are about Israel (to the
| point where many straight up accuse you of anti semitism if
| you just criticize the country or their policies)
|
| Also issues like where you are not allowed to refuse to work
| with Israel if you are an arms manufacturer in the US (but
| you can refuse to work with the US military). I know that
| part of that is due to Israel being part of the FMS list but
| they are also the largest recipient on it...
| justin66 wrote:
| > Free speech sometimes applies to things you don't like.
|
| ...and in the United States we've defined down "free speech"
| to include "monetary donations."
| fsckboy wrote:
| somebody needs to pay for the billboard, or rent a hall to
| give a speech, or printing the flyers for your lost cat.
| How is money not essential to speech? Your proposal is that
| to support a cause, one should only be allowed to go
| outside and yell, because that's purer than the corrupting
| influence of money?
| pnut wrote:
| Once money gets involved, you inherently have a
| commercial interest. What's the ROI?
|
| I personally think people misunderstand to whom "freedom"
| is granted and defended in the US, it is demonstrably not
| freedom of the individual, but of the powerful.
| fsckboy wrote:
| money is quite simply not inherently commercial
|
| free speech is a legal concept, and ROI is not a legal
| concept; when debts are enforced by courts, they
| frequently don't even enforce interest as if time value
| of money doesn't exist.
| justin66 wrote:
| The nature of the strawman you've stood up to to
| represent my "proposal" (who knew I had a proposal?)
| suggests you're not even familiar with the history of the
| legal debate in the United States surrounding the 1st
| amendment and political donations. So I guess I would
| propose you read up on that.
| 1shooner wrote:
| Speaking of free speech, can you name another foreign
| interest that has managed to make it illegal in the US to
| boycott it's companies?
| dfxm12 wrote:
| To add some context in case people aren't aware:
| https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20181218-texas-teacher-
| fir...
| Retric wrote:
| "Texas enacted a law in May 2017 prohibiting state agencies
| from signing contracts with companies that boycott Israel."
|
| I'm not particularly happy about that law or similar ones
| in other states, but what you said is inaccurate.
| asadotzler wrote:
| There's nothing inaccurate about what he said. These laws
| make it illegal for Americans from boycotting Israel. As
| an American state employee, organizing a boycott against
| Israel will get you fired or arrested because allowing it
| would be breaking the law.
| ithkuil wrote:
| There is an interesting caveat in the law: it only
| applies to boycotts against u.s. allies that are promoted
| or imposed by intergovernmental organizations (IGOs)
|
| The moment anybody else in the world stops boycotting
| Israel then finally Texas citizens will be fully free to
| boycott Israel
| Retric wrote:
| Nope, being illegal means something else. Nobody is going
| to be fined or go to jail for openly boycotting Israel.
| An amusement park can boycott Israel, they can say so in
| big bold letters on their commercials etc, and the state
| isn't going to do anything.
|
| Therefore All companies _ARE_ allowed to "boycott energy
| companies, discriminate against firearm entities or
| associations, or boycott Israel" https://texasattorneygen
| eral.gov/sites/default/files/images/...
|
| Not doing business is something else. States regularly
| prohibit companies over 500 employees from signing
| specific contracts, that doesn't make it illegal to be a
| company with over 500 employees.
| asadotzler wrote:
| Like the kind of free speech you get when Israel's lobby
| drafts and helps pass laws that making boycotts of Israel
| illegal?
| Retric wrote:
| That's incorrect. There's zero US laws that make it illegal
| to boycott Israel.
|
| Open a carwash in Texas and you can put up big posers
| saying you're boycotting Israel and the state isn't going
| to do crap. There are state laws that prohibit state
| agencies from contracting such companies, but that's a
| different question and only really applies to a small
| percentage of companies.
|
| If you disagree try and post full text of the actual
| legislation it's completely clear what's going on.
| Levitz wrote:
| Boycotting Israel is illegal for any company that works
| with state agencies.
|
| It's way more restrictive, yes. It's still surreal to me.
| its_ethan wrote:
| It's illegal for any company that works with state
| agencies to boycott any of our allies.. Israel is a
| common example because most (all?) countries surrounding
| it in the middle east try to sneak in Israel boycott
| terms into every little contract, so it's the most
| common.
|
| But the same is true if someone wanted to boycott Canada.
| That company wouldn't be able to work/contract with state
| agencies.
|
| In what way is that surreal or surprising?
| Retric wrote:
| The distinction might seem subtle, but even then it's not
| illegal.
|
| Also it's not every contract between companies and the
| state. Texas uses 10+ employees companies and 100,000+$
| contracts as the minimum threshold before language must
| be added to the contract during the terms of the
| contract.
|
| But after signing such a contract the company is still
| only bound by a contract. Breaking contracts happens all
| the time it's not illegal. Excluding Fraud etc it becomes
| a civil rather than a criminal matter.
| ajross wrote:
| A message being on a billboard or in an advertisement on
| YouTube doesn't make it "propaganda", though. In fact there a
| very large constituency[1] for pro-Israel policymaking right
| here in the United States, and they want you to know what they
| think and why, and are willing to spend money to do it.
|
| Now, you clearly don't agree with them. I don't either, in at
| least some aspects[2]. But our beef with the AIPAC and the
| Israel lobby isn't with a "propaganda" organization run by the
| Israeli government. It's a _POLITICAL_ fight with our fellow
| americans, and we shouldn 't conflate the two.
|
| [1] Likely larger than in Israel proper, in fact, both in
| headcount and budget.
|
| [2] Though I stop way, way short of the eliminationist
| sloganeering that has taken over a lot of the left. Handing the
| region From the River to the Sea over to a Palestinian-
| controlled army would be far more horrifying than anything
| happening in Gaza today, and I really don't think that people
| understand how intractably violent the situation in the Levand
| really is.
| nerdjon wrote:
| I struggle with not calling this propaganda:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/18skzb0/ah_behold_o.
| ..
|
| https://www.boston25news.com/news/local/new-billboards-
| along...
| ajross wrote:
| Then you have a somewhat unconventional personal definition
| for "propaganda". Almost always people use that word to
| imply something clandestine, misleading, or both.
|
| What you showed is a paid advertisement from a US-
| registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit, JewBelong, with public
| accounting on all donations, and a relatively clear mandate
| for how it spends its money.
|
| Again, you're simply saying that a (really only slightly
| edgy) billboard paid for by your fellow americans with
| their own money and aimed at changing your opinion via
| argumentation should be disallowed as "propaganda" simply
| because you disagree with it (and again: I disagree with it
| too!).
|
| Tough love: of the dueling philosophies at play here, yours
| is by far the most dangerous. Let people argue with you,
| for crying out loud.
| nerdjon wrote:
| I do not believe that is the case, you seem to have a
| more narrow view of propaganda.
|
| Just look at the Webster definition: https://www.merriam-
| webster.com/dictionary/propaganda
|
| What you describe is one form of propaganda but not the
| only one.
|
| Would you agree that Rosy the Riveter was Propaganda? Or
| this one https://www.archives.gov/files/exhibits/powers-
| of-persuasion...
|
| Both very famous pieces of propaganda the US put out
| during War. Neither of them are misleading. They were put
| out to encourage people to take an action.
| ajross wrote:
| Then maybe cite the definition you're using? And explain
| why it doesn't fit every kind of opinion broadcasting.
| Like, are flyers for a protest "propaganda"? Is grafitti
| propaganda? Is writing an opinion essay propaganda?
| Hosting a blog propaganda? Where does it stop?
| nerdjon wrote:
| Do you cite a definition for every word you use? Of
| course not. I am using the definition as defined by
| Webster and every other source I can find.
|
| I am using it the same way that the pieces I referenced,
| were also considered propaganda.
|
| I am using the excepted actual definition of Propaganda
| and there is zero reason to expect I need to define
| otherwise. That is just not a normal expectation when
| communicating. You having your own definition that does
| not follow the accepted definitions of the word with
| examples, is not my problem.
|
| You also didn't answer my question about rosy the riveter
| which if we would consider that propaganda (which it is
| considered propaganda) I would consider the billboards
| propaganda.
| pvg wrote:
| _Like, are flyers for a protest "propaganda"? Is grafitti
| propaganda?_
|
| They easily can be. Same with opinion broadcasting. It's
| not a matter of some strict definition, just whether you
| prefer a negative connotation with "propaganda" and how
| you feel about the thing being propagandized given that
| the negative connotation is the most common English
| usage.
| ajross wrote:
| That was exactly my point. The use of "propaganda" by
| nerdjon really just means "an opinion I disagree with".
| nerdjon wrote:
| That is quite a simplistic view.
|
| Generally, Propaganda is used to sway opinion, get
| action, or similar when people may not be inclined a
| certain way on their own.
|
| Ask yourself this: if there was not opposition to what
| Israel is doing right now, would they have made these
| billboards. Most likely no.
|
| Would Rosie the Riveter happen if there was not a need
| for Woman in the workforce during the war?
|
| Could keep giving examples, but you get the idea.
|
| There are plenty of examples out there of established
| propaganda that isn't misleading or negative. It depends
| on the message they are trying to send and the action
| they are looking for.
| ajross wrote:
| > sway opinion, get action, or similar when people may
| not be inclined a certain way on their own.
|
| This is tiresome and seems like it's in bad faith. Once
| more: that's just a definition for "argument". You can
| apply it to "propaganda" if you insist, but I can only
| repeat that this is not the way others interpret it.
|
| You don't go around calling your friends propagandists
| when they try to sway your opinion, so don't do it here
| just because you dislike seeing billboards by Jewish
| advocacy groups.
| ithkuil wrote:
| The broader meaning of propaganda then just means
| "spreading ideas to further a cause". If that's true then
| it would be a neutral word.
|
| But "propaganda" is not a neutral word in practice. It
| implies something intentionally misleading.
|
| I don't think expressing concern about Hamas is
| propaganda.
|
| If the billboard said (or implied) "all Palestinians are
| Hamas terrorists" that would be propaganda
| realreality wrote:
| > Almost always people use that word to imply something
| clandestine, misleading, or both.
|
| No, propaganda is often quite blatant. Look at the
| posters from both of the World Wars, depicting US enemies
| as vicious, inhuman monsters.
|
| Even the "Rosie the Riveter" and Uncle Sam imagery is
| propaganda.
|
| Propaganda can be any sort of one-sided media used to
| manipulate public opinion. It doesn't necessarily have to
| be banned, but people need to learn more media literacy
| to recognize it.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Don't know about other countries, but in the Bay Area a
| bunch of those billboards have been vandalized/edited by
| non-Zionist Jewish groups.
|
| Anyway, advertising media are antithetical to debate,
| which presumes approximately equal access to an audience
| to lay out two or more competing ideas at once. You can't
| argue with a billboard, you can only rent another
| billboard, and pretty soon you have billboards
| everywhere. This is a garbage concept of political
| discourse.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| > I find it quite concerning just how much propaganda the US
| seems to get from Israel.
|
| How do you know how much we get from Israel relative to others?
| zardo wrote:
| > Regardless of what is going on right now, I don't understand
| how this much power over the US was ever deemed acceptable?
|
| US politicians can direct funds to Israel and Israel can
| support them or attack their rivals.
| octopoc wrote:
| More like, Israel can spend some of that money to keep the
| money flow coming, kind of like a parasite. The rest it can
| use for its own interests.
| ravenstine wrote:
| On the other side of town where I live, billboards appeared
| with slogans like "Be pro-Semitic." This happened almost
| immediately after the latest conflict involving Israel began.
| So I can't just be against anti-Semites, but I have to be _pro_
| Jewish ethnicity? Interesting. There was also one stating that
| anti-zionism is anti-Semitic; I guess my Jewish friends and
| family who are not Zionists didn 't get the memo.
|
| I can't prove that these are somehow connected to funding from
| Israel, but it seemed like these billboards were ready to go at
| a moment's notice.
|
| As far as why we deem foreign propaganda as acceptable, I like
| to think that we play dumb about it in part so we can
| strategically point it out when it is in the favor of
| politicians and/or elites. Remember how Russian propaganda
| supposedly got Trump elected even though it was going on during
| prior years when the establishment insisted on the integrity of
| the elections? On the other hand, maybe we are just dumb.
| nerdjon wrote:
| > I can't prove that these are somehow connected to funding
| from Israel, but it seemed like these billboards were ready
| to go at a moment's notice.
|
| Right, that is what we got in Boston. The timing is just too
| convenient.
|
| Whether or not it is from Israel themselves or funding here
| for Israel is kinda a moot point when both have the same
| purpose: Propaganda for a foreign government.
| pvg wrote:
| _Whether or not it is from Israel themselves or funding
| here for Israel is kinda a moot point_
|
| It's not at all a moot point and you're coming pretty close
| to a generic 'dual loyalties' trope.
| jedimind wrote:
| If there is overwhelming evidence for a claim, it's
| absurd to smear it as "trope". So when Nancy Pelosi says:
| "If the capital crumbles to the ground,one thing that
| will remain is our commitment to Israel"[0] that's
| because she has in fact dual loyalty, to dismiss that as
| "trope" is to dismiss & deny reality.
|
| Some of "our" politicians work overtime for israel's
| interests and neglect their actual job and obligations
| towards America.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53x_zrkJwDs
| shrubble wrote:
| Wait until you read up on NUMEC and Rafael Eitan.
| ein0p wrote:
| Do you find it concerning that no presidential candidate can
| even pass the primary without first kissing the ring of AIPAC?
| That Zionist lobby openly attacks insufficiently pro-Zionist
| candidates and then openly brags when they lose elections? With
| Zionist lobby trying to outlaw any criticism of Israel in
| direct violation of 1st amendment? Etc, etc. IDK about others,
| but I think this is insane.
| nerdjon wrote:
| 100% yes.
|
| TBH when I said "propaganda" I was grouping a lot of that
| under that when I should have been more specific.
|
| But that and similar things is what I was referring to with
| "I don't understand how this much power over the US was ever
| deemed acceptable".
|
| I remember seeing the articles about them funding the
| campaign of someone opposing someone else who had been
| critical if Israel. I don't remember which state or what
| position, but it wasn't just a one off either.
| leoh wrote:
| What the actual fuck
| dfxm12 wrote:
| AIPAC is one such group. Here's an article about their
| spending in 2022:
| https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2022/11/american-israel-
| pub...
|
| and also a story from earlier this year:
| https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/03/aipac-israel-
| spendi...
|
| The MO is basically to try and defeat democrats in
| primaries who aren't giving carte blanche in terms of
| spending or support. If their candidate wins the primary,
| it doesn't matter much who wins the general election, since
| they have support of R's.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| _like I found out recently apparently the Boston police
| regularly go over to Israel for training?_
|
| That's really common for most countries on earth though[0].
| Gaining exposure and experience from other countries is very
| valuable for police forces.
|
| [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Law_Enforcement_
| ...
| StriverGuy wrote:
| AIPAC is dwarfed in comparison to some other countries in terms
| of wielding influence. Just look at how much Qatar has spent
| trying to influence the top universities in the world.
| spamizbad wrote:
| Weirdest thing about their propaganda is that it seems squarely
| aimed at older wealthier Americans and politicians. The amount
| of content produced targeted at anyone under the age of 40 is
| much smaller and less sophisticated. There's this narrative
| that Israel is "losing the propaganda war" but I think they're
| just targeting it towards major stakeholders. We're not the
| intended audience of the billboard - it's the editorial writer,
| the business leader, the member of congress (and their staff).
|
| The Israel / Palestine conflict is one of those low-valence
| issues with the general public where a politician rarely gets
| punished for voting one way or another with the notable
| exception of cash lobbying and super PACs for/against a given
| candidate.
| downWidOutaFite wrote:
| It's crazy that AIPAC is not registered as a foreign agent.
| They funnel orders directly from Netanyahu to our politicians.
| rcpt wrote:
| The trick is to have influence over the laws that define
| "foreign agent"
| arandomusername wrote:
| There was one president that wanted to change that. But then
| something happened
| odiroot wrote:
| I guess two can play that game https://www.microsoft.com/en-
| us/security/security-insider/in...
| SimbaOnSteroids wrote:
| The wild part about this, at least to me, is the wholesale
| incompetence demonstrated by Israel in this regard. If I couldn't
| google the talking points the bots make and see Israeli officials
| saying the same things, one would think these bots were Iranians
| acting with the intent to make Israel look bad.
| refulgentis wrote:
| It's a very interesting thing, it demonstrates something
| uncomfortable & scary to me as a goy Zionist, who hangs out in
| a private, predominantly Jewish, space.
|
| Note the biggest word in the cloud: UNRWA. All my confirmation
| bias was in one direction in October. The oddly dissonant and
| desperate messaging you'd see made things extremely difficult
| to maintain that, like, you have to be of a very specific
| mindset to see message after message about the evil UN and not
| say, "uh, did we go off the rails somewhere?"
|
| (n.b. this was in a lefty Jewish space, broadly denigrating
| governmental institutions isn't a usual virtue signal)
|
| Going back to the beginning, there's an uncomfortable
| willingness/ignorance of Overton window widening, in a way that
| reduces sympathy rather than engenders it, and all of a sudden,
| otherwise kind people are engaging in rank racism*,
| glorification of destruction, and extreme conspiracies**.
|
| * lots of "no such thing as innocent Palestineans",
| "Palestineans love _redacted_ ", when questioned, turns into
| "it's not racist if they're not a race, and they aren't because
| bla bla bla"
|
| ** Day after day after day of the bailey, "World Central
| Kitchen was trying to smuggle terrorists", coupled to the motte
| "Jose Andres held a barbecue buffet! Lol!"
| sixQuarks wrote:
| This is an enlightening comment. Thanks for sharing
| myth_drannon wrote:
| * Assuming the comments came from Israelis/Jews. All the left
| and right-wing channels are infiltrated with Iranian
| agents(plenty of news on that topic in Haaretz/Walla). They
| are causing rift and radicalization in society.
|
| That's a solvable tech problem to shut it down.
| Unfortunately, it's not a priority on a state level because
| everyone is doing it.
| cess11 wrote:
| Really?
|
| Closest I've seen would be campaigns like this,
| https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/security-
| aviation/2024-0... .
|
| Then there's the stuff by IDF soldiers on TikTok, and the
| stuff settlers put out.
|
| I have the impression that the iranians don't need to do
| stuff like that.
| bawolff wrote:
| > like, you have to be of a very specific mindset to see
| message after message about the evil UN and not say, "uh, did
| we go off the rails somewhere?"
|
| I think saying "evil" anything is wrong. But the UN is still
| a body made up of people, and like everything has its flaws.
| Its done some things that have turned out great and truly
| made the world a better place. Its done other things that
| haven't worked out so well. I certainly don't think it is
| above criticism.
| refulgentis wrote:
| For the record, I agree wholeheartedly. It's hard to word
| these things. I hope it's clear the meaning is short of
| "The UN/UNWRA is above all criticism", happy to explicate
| at length if it isn't (I wouldn't be surprised, at all,
| anything I write on this looks like an unnecessarily mousey
| person's verbal diarrhea to me :) )
| bawolff wrote:
| That's fair, i maybe overinterpreted.
|
| I can understand why Israelis might be suspicious of the
| UN. The relationship between UN and Israel seems kind of
| fraught in a way that isn't true of pretty much any other
| country. The not allowing israel to fully vote until 2010
| (edit: 2014), the (arguably) unequal focus only Israel's
| human rights record relative to other countries, and the
| whole UNRWA being totally different with different rules
| than any other refugee group, all make israel a bit
| unique in its relationship to the UN. I could easily
| understand how someone from Israel might feel that the UN
| treats them differently from other countries and is
| perhaps biased against them.
| refulgentis wrote:
| +1, the thing that jumps to mind is how "U N Schmu En"
| dates back to the...50s? I was disappointed people were
| 'shocked' by Gvir tweeting it because it sounded new. I
| am no fan of Gvir, but again, goes back to what a complex
| mess there is.
|
| (source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Um-Shmum)
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > The not allowing israel to fully vote until 2010
|
| You're not going to throw that out without reference to
| how the US and Israel have consistently been the only
| countries to oppose Palestinian UN membership and voting.
| bawolff wrote:
| I mean, i was trying to talk about why Israelis might
| feel the UN is against them. That doesn't preclude
| Palestinians feeling the same way.
|
| It is possible to talk about why X might feel Y without
| talking about why other groups might feel the same way or
| even whether or not that feeling is justified.
|
| Talking about motivations is different than determining
| what is "fair"
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| > the (arguably) unequal focus only Israel's human rights
| record relative to other countries
|
| Two thoughts on this:
|
| Firstly, every time a country is getting criticized for
| it's human rights abuses it, like clockwork, raises the
| spectre of being "unjustly singled out" about it's human
| rights abuses. To be clear, I would very much like every
| country on earth that engages in human rights abuses
| prosecuted for it, including mine, and specifically every
| U.S. President that's still currently alive since they
| are ALL guilty of them in varying degrees. And that way,
| we can't be accused of biases.
|
| Secondly, I believe it's fair, even if we are biased
| against Israel in this way, to be biased since it has the
| rather unique position of being a state that exists
| solely because of and by the authority of the West. It is
| a colonialist project and has been from it's inception
| and I don't think you can take this situation on fully
| without acknowledging that fact.
|
| Debating whether it should or shouldn't exist is rather
| moot at this point because it does, and tons of people
| live there who have committed no crime and done no wrong.
| That said, it is at the end all, an ethno-nationalist
| state built on a foundation of war crimes too numerous to
| count, that is currently incrementing as they barrage an
| utterly impotent neighbor to death, and it is doing so
| with the enthusiastic encouragement of FAR, FAR too many
| colonial powers. Maybe that's enough to say, ethically,
| that all of it's citizens should be displaced, maybe not.
| I do not know the solution. My point is that _Israel 's
| existence, in entirety, is violence_ perpetrated against
| every country it borders with, it wars with, and who's
| land it sits upon. That cannot be ignored.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Firstly, every time a country is getting criticized for
| it's human rights abuses it, like clockwork, raises the
| spectre of being "unjustly singled out" about it's human
| rights abuses.
|
| My favorite one of these is when South Africa would say
| that the only reason people were angry about Apartheid
| was their obvious "anti-Boer prejudice." Which sounds
| stupid, until you remember that the British rounded up
| Boers and put them into concentration camps. It's still
| stupid, but if you accept the premise that being abused
| gives you the right to abuse, it's a claim as legitimate
| as any other of that type.
|
| > My point is that Israel's existence, in entirety, is
| violence perpetrated against every country it borders
| with, it wars with, and who's land it sits upon.
|
| They could have just torn down the walls, and still can.
| Israelis can call the resulting country Israel, and
| Palestinians can call it Palestine. It only requires both
| groups to give up any dreams of theocracy. What made the
| PLO and Arafat so distasteful to Israeli power players
| was the fact that they were secular, reasonable, and
| making moral arguments, not theological ones. People
| whose goal was to wipe out the Palestinians _vastly_
| preferred Hamas.
| g15jv2dp wrote:
| > I think saying "evil" anything is wrong
|
| Really? I think the nazi party was evil, for example. Are
| you saying I'm wrong?
| mrcartmeneses wrote:
| Waste of time point scoring?
| StockHuman wrote:
| Out of idle curiosity, how did you arrive at Zionism from a
| non-jewish and leftist background? That has to be one of the
| rarest identities to simultaneously associate with.
| anoncareer0212 wrote:
| Thank you for asking, it's sublime to see that you're
| unique in others eyes, very hard to see yourself
|
| Let me really blow your mind: also, raised very
| conservative Catholic, didn't do Confirmation, then was
| Muslim for about 6 years
|
| It's all a long story. Catholic, LGBTQ stuff rubbed me the
| wrong way and in some of the deepest grace I've seen, my
| religious educator encourage it.
|
| Muslim, I was essentially on my own once I turned 15
| (abusive and absentee parents) and transferred from
| Catholic school to public school (save $$), and the most
| welcoming people were foreign, the rest had been in the
| same classes for a decade. They didn't prostelyize, it was
| fun going there on Friday nights to play dodge ball, it was
| little incremental work to show up earlier and it felt
| good.
|
| Zionist...I swear to God there wasn't a single negative
| word about Jews or Israel or other religions at either of
| the 2 mosques I went to. There was a quiet understanding
| that Palestinians were hurt and that it was a bit
| melodramatic at times, given they had structural issues on
| their own side.
|
| In general, I'm an inveterate both sides er, and I'm
| guessing knowing a lot of avowed older Zionist as well as
| Muslims makes me feel secure in "ugh there's some
| extremists / ignorant people in group X" rather than "wow
| group X is inherently evil"
|
| And now you're making me think maybe the parents have more
| to do with it than I realize. It took a _lot_ to finally
| say...wait, no...what they 're doing is wrong and I don't
| owe them anything. As long as I'm thinking things out and
| rational, I'm doing my best. Adds to the comfort with
| tendatiousness/both sides and confidence in holding to it.
|
| (Ran out of posts on main, so this is from my old backup
| when I was gainfully employed at FAANG)
| StockHuman wrote:
| Ah! You're your own Jerusalem; ever in the middle. :)
|
| That does make more sense: unless I read you wrong,
| leftism wasn't a real sway here - and that's easier to
| square away. Leftist Zionism is (as far as I can tell),
| almost only advanced by Jews.
|
| Neat, though I'm perhaps confused as to how you might
| even arrive at Zionism (a rather polar position to take).
| 616c wrote:
| It's amusing you can self identify this way without much
| hesitation. My personal experience with colleagues and family
| on both sides of the regional, religious, lijguistic, and
| cultural debate is that if you talked about being a non-
| Muslim supporter of political Islamists or up to including
| Hamas or similar groups, so anywhere in that continuum
| inclusive, few in Western or Israeli media will hesistate in
| labelling you in a way common with these talking points: a
| terrorist.
|
| So good luck to you, but I'm not surprised you'd stay private
| But my anecdata (or some may call life experience) tell me
| you'd be fine and fare well where a similarly extreme
| position on the opposite end of the spectrum would cost you a
| lot personally and professionally. I wish we all reflected in
| the West or in tje region or conflict area, well, why is
| that?
|
| For the record since I inevitably get routinely called an
| anti-Semite anyway: I think Hamas and groups like them are
| vile, but many in the region opposing them don't take the
| high road by comparison either. Im nkt sure if its recent or
| monitoring that become easier and more economical, but that
| means their opponents with this crap and other tactics have
| really screwed up. This HN post further supports my cynicism
| and disappointment.
| HL33tibCe7 wrote:
| This is presumably just the tip of the iceberg
| xkcd-sucks wrote:
| Even the spooky spy and torture people choose the crappy low
| bidding implementation partner
| CommanderData wrote:
| At this point they have a wiki or discord somewhere where they
| share talking points between each other.
|
| Someone from their group is clearly thinking ahead and
| automating all of them out of a job :)
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| If there are influence operations online is it ethical to counter
| them with your own? Obviously none would be preferable.
|
| We need to better define what propaganda _is_. To me it 's
| misleading or false information with the purpose of facilitating
| a political outcome. Or deceptive information not meant for
| selling a product.
| shmatt wrote:
| So buy comments on Israeli MK Facebook accounts? I think the
| only ones that would move any needle here is Meta profits on
| DAU and the company being paid to run the bots. You think your
| congressman goes to FB comments to decide how they're voting?
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Anywhere a voting public gets their information.
| Unfortunately that means FB comments. Could you answer my
| question though? Would it be ethical to counter an influence
| operation with your own?
| kelthuzad wrote:
| prop*a*gan*da /,prap@'gand@/ noun 1. information, especially of
| a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a
| particular political cause or point of view.
|
| This definition is good enough, I don't see why it would need a
| redefinition.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Sure. But why does it seem like everyone here calls
| everything propaganda all of the time?
|
| I think those who overuse the term ought to explain it in
| their own words.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| Propaganda is media designed to manipulate your opinion,
| without going to the trouble of rationally convincing you
| to change your mind. And yeh, most of what we see day to
| day is propaganda. If anything, everyone's under-using that
| word.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| How does propaganda differ from advertisement?
| davesque wrote:
| Criticizing Israel is the like the "Anti Social Social Club"
| t-shirt of our time. I really don't get why people find this news
| surprising or interesting.
|
| What's that? A political organization or world government is
| astroturfing on social media you say? And they're targeting
| lawmakers directly? Well, clutch my pearls!
| HL33tibCe7 wrote:
| > Criticizing Israel is the like the "Anti Social Social Club"
| t-shirt of our time
|
| Nice bit of deflection. It's not even true, either. People are
| being blacklisted from companies for speaking out against
| Israel, their faces being paraded through streets with threats
| made against them. Speaking out against Israel comes with
| significant risk, particularly for politicians and journalists
| - the proof is in the pudding, when you look at their insanely
| soft-balled coverage of anything Israel does. Anyway...
|
| > A political organization or world government is astroturfing
| on social media you say? And they're targeting lawmakers
| directly? Well, clutch my pearls!
|
| Sure, if it was Russia or China I wouldn't be surprised. But
| it's Israel. The US gives Israel $1,000,000,000s and
| $1,000,000,000s of dollars per year and is supposedly Israel's
| closest "ally". _That_ is what makes this interesting.
|
| I don't really know why I'm bothering replying to you, given
| your incredibly thinly veiled bias. But here I am nonetheless.
| davesque wrote:
| > given your incredibly thinly veiled bias
|
| What bias is that?
| mrcartmeneses wrote:
| This troll is hungry. I forget the name of the playbook,
| but it's so obvious it's painful
| zdragnar wrote:
| I was part of a company that "hunted" terrorist groups that did
| this. Start with sympathizers publicly posting on Twitter, find
| who they are connected to, and fan out and cross reference to the
| people who are either organizing violence or running drug
| operations for funding.
|
| I assume most countries with designs in foreign politics do much
| the same.
| elfbargpt wrote:
| Can you share what company that is? Palantir?
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| it would be interesting to know how global politics and wars
| would change if the US were to stop shoveling money to foreign
| countries.
| mrcartmeneses wrote:
| Much, much more peaceful. Once parties lack the resources for
| war and have to come to peace, it often takes hold in
| unexpectedly strong ways
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| i expect the same.
| yonixwm wrote:
| It really doesn't seem so when we experience Russia doing the
| opposite. It only seem to work if both parties to the
| conflict are democracies where meaningless war can put a toll
| on the government
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Much, much more peaceful_
|
| The entire history of our species runs counter to this. The
| most peaceful periods are uni or bipolar dynamic. _Pax
| Americana_ is statistically meaningful [1].
|
| > _Once parties lack the resources for war_
|
| Generally speaking, impoverishment increases violence.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Americana
| cuku0078 wrote:
| Everytime Iam reading manupilations in social media I remind the
| documentation The Dissident
| greentxt wrote:
| Crtl+f "NAFO" > zero hits
|
| So I want to say that it's not entirely clear to me that social
| media peer pressure campaigns are not on occassion counter
| productive. Automating it seems like it would be potentially
| disasterous. At the end of the day, there's much we still dont
| know about psychology, particularly when it comes to efforts at
| online persuasion.
| aszantu wrote:
| i recommend looking at 9gag.com news... these places are flooded
| with propaganda from all sides, it's impossible to not get
| influenced...
| kats wrote:
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/11/nsa-americans-...
| SrslyJosh wrote:
| Israel: The "ally" that acts like an enemy. =)
|
| (Alternately, the client state that controls its patron.)
| CommanderData wrote:
| Once a glorified US military base in the middle east served to
| expand US interests has become a parasitic entities and
| controls the host.
|
| The upside is the relationship is symbiotic, US expands
| Israel's borders, wreaking havock in the region, but tests US's
| war apparatus under "defence" and prevents a unified
| Arab/Asia/Indo state.
|
| Israel gets free reign to ignore international law, billions,
| while touting some story about a 'promised land'.
| issafram wrote:
| You know what else garners support from US lawmakers? AIPAC. They
| give money directly to members of the house and Senate. And that
| is somehow considered ok.
| bamboozled wrote:
| 2024, dammed if you do, dammed if you don't.
| gptretdevnull wrote:
| There is zero need for Israel to garner support from the US.
|
| The point of this campaign was to highlight "fake social accounts
| tricking" "Black lawmakers and young progressives" (>Black
| lawmakers in the U.S., particularly Democrats., >young Americans,
| >Black Americans) because at least someone wants them to think
| that they, their teams and their followers are weak & easy
| targets, thus reducing their perceived competence and credibility
| without the necessity of success of the campaign itself, except
| that similar campaigns existed for pro-Russia and fuck-Russia
| content all while celebrating Ukraine's destruction, sorry, fight
| for independence, officially.
|
| These campaigns are part of a cluster. They are not meant to
| merely polarize but to make some people resign and follow public/
| the states' opinions much quicker than they normally would. At
| the same time, buffs, journalists, educated people and the
| rational kind spend more time sieving through information sources
| that are bloated.
|
| I'm not saying this is a conspiracy, hell no, it's entanglement,
| it's marketing, it's the business of politics and national
| establishments and companies challenging each other to test
| ludicrous strategies to sway public opinion. It's all from the
| modern "The Drump" playbook. Just imagine how at least enough
| people who fall for campaigns like this, feel when they are told
| the truth. How many will get angry, really? How many are going to
| start gearing and studying up? Who are they to trust if their own
| government supports governments who have the need to run
| campaigns like this?
|
| This whole "making people support conflicting causes" has been
| working pretty damn well for the (alt)Right, who is desperately
| trying to diminish young peoples' independence and turn them all
| into obedient followers to sell their 'stones are really hard'
| books and narratives and time on screen.
|
| It's just dozens of millions but that's the few you need make the
| elected look your way when they are ready to pay2win "at all
| cost".
|
| So how can we fight this with engineering? We need analysis run
| by red and blue teams from universities worldwide. I mean it's
| 2024. The scientific community does it, but their time is
| dictated by the scientific method. Or are there live projects
| already?
| GenerocUsername wrote:
| Always makes me wonder how many false threads exist on other
| platforms, even this one. There are many chats happening in this
| thread that seem oddly written. Either excentrics, or automatons.
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