[HN Gopher] Leaked Meta data reveals campaign to remove pro-Pale...
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Leaked Meta data reveals campaign to remove pro-Palestine posts
Author : jbegley
Score : 541 points
Date : 2025-04-11 16:24 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.dropsitenews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.dropsitenews.com)
| Qem wrote:
| Archived version:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20250411170102/https://www.drops...
| MPSFounder wrote:
| Everyone knew this. That is part of why our gov pushes so hard
| for the acquisition of TikTok. Israel is the leading orchestrator
| of propaganda alongside Russia, which you can easily see through
| their IDF videos aimed at teenagers. Strip this issue of any
| political and religious underpinning. It is based on colonization
| and apartheid, where one country is much more powerful than the
| other (and given it is an ethnostate, it is backed by the United
| States, where the artistocracy is overwhelmingly Jewish). The end
| result is "free speech" is no free speech indeed. Additionally,
| Mark is not particularly religious, although his mother very much
| is. I am assuming being pro-Israel is a tenet of their faith.
| Obviously Palestin-e will never be able to orchestrate this (they
| lack a functioning government). More interesting than this
| though, there are bot farms (which we located to be within 20
| miles of Tel Aviv) that actively disparaged Harris during her
| campaign, and that doxed American citizens who had any pro-
| Palestine posts. Canary Mission is an example, it is a front for
| IDF militants to target Americans that are critical of Israel.
| Yet there are traitors among us that favor Israel over the rights
| of Americans (the majority of the protestors doxxed are Jewish
| and white by the way, last time I checked). It is very
| interesting how these farms operate (IDF soldiers get 2 hours out
| of 10 of their service to sit behind accounts and push for pro-
| Israel propaganda. Some of it is benign, mostly pretending to be
| other people and swarming comments. Sometimes it is escalated to
| doxing and stalking individuals, blacklisting them and in the
| extremes, getting them fired like those Ivy League deans that
| stood for free speech. You can usually see it in Reddit posts,
| where a bulk of them are made within 1 hour of each other).
| robertoandred wrote:
| A country where 20% of the population is Muslim is hardly a
| Jewish ethnostate.
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| Is it possible for a country where 80% of the population is
| black to be a white ethnostate?
| swarnie wrote:
| Not since about 1991
| Cyph0n wrote:
| That flew right above your head mate.
| MPSFounder wrote:
| The leadership is Jewish. You can argue America in the early
| 1900s during Jim Crow was not technically segregated and
| disenfranchised. Looking at facts without context is very
| misleading. The leadership themselves described their
| neighbors as animals. It is a nation based on dehumanization
| for the establishment of a religious ethnostate (hence the
| law of return aimed at Jews and not Muslim or Christian arabs
| for instance). Making any excuse on behalf of Israel is
| frankly mind-boggling. It is a tale of the slave feeding his
| master. Although many Americans stood for South African
| apartheid, so it comes as no surprise when fed propaganda,
| most of us will choose what to believe. Part of me wishes we
| exposed more of those Israeli farms etc, but it will come at
| a dear price if you do so (remember Congress is controlled by
| AIPAC, and they will throw the book at you if you do)
| robertoandred wrote:
| > The leadership is Jewish
|
| Might want to tell them that https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik
| i/List_of_Arab_members_of_the_...
| MPSFounder wrote:
| A clown can always be put in charge for propaganda
| purposes. The facts remain
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Return
|
| I know an American Christian family of Palestinian origin
| that proved their home had been in the outskirts of
| Nazareth (5 generations back, with concrete proof) that
| were denied a visit to Israel because they are not
| Jewish. It is shameful and repugnant. While anyone can
| visit Israel in theory, the gov will deny you entry if
| there is connection to the land that precedes Israeli
| settlements. And of course, the law of return is
| exclusively for Jewish people
| robertoandred wrote:
| > there are no Arabs in Israeli leadership!
|
| > there are
|
| > yeah but they're clowns!
|
| What's the real propaganda here?
| TimorousBestie wrote:
| This serves to demonstrate that "Arabs" residing in
| Israel (with all the complexities of Israeli residency
| omitted for the sake of time) are relatively
| underrepresented in the Knesset.
|
| You've shown less than 10% of the Knesset is "Arab" (for
| Israel's peculiar definition of "Arab"), whereas 20+% of
| the population is.
| ahoy wrote:
| Was apartheid South Africa not an ethnostate then? Was the US
| south during slavery not an ethnostate?
|
| I almost wonder if your comment itself is Israeli propaganda.
| dang wrote:
| Both comments that you posted to this thread so far have
| broken the site guidelines. Can you please review
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stop
| doing that?
|
| You're welcome to make your substantive points
| thoughtfully, but it's not ok to attack others (for
| example).
|
| This is really important, because the impact of doing this
| evokes worse from others in a fruit-of-the-poisoned-tree
| sort of way. It's not a surprise that your comment here
| formed the root of such a terrible subthread with so many
| comments breaking the site guidelines at least as badly.
| ahoy wrote:
| The site guidelines are fairly poorly written if they
| allow pro-genocide trolls but not pushback
| donjoe0 wrote:
| *leading orchestrator of propaganda alongside the US, which has
| the most effective propaganda machine in the history of the
| world, more effective even than its actual military
|
| All you need is to check the miles-long list of antidemocratic
| coups d'etat organized by - or with the critical support of -
| the US, and what the press or the public thought at the time if
| you asked them if the US was doing that.
| maujun wrote:
| You seem to be indicating that the US actions were bad.
|
| But after those actions, that's what many people wanted after
| simply reading/listening to some words.
|
| Even if you say what the US is disseminating is not "true"
| (or misleading), it is debatable that truth matters more than
| the people's "preferences".
|
| And it's debatable that other country's preferences matter
| more than the US people's. What's wrong with the US spreading
| it's view of morality (such as human rights)?
|
| The US is the greatest country in the world. I learned that
| in school and don't need to worry about whether it's true.
| Now and when the time comes, I will be a good citizen.
| anovick wrote:
| You speak about others using bots, yet your post reads entirely
| as bot-made.
|
| You speak about others using propaganda, yet your
| unsubstantiated claims mixed with keywords that evoke strong
| emotions, are exactly the kind used for propaganda.
| MPSFounder wrote:
| I am not a bot. In fact I welcome ideas to take them down. I
| am just not owned by Israel and do not disseminate their
| propaganda, and I frankly reject their influence on our
| politics. I see them as enemies of the United States, because
| their morals are very much not aligned with ours as far as I
| am concerned. Your other comments opposing blocking Israel
| tells me you are Israeli. I understand you could be victim of
| their propaganda too (visit the Ghaza strip. I am sure the
| IDF will provide you protection. Or fly a drone over it to
| see the famine Israel is responsible for). I would urge you
| to oppose your gov interfering in American politics. We do
| not take lightly to foreign interference :)
| ethbr1 wrote:
| >> _The data show that Meta has complied with 94% of takedown
| requests issued by Israel since October 7, 2023._
|
| Nice to see Zuckerberg taking free speech as seriously as he
| claims.
| natch wrote:
| Sarcasm noted. Perhaps society may not be able to reach your
| ideal form of free speech as long as we have limitations on
| incitement-type hate speech that promotes terrorism.+
|
| +and _actual_ genocide.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| Tell me: how do you define "actual" genocide when the
| goalposts keep moving and the top courts responsible for
| prosecuting genocide keep getting ignored and (in the case of
| ICC) sanctioned?
|
| At this point, anyone with even an ounce of awareness &
| empathy should realize that international law is dead until
| further notice.
| dingnuts wrote:
| actual genocide is what has happened to the Jewish
| population in every country in their native homeland -- the
| middle east -- except Israel. Pick an islamist country, any
| of the ones in the area but especially the governments
| backed by Iran, and you will see a great example of ethnic
| cleansing and genocide.
|
| You will also understand then, that the Jews defending
| their ninety mile strip by the sea are actually in their
| last stand in a fight for survival stretching back 1000
| years
|
| so tell me: what is genocide? what is Holocaust? How many
| Jews still live in Arabia? Iraq? Iran? These are their
| indigenous homelands.
|
| What is genocide?
| skyyler wrote:
| >You will also understand then, that the Jews defending
| their ninety mile strip by the sea are actually in their
| last stand in a fight for survival stretching back 1000
| years
|
| It's really hard to keep this kind of rhetoric going when
| we have the internet showing us videos of hospitals being
| bombed. That's not defense.
| natch wrote:
| Good question, but also, study some history. This did not
| start in 1948, nor in that century even.
| seydor wrote:
| I m not sure he ever claimed that
| pmastela wrote:
| I recall he made changes at the beginning of the year
| specifically because "it's time to get back to our roots
| around free expression."
|
| Full transcript of his remarks can be found here:
| https://www.techpolicy.press/transcript-mark-zuckerberg-
| anno...
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| What if I don't care to see pro-Palestinian posts?
| rtkwe wrote:
| Ok don't follow those people then? Or mute their posts from
| your timeline? There are tools you can use to take
| responsibility for your own feed. My tool of choice is to just
| never scroll on the main feed on the rare times I do go to FB
| at all because the feed is 90% engagement slop from super safe
| pages I don't follow. Either way your personal preferences
| don't justify the mass suppression.
| hackerknew wrote:
| I don't follow any of those people. But, I literally get ads
| for Palestinian causes on facebook from fake charities.
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| Click downvote, or don't read them, or since this is FB put the
| little angry face emoji on it. Just don't have a state
| apparatus dedicated to whining to the mods to please delete
| this post!
| zombiwoof wrote:
| That's like following the NFL but complaining if the Cowboys
| are discussed too much.
| DAGdug wrote:
| If everything that anyone cared to not see was censored,
| there'd be no content on the internet. Also, not smart to
| conflate (lack of) personalization with government-induced
| content moderation.
| googlryas wrote:
| I'd like to see examples of actual posts that were taken down,
| rather than talk of the quantity, or who filed the reports.
| mef51 wrote:
| The HRW report[1] goes into details, at least on the 1050
| takedowns they documented
|
| > A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report investigating Meta's
| moderation of pro-Palestine content post-October 7th found
| that, of 1,050 posts HRW documented as taken-down or suppressed
| on Facebook or Instagram, 1,049 involved peaceful content in
| support of Palestine, while just one post was content in
| support of Israel."
|
| [1] https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/12/21/metas-broken-
| promises/...
| cypherpunks01 wrote:
| > Human Rights Watch also found repeated inaccurate
| application of the "adult nudity and sexual activity" policy
| for content related to Palestine. In every one of the cases,
| we reviewed where this policy was invoked, the content
| included images of dead Palestinians over ruins in Gaza that
| were clothed, not naked. For example, multiple users reported
| their Instagram stories being removed under this policy when
| they posted the same image of a Palestinian father in Gaza
| who was killed while he was holding his clothed daughter, who
| was also killed.
|
| > While "hate speech," "bullying and harassment," and
| "violence and incitement" policies[74] were less commonly
| invoked in the cases Human Rights Watch documented, the
| handful of cases where they were applied stood out as
| erroneous. For example, a Facebook user post that said, "How
| can anyone justify supporting the killing of babies and
| innocent civilians..." was removed under Community Standards
| on "bullying and harassment."[75] Another user posted an
| image on Instagram of a dead child in a hospital in Gaza with
| the comment, "Israel bombs the Baptist Hospital in Gaza City
| killing over 500..." which was removed under Community
| Guidelines on "violence and incitement."[76]
| breppp wrote:
| HRW is a "complicated" organization. It took money from
| Saudis in return for not advocating for LGBT rights in the
| middle east [1]. It agreed to take money from the Qatari
| government, a government that also supports Hamas [2][3] and
| is involved in corruption cases and buying of politicians all
| over the world.
|
| [1] https://theintercept.com/2020/03/02/human-rights-watch-
| took-...
|
| [2] https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/middle-
| east/1700763578-human-...
|
| [3] https://www.memri.org/reports/raven-project-leaks-
| alleged-qa...
| someotherperson wrote:
| This feels like a dog whistle rather than providing
| something substantive.
|
| The Israeli government also helped facilitate Qatar's
| support for Hamas[0], what's your point here?
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_support_for_Hamas
| #Isra...
| googlryas wrote:
| This is exactly why I want to see the posts, because I don't
| really trust 3rd parties to accurately classify "peaceful
| content in support of Palestine". It's possible Facebook is
| wrong. It's also possible that it's filled with content that
| is peaceful in only the most shallow, ignorant reading
| possible. e.g. (paraphrasing from my facebook feed last year,
| on a post which was not taken down): "I'm planning a
| celebration on October 7th in support of my Palestinian
| friends, who wants to join me :)"
| thomassmith65 wrote:
| The article mentions requests to remove posts quoting Ghassan
| Kanafani. The article introduces Kanafani as a literary figure,
| but then discusses his involvement in the PFLP. I don't know if
| they want the reader to form a particular judgement about this,
| or if they're just reporting the facts.
| abeppu wrote:
| It sounds like you're using the fact that the posts aren't
| available for you to view to evaluate as a weakness of the
| reporting on this suppression campaign, but of course they're
| not available _because_ of the suppression campaign.
|
| Surely the burden should be on the censors to establish clearly
| that something is in fact incitement to violence, rather than
| on external reporters to magically show that content which has
| been taken down is not incitement?
| bawolff wrote:
| Generally i hold the burden to prove wrong-doing is on the
| party allegging wrong-doing. Otherwise we get in a situation
| where it can be effectively impossible for the accused to
| prove their innocence, as it is much more difficult to prove
| a negative than a positive.
| abeppu wrote:
| ... and you're absolutely right, innocent people had
| basically no recourse when Meta took down their content, or
| shadow-banned them etc on the claim that they were inciting
| violence, pro-terrorist, engaging in hate-speech etc. The
| accused cannot publicly point to their post which merely
| used a palestinian flag emoji, or mentioned an assassinated
| writer. The burden should have been much higher for Meta
| when casting such accusations about.
| bawolff wrote:
| Both of these things can be true.
| abeppu wrote:
| Sure the burden _should_ be high in both directions.
|
| But the journalists seem to be doing a decent job of
| announcing and describing the data they have, and
| confirming it with multiple sources within Meta. They're
| engaged in a seemingly earnest and forthright effort to
| make the case. And to the degree that it's limited, it
| seems those limits are due to Meta itself.
|
| Meta, on the other hand, excepting these whistleblowers,
| makes very little information available about their take-
| down actions both at the level of individual cases or at
| the level of their systematic responses to governments.
| The whistleblowers claim that Meta regularly took down
| posts without human review when requested by the
| Israelis. That's the exact opposite of the high burden of
| proof that you're asking for.
| bawolff wrote:
| If we want to blame meta for having opaque review
| processes with little option to appeal then i'd agree.
|
| In terms of the implied proposition that israel is
| intentionally using the take down process to shield
| itself from criticism. I just dont think the evidence in
| the article supports that proposition. I would expect the
| stuff mentioned in the article to happen both in the case
| Israel is trying to get criticism taken down and in the
| case Israel is only interested in having "kill 'em all"
| type posts taken down. So i don't find the article very
| compelling.
| esalman wrote:
| I am part of a neighborhood group where I grew up in Bangladesh
| and lived until 5th grade in the 90s.
|
| The group admin this morning let us know via Facebook post that
| he has received warnings frm Facebook. The group is "at a risk
| of being suspended" because way too many posts relating to
| "dangerous organization and individuals" have been removed. He
| wants everyone to be extra careful when posting about
| p*l*s*i*e, I*r*e*, g*z*, j*w* etc. He used asterisks himself
| just to be extra careful himself.
|
| Not to mention my country is dealing with rohingya crisis,
| which was fueled by Facebook and WhatsApp misinformation
| campaigns, and Facebook had 2 moderators for the whole country
| of Myanmar and refused to do anything about said misinformation
| campaigns. But they sure make exceptions for I*r*e*.
| Capricorn2481 wrote:
| > Not to mention my country is dealing with rohingya crisis,
| which was fueled by Facebook and WhatsApp misinformation
| campaigns, and Facebook had 2 moderators for the whole
| country of Myanmar and refused to do anything about said
| misinformation campaigns. But they sure make exceptions for I
| _r_ e*
|
| Not sure why you're downvoted. This is all true.
| shihab wrote:
| As a recent example, the instagram of guardian journalist Owen
| jones (well known Israel critic) was suddenly suspended without
| any explanation today.
|
| It has been since restored, after a predictable twitter storm.
| dijit wrote:
| Wasn't that caused by pro-palestinian people reporting him
| out of hatred for attending a "butt-mitzvah" Jewish gay
| party?
| nashashmi wrote:
| Every pro Palestinian protestor has experienced some form of
| awareness suppression and content removal. They have known this
| was a thing long before anyone else did.
|
| Same thing happened during 9/11. Muslims saw suppression,
| bullying by the police and no one covered it. Then the tables
| turned on maga republicans after j6.
| dijit wrote:
| I'm too stupid to navigate this topic in anything other than
| a crude and adolescent way, however I think it could be
| tricky for pro-palestinians because they can fall easily into
| the trap of using party slogans used by proscribed
| organisations.
|
| My understanding of Hamas is that they are not considered a
| legitimate army, but if they were they would be guilty of an
| insurmountable number of war crimes (not unlike the IDF as
| many would say). Showing support for such things is beyond
| reasonable accepted discourse in my home country.
| chacham15 wrote:
| Since nobody here has actually read the article, it states that
| the reason the posts were taken down was "prohibits incitement
| to terrorism praise for acts of terrorism and identification or
| support of terror organizations." This type of speech
| (incitement) is illegal in the United States and support is
| very borderline depending on the type and meaning of "support".
| Now, if the reason doesnt match the actual content removed that
| should definitely be addressed which is your point, but I think
| that the reason is valid.
| zombiwoof wrote:
| People still use Facebook?
| ben_w wrote:
| Personal anecdote: whever I log in to the feed, 1/3 of posts
| are ads, 1/3 are algorithmic recommendations, and 1/3 are pro-
| Palestine posts by a former partner.
|
| Almost none of my other connections post anything, though there
| are occasional exceptions.
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| I like to think we are in a better place than russia for instance
| with all its propaganda and jailed journalists, but then i see
| these kind of article come over and over....
|
| Most of the people in the 'free world' goes on mainstream media,
| like facebook to get their news. These companies are enticed to
| 'suck up' to the government because at the end they are business,
| they need to be in good term with ruling class.
|
| you end up with most media complying with the official story
| pushed by government and friends, and most people believing that
| because no one has the time to fact check everything.
|
| One could argue that the difference with russia is that someone
| can actually look for real information, but even in russia people
| have access to vpn to bypass the censorship.
|
| Another difference would be that you are allowed to express your
| opinion, whereas in russia you would be put to jail, that's true
| but only in a very limited way. Since everyone goes on mainstream
| media and they enforce the government narrative, you can't speak
| there. you are merely allowed to speak out in your little corner
| out of reach to anyone, and even then since most people believe
| the government propaganda, your arguments won't be heard at all.
|
| The more i think about it, the less difference i see.
| gooosle wrote:
| The difference with Russia is that they are much worse at
| hiding their corruption and censorship.
| rchaud wrote:
| Russia doesn't bang the drum of "free speech" ad nauseam the
| way US social media magnates do.
| gooosle wrote:
| Sure, the 'free speech' propaganda is a conscious part of
| the (better/more effective) public opinion manipulation
| playbook.
| tryauuum wrote:
| True. I was born in Russia and to be honest I wish Russia
| would at least "bang the drum of free speech" as well. If
| you pretend to have some values you actually make people
| start to believe in them a bit
| newsclues wrote:
| It's not a better or worse government (although it may be),
| it's just different.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| You're not arrested for posting this, so that is a pretty big
| difference to Russia (and other authoritarian nations like
| China and Turkey), no?
|
| https://rsf.org/en/country/russia
| Cyph0n wrote:
| You do realize that this is where things are going, right?
| Have you not heard of the arrests and recent deportations of
| student protestors?
|
| I don't understand why we keep forgetting that
| authoritarianism is a slippery slope.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| You have a point with democratic backsliding - but then
| your rights hinge on the impartiality of the judicial
| system (as a whole, and eventually, not necessarily
| individual decisions evidently). It's pretty obvious that
| the legal systems even in flawed democracies is still
| vastly better than in those autocracies.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| A tale as old as time: watch from the sidelines while
| things are relatively "good" before suddenly finding
| yourself on the naughty list.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Checks and balances are a crucial feature of American
| democracy.
|
| It's almost as though the framers of the Constitution
| foresaw the possibility of the two elected branches of
| government (executive and legislative) being monopolized
| by the same group, at some point.
|
| And that the very flexibility of regular, open, direct
| elections also required a check to protect the
| fundamental rights of all people in the country.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| They may have foresaw it but they did little if anything
| to prevent it. They lamented that political parties would
| probably be the downfall, and here we are...
| ethbr1 wrote:
| > _little if anything to prevent it_
|
| The prevention is literally in the Constitution! Do you
| think other branches of government would be deferring to
| the Supreme Court if it weren't spelled out that they
| must?
| BeetleB wrote:
| > You do realize that this is where things are going,
| right?
|
| This has been going on for decades.
|
| > Have you not heard of the arrests and recent deportations
| of student protestors?
|
| The legality of which will be decided (hopefully) by the
| courts. If this turns out to be legal, the fault doesn't
| lie at the hands of Trump and his cronies, but at a broken
| system we've had - for decades. Getting rid of him won't
| solve this. Having checks and balances will.
|
| Much of his and Elon's actions are within the power that
| has been legally granted to them. And _that_ is the
| problem. Congress is not limiting those powers. Voters are
| another part of checks and balances, and they happily
| wanted to give him those powers.
|
| The problem isn't Trump. It's the country. Been broken for
| a while, but it took time for someone to clearly
| demonstrate how broken it is.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| Agreed. And nowhere did I say that the problem is Trump.
| I was simply using current events as proof that we are
| already in a bad state.
| NoTeslaThrow wrote:
| Yea but there's also not much point in critiquing the
| government here. What we ever been able to do about it except
| riot? We can endlessly discuss the failures of government and
| as it stands I don't think we will never see these failures
| distinguish candidates in the voting booth. Which is
| confusing, because you'd think the democrats would have
| wanted to win this time.
| pydry wrote:
| Yea people are actually
| https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3rnzp4ye5zo
|
| The western endorsement of the genocide in Gaza has been some
| of the best PR Putin could ever have hoped for.
|
| It simultaneously underlined the viciousness, the lack of
| moral credibility and extreme hypocrisy of western leaders in
| the eyes of the nonaligned world (e.g. the global south),
| none of whom sanctioned him.
| perihelions wrote:
| America's arrested rather a large number of people in recent
| weeks--university students, mostly--for expressing viewpoints
| on the I/P conflict. The current Administration is claiming,
| and no one's yet stopped them, that First Amendment rights
| don't apply to non-citizens such as international students.
|
| - _" You're not arrested for posting this"_
|
| For what it's worth, it's widely reported that ICE is
| trawling social media to find targets (targeted for their
| speech/viewpoints). HN itself is one of their known targets.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| It doesn't matter if they're citizens or not if the
| government is skipping court thus not being required to
| prove it either way. Then when they oopsie you to another
| country they have to at least try to pretend to get you
| back but the courts need to show "deference owed to the
| executive branch in the conduct of foreign affairs".
|
| Which is a long way of saying the executive can blackhole
| anyone it wants to a foreign country and no one is going to
| do anything because god forbid we step on the executive's
| role to give up people in our country to other countries.
| aeternum wrote:
| >Which is a long way of saying the executive can
| blackhole anyone it wants
|
| Do you have examples of the executive doing this to
| citizens or are you being hypothetical here?
|
| Countries generally grant far fewer rights to non-
| citizens. Have you considered how allowing non-citizens
| to spread discontent within a country could be abused?
| perihelions wrote:
| - _" Do you have examples of the executive doing this to
| citizens or are you being hypothetical here?"_
|
| "Do you have examples of this severity-11 CVE being used
| in the wild, or are you just being hypothetical here?"
| It's a horrifically exploitable bug, were it left
| unpatched.
|
| It's not some fringe conspiracy theory that this is how
| the law works and how the law _would_ work on contact
| with US citizens; the _Garcia_ SCOTUS concurrence
| explicitly underscored this perversity,
|
| - _" The Government's argument, moreover, implies that it
| could deport and incarcerate any person, including U.S.
| citizens_ [sic!], _without legal consequence, so long as
| it does so before a court can intervene... That view
| refutes itself. "_
|
| https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a949_lkhn.p
| df
| packetlost wrote:
| Here's the executive branch getting ordered by SCOTUS to
| bring someone back for doing just that:
| https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62gnzzeg34o
| gs17 wrote:
| They were asking about it happening to citizens. From
| your article:
|
| > Mr Garcia, a Salvadoran
| miltonlost wrote:
| He's a permanent resident. Splitting hairs over
| citizenship when he was here legally massively misses the
| problem with blackholing people here legally.
| georgemcbay wrote:
| > Splitting hairs over citizenship when he was here
| legally massively misses the problem with blackholing
| people here legally.
|
| And on top of that this case should be horrifying to
| anyone regardless of whether they want to split hairs
| because:
|
| A) they admitted he was deported in error
|
| B) they are now effectively trying to argue there is no
| way to get him back
|
| So even if you believe they would never knowingly do this
| to an actual citizen they are only one slightly different
| mistake from disappearing a citizen, whether or not it
| has happened yet.
|
| Nevermind the fact that Trump himself has repeatedly
| floated the idea of deporting citizens: https://www.washi
| ngtonpost.com/immigration/2025/04/10/trump-...
|
| And then lastly and most importantly IMO it is wildly un-
| American to believe anyone (regardless of citizenship or
| legal status) is not entitled to due process.
| packetlost wrote:
| He's married to a citizen which gives him an avenue
| towards legal residency and full citizenship.
|
| It doesn't matter anyways because the government
| _admitted_ he was deported due to a administrative error
| and because they actively undermined and sidestepped the
| courts authority on several occasions, there is
| effectively nothing stopping them from doing it to full
| blown citizens. Honestly, it sounds like it 's just a
| matter of time if this keeps up.
| gs17 wrote:
| I agree it's bad, and yes, the government admitted they
| shouldn't have done it. But regardless, the question was
| about if it has happened to a citizen, not a person who
| maybe could be a citizen one day but is not, and you
| responded with them "doing just that" when they did not,
| in fact, "do just that".
|
| I'm not sure why there's a need to mislead when what's
| actually happening is bad enough.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| It's not a need to mislead. You're grasping at a
| technicality. Citizenship is irrelevant if you're not
| given the chance to demonstrate it, which he wasn't, and
| again, he was actually deported because of the
| administrative error, not an on-purpose action, the
| correctness of which is irrelevant.
|
| You're arguing whether a car wrapped around a tree has a
| bad alternator. Surely a fact useful to someone,
| somewhere, and worth knowing. But also certainly not the
| reason there's a problem.
| biker142541 wrote:
| 100% this. To echo another poster below, it's really
| important to read the Supreme Court's own words here.
|
| >"The Government's argument, moreover, implies that it
| could deport and incarcerate any person, including U. S.
| citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does
| so before a court can intervene. " From https://www.supre
| mecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a949_lkhn.pdf
|
| I suspect that is one of the main reasons behind the
| order. It's very obvious that citizen vs legal resident
| matters very little here, if due process is not given.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| You would agree that this whole discussion would be
| considered insanity in America like 4 months ago, right?
| Hikikomori wrote:
| If they can ignore due process in this case what's to say
| they cannot do it to proper citizens? It's clear they're
| probing their way into creating a blueprint to get rid of
| people critical of trump.
| amalcon wrote:
| Would his being a citizen have mattered to any of the
| procedures prior to his rendition? The government never
| made any effort to prove that he was here illegally
| (which is important since he wasn't), and he never had an
| opportunity to offer a defense.
| empath75 wrote:
| It happens to be the case that he's not a citizen or
| claiming to be a citizen, but he wasn't given due
| process, and there's absolutely nothing stopping them
| from picking anybody up off the street, claiming they're
| here illegally, and shipping them off to an El Salvadoran
| prison.
|
| All people in the us, legal or illegal, citizen or not,
| have fourth amendment protections, and if you strip those
| rights from anyone, you remove them from everyone.
| billfor wrote:
| Do they? We generally don't give noncitizens the right to
| own a gun in the us, so clearly we are selective about
| applying the 2nd amendment protection. The 4th may need
| adjudication.
| empath75 wrote:
| Permanent residents have the right to own a gun in the
| US.
|
| The supreme court has upheld many many times that the
| fourth amendment applies to all people within the borders
| of the US.
| efnx wrote:
| What about that guy who got deported to El Salvador even
| though he was legally here and the court had also ordered
| he not be sent back to El Salvador for his own
| protection? I'm pretty sure the admin admitted it was a
| mistake then refused to bring him back.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| The Supreme Court resolutely batted that down 9-0 in a
| few days.
|
| >> _The [District Court] order properly requires the
| Government to "facilitate" Abrego Garcia's release from
| custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is
| handled as it would have been had he not been improperly
| sent to El Salvador. The intended scope of the term
| "effectuate" in the District Court's order is, however,
| unclear, and may exceed the District Court's authority.
| The District Court should clarify its directive, with due
| regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in
| the conduct of foreign affairs. For its part, the
| Government should be prepared to share what it can
| concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of
| further steps._ https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24p
| df/24a949_lkhn.pdf
|
| The only question at this point is how detailed in
| demands the District Court can be.
|
| The administration attempted to push the boundaries of
| executive power and lost in court, as has been happening.
|
| Turns out, conservative justices with lifetime
| appointments aren't too legally thrilled about an
| unbridled executive either.
| passive wrote:
| This order was toothless, and the administration has
| already flouted it.
|
| All John Roberts is doing is asking Trump to go further
| next time. Whether it's intentional or just cowardice on
| his part doesn't really matter to the rest of us.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| It matter to me, since there are 2-3 conservative
| justices on the current Supreme Court that are likely to
| tire of administration excesses.
|
| A long game player might even say Roberts is angling for
| that, by tailoring consensus opinions that nonetheless
| leave room for the administration to demonstrate further
| stupidity.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| Yes, that is where my quote came from. From your own
| quote:
|
| > The District Court should clarify its directive, with
| due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch
| in the conduct of foreign affairs.
|
| Which is such a ridiculously bullshit line of thought.
| This wasn't some person who willingly went to some random
| country, this is someone the executive illegally put
| there against the person's will _in coordination with_
| said foreign government. I can guarantee you that any
| order with teeth will be struck down by SCOTUS on this
| line of thought.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| I'm not sure why people obtusely intepret Supreme Court
| rulings as though they're part of the current
| administration.
|
| The court is obviously saying that (1) it's correct and
| necessary to bring him back but that (2) the District
| Court doesn't have unbridled authority to order any
| foreign policy-influencing remedy it wants.
|
| I.e. a US court couldn't order a president to sign a
| treaty
|
| If the administration tries to foot drag further, the
| Supreme Court will likely order more specific remedies.
|
| By not taking the L here, the administration is just
| burning whatever conservative goodwill they might have
| started with on this Supreme Court.
| zzrrt wrote:
| > Do you have examples of the executive doing this to
| citizens
|
| Feels like moving the goalposts. First they were going to
| clear out "illegals" by any means, now the line includes
| any non-citizens. Granted maybe you personally didn't say
| both though.
|
| > Have you considered how allowing non-citizens to spread
| discontent within a country could be abused?
|
| Is it meaningfully different from allowing citizens to
| "spread discontent"? Why not just start taking
| everybody's 1st amendment rights, by the same logic? I'm
| not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure there's long precedent
| that non-citizens are granted most of the same rights,
| including freedom of speech and assembly.
|
| If non-citizens are being supported, instructed, etc by
| their government in spreading discontent, there are
| probably laws like espionage for that; you don't have to
| take away everybody else's freedom to stop them.
| cmurf wrote:
| Does the Constitution provide for due process to persons?
| Or only citizens?
|
| If non-citizen have been human trafficked without due
| process, what additional protection against it is
| provided to citizens? Where is that stated?
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| Not great but still better than defenestration I guess.
| pydry wrote:
| Well, it's not like they were Boeing whistleblowers or
| leaked video footage of a war crime.
| elcritch wrote:
| I've seen a few news articles on arrests and the headlines
| are attention grabbing "Ivy League Student arrested for
| protesting" and it's worrisome to see.
|
| However then buried in the article is something like they
| overstayed their visa, etc. Take a sibling comment's link
| to an article with a "second student arrested" in the
| title. As in that seems like there isn't a "large number".
| This is nothing like the reports of arrests in Russia.
| Especially as some of these pro-Palestinian protestors
| advocate violence or intifada pretty freely. I've seen that
| with my own eyes.
|
| If I were a foreign national protesting and advocating for
| violence against any other country or people group I'd
| expect to be denied a visa or possibly deported for
| participating in such events. It'd be arrogant not to
| expect that outcome IMHO.
|
| Visa applications in European Union countries often include
| things such as "indicators of good civil behavior". Take
| the quotes from that sibling comment's linked BBC article:
|
| > The DHS statement says that Ms Kordia had overstayed her
| student visa, which had been terminated in 2022 "for lack
| of attendance". It did not say whether she had been
| attending Columbia or another institution. > She had
| previously been arrested in April 2024 for taking part in
| protests at Columbia University, according to DHS. > "It is
| a privilege to be granted a visa to live and study in the
| United States of America," said Homeland Security Secretary
| Kristi Noem in a statement. > "When you advocate for
| violence and terrorism that privilege should be revoked,
| and you should not be in this country."
| colanderman wrote:
| Rumeysa Ozturk did not overstay her visa nor advocate
| violence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_of_R%C3
| %BCmeysa_%C3%...
|
| Nor did Rasha Alawieh: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depo
| rtation_of_Rasha_Alawieh
| elcritch wrote:
| And cases like Rumeysa Ozturk's are different. I also
| believe DHS should have to abide by the courts as well.
| Her case is also getting national and international
| attention and legal help.
| empath75 wrote:
| > As in that seems like there isn't a "large number". ---
|
| > "But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or
| hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes.
| That's the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the
| whole regime had come immediately after the first and
| smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been
| sufficiently shocked--if, let us say, the gassing of the
| Jews in '43 had come immediately after the 'German Firm'
| stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in '33. But
| of course this isn't the way it happens. In between come
| all the hundreds of little steps, some of them
| imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be
| shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than
| Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why
| should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.
|
| And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever
| sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of
| self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor
| incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a
| baby, saying 'Jewish swine,' collapses it all at once,
| and you see that everything, everything, has changed and
| changed completely under your nose. The world you live in
| --your nation, your people--is not the world you were
| born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched,
| all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the
| mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the
| holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because
| you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the
| forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and
| fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know
| it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is
| transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without
| responsibility even to God. The system itself could not
| have intended this in the beginning, but in order to
| sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way." --
| Milton Sanford Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The
| Germans 1933-45
|
| ---
|
| You have to say "No" loudly and clearly at the _first
| offense_, and not wait until it's too late.
| maeil wrote:
| Chris Krebs just yesterday had his security clearance
| revoked solely for saying the 2020 election was fair and
| not rigged.
|
| His coworkers at SentinelOne (almost certainly most of who
| are citizens) also had their clearances revoked, despite
| never speaking out on the topic, purely as a North Korea
| style "punish the whole family" approach to strike fear
| into people of guilt by association, so that those who have
| spoken out in any shape or form become social pariahs.
|
| Citizens having their career taken away for saying an
| election wasn't rigged, or for happening to work at the
| same place as someone who said this.
|
| If you think the status quo hasn't yet changed to "In
| countries like China, Russia and the US, speaking out
| against the government puts both your livelihood and that
| of those in your vicinity at serious risk", you're dead
| wrong.
| wtf_is_this wrote:
| In case anyone is curious about this (as I was) here's an
| article: https://www.csoonline.com/article/3958808/trump-
| revokes-secu...
| esafak wrote:
| Maybe it's time to rethink the visibility and permanence
| of HN discussions.
| maeil wrote:
| That would be great, but I don't see it. HN has already
| been obviously violating GDPR and all other right-to-
| forget laws since forever by not allowong for account
| deletion, and everytime this has been brought up, dang
| has pretty much confirmed they don't care ("it would look
| bad if there were deleted comments [and that's more
| important than these laws]").
| moogly wrote:
| https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/02/us/israel-protesters-
| us-s...
| ath3nd wrote:
| > You're not arrested for posting this
|
| Your funds might be cut off though: https://www.theguardian.c
| om/commentisfree/2025/apr/07/trump-...
|
| Or your president might declare a wartime law to deport all
| the immigrants:
| https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp34ylep987o
|
| Or you, a honors student (but not a citizen) might find
| yourself in an unmarked van if you dared to question the
| powers that be.
| https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czrn57340xlo
|
| Sure it happens to immigrants only for now, brings memory to
| this poem:
|
| First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out--
| Because I was not a socialist.
|
| Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak
| out-- Because I was not a trade unionist.
|
| Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
| Because I was not a Jew.
|
| Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for
| me.
| abeppu wrote:
| > Sure it happens to immigrants only for now
|
| ... and they're trying to end birthright citizenship. I.e.
| people who are literally not immigrants (were born here and
| perhaps have never lived anywhere else) are already being
| lined up for this.
| throwing_away wrote:
| It's not unreasonable to see the situation as "Then they
| came for the Jews, and the administration finally deported
| the people who were coming for the Jews".
|
| The president's literal argument for doing it is that the
| activist groups are coming for all of American life.
|
| I'm not a big fan of either side's rhetoric, but clearly
| the horseshoe has become a ring.
| ath3nd wrote:
| > I'm not a big fan of either side's rhetoric, but
| clearly the horseshoe has become a ring.
|
| Either side? Tell me which "side" does that sound like?
|
| - hostility towards non traditional sexuality
|
| - immigration being used as the scapegoat for economic
| problems
|
| - strong feeling of national exceptionalism
|
| - assault on women's productivity rights
|
| - politicizing of science
|
| - deportation for political reasons
|
| - "Roman" salutes
|
| It brings parallels with some things happening in Europe
| some time ago.
|
| > activist groups are coming for all of American life.
|
| I wonder who's actually going for all of American life
| though. Let's take Birthright citizenship, which has been
| established in 1868. Is that American life enough for
| you?
|
| "All persons born or naturalized in the United States,
| and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of
| the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
|
| And guess who goes against this American way of life
| value? An orange grandpa married to an immigrant. You
| really can't make this up.
|
| https://www.npr.org/2025/03/14/nx-s1-5327552/trump-takes-
| bir...
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| Right. We don't have to arrest. We can just disappear
| anything you say critical of our masters, I mean, our
| overlords, I mean, our government, I mean, a foreign
| government, I mean, a foreign government that hacks American
| companies and sells the hacks to Middle Eastern dictators who
| breed an ideology that trained people to attack our own
| country, I mean...
| shihab wrote:
| As someone who came from a pretty authoritarian country- let
| me assure you that people there do routinely criticize their
| government, mock them all the time. Governments often do not
| have the bandwidth to deal with the volume of criticism, and
| even when they do- they wisely realize that letting people
| vent a little online is better than complete crackdown. I
| myself routinely did this in Facebook, where many in my
| friend list were government employees and (ex-ruling) party
| members.
|
| I am in fact far more afraid of pro-palestine speech from USA
| as an immigrant than I was in my home country- and please
| trust me I am not exaggerating here.
| selectodude wrote:
| >I am in fact far more afraid of pro-palestine speech from
| USA as an immigrant than I was in my home country- and
| please trust me I am not exaggerating here.
|
| I would have laughed at this until pretty recently. How
| wrong I was.
| fundad wrote:
| Do you mean pro-Palestinian sentiments scare you or are you
| afraid of expressing pro-Palestinian sentiment?
| MPSFounder wrote:
| Likely he means expressing any pro-Palestine sentiments.
| Doxxing is very common and if Ivy League deans were taken
| down, immigrants are likely to be deported for expressing
| any empathy towards the Palestinian.
| hurtuvac78 wrote:
| Actually now US citizens are impacted too.
|
| _Michigan-based attorney Amir Makled [a US citizen] was
| detained by federal immigration agents while returning home
| from a family vacation_
|
| https://www.npr.org/2025/04/09/nx-s1-5357455/attorney-
| detain...
| intermerda wrote:
| They've discussed deporting US citizens to gulags -
| https://truthout.org/articles/white-house-press-sec-says-
| tru...
| BeetleB wrote:
| He was detained at immigration. This happens all the time,
| and has been happening routinely since 2001.
|
| (Not saying it's good or anything - just not new).
| cma wrote:
| Freest country, hardly anyone lives within 100 miles of
| the coast I'm sure https://www.aclu.org/know-your-
| rights/border-zone
| tdeck wrote:
| The authoritarian future isn't evenly distributed. Some
| groups of people have been dealing with it for decades,
| while others are in for a surprise.
| testing22321 wrote:
| If you post it and nobody ever sees it, that is functionally
| the same result as not being allowed to post it.
| tdeck wrote:
| > and other authoritarian nations like China and Turkey
|
| And Israel, where a history teacher was arrested for making a
| post on Facebook:
|
| https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/22/meir_baruchin
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| This Israeli as well, had everything taken from her for 4
| IG posts:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/03/magazine/israel-free-
| spee...
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| I think UK leads here:
|
| https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/54123/were-
| over...
|
| (many links in the responses and comments, eg:
| https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/arrests-for-
| offensive-... - " 625 arrests were made for alleged section
| 127 offences in 2010 " just in london)
| rozap wrote:
| He could have his visa revoked though.
| newaccountlol wrote:
| People who have spoken out against the genocidal apartheid
| regime are being black-bagged in the street by plainclothes
| officers all across the United States. The gap between the
| supposedly enlightened West and Russia grows smaller by the
| day.
| Hikikomori wrote:
| They don't need to arrest him because the narrative is
| already controlled, as shown by the article, and by going to
| any traditional news site.
| anonair wrote:
| Why arrest if you can silence?
| garyrob wrote:
| As someone said above, "America's arrested rather a large
| number of people in recent weeks--university students, mostly
| --for expressing viewpoints on the I/P conflict. The current
| Administration is claiming, and no one's yet stopped them,
| that First Amendment rights don't apply to non-citizens such
| as international students."
|
| America is changing. What was true before isn't necessarily
| true now, and may get worse, depending on election outcomes.
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| Nope. People in Russia getting murdered for speaking their
| opinion, and my Facebook posts getting deleted, that is
| exactly the same thing. Just like the starving kids in
| Africa, and that one day when I couldn't buy my favorite
| pizza because the shop was closed, also exactly the same
| thing.
|
| Now give me hundred upvotes because I am a cool contrarian
| who is not afraid to criticize America. That basically makes
| me an American equivalent of Navalny.
| scottyah wrote:
| It's still humans being humans, we just have a covert culture
| while they are more overt. I personally like being
| tricked/manipulated more than forced. I'd rather get Tom
| Sawyered into painting a fence than being held at gunpoint.
| NoTeslaThrow wrote:
| Indeed. The editorial boards of these newsrooms are often
| staffed with people who attended the same schools and classes
| as those running the country. The social circles of the two
| worlds are extremely closely linked.
|
| Of course, this means that the reporting isn't very good at
| addressing its blind spots-i.e., most of the news in the
| country, let alone the world, that isn't relevant to the ivy
| league coastal elites. And I say this as a member of that same
| class. Most of the political perspectives in my life are
| completely unrepresented in the opinion columns, which
| generally tend to pander upwards rather than downwards.
|
| I don't tend to put much weight in freedom of the press so long
| as that press is floating on the cream of society and asking
| the government permission to report on what they're doing.
| shihab wrote:
| The NYT's Executive Editor Joe Kahn is the son of a
| billionaire who was on the board of lobby group CAMERA, a
| group devoted to pressuring US media to be more pro-Israel.
| shihab wrote:
| And here is an article on Raffi berg, BBC's Middle East
| editor:
|
| https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/bbc-civil-war-gaza-israel-
| bia...
| alistairSH wrote:
| Is Meta really considered "mainstream media"? I always took
| that phrase to refer to NBC, CBS, NY Post, etc - the big legacy
| news organizations (print and TV).
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| How does "mainstream" America increasingly get its news?
| bee_rider wrote:
| I read "mainstream" as one of those words like "modern," to
| apply the media that was prevalent when the phrase was
| coined. Technically modern architecture, if we read the
| words literally and individually... well, I guess that
| would be tent-cities, that seems to mostly be what gets
| built nowadays.
|
| Facebook, the tent-city of media, actually it would kinda
| work if only the platform wasn't centrally controlled.
| ljm wrote:
| The big legacy news organisations would be legacy media.
|
| Social media is not even 20 years old but it's a tall order
| to deny it mainstream status since the younger generations
| get their news from scrolling TikTok and not cracking open
| the daily broadsheet.
|
| Legacy media has been sourcing from Facebook, Twitter, and
| Reddit for years. They're as mainstream as AP and Reuters but
| without the reputation or the credentials.
| petre wrote:
| It's mainstream, it's media, people read their news on it, so
| yes. But I'd rather trust NPR, BBC, the Guardian or some
| other legacy news outlet, because these unscrupulous tech
| bros will skew the narrarive by silencing some sources while
| brainwashing people with whatever suits them best.
| kubb wrote:
| Anna Politkovskaya - Investigative journalist and critic of the
| Chechen war, shot in Moscow (2006). Alexander Litvinenko - Ex-
| FSB officer poisoned with polonium in London (2006).
|
| Stanislav Markelov & Anastasia Baburova - Human rights lawyer
| and journalist, shot in Moscow (2009).
|
| Boris Nemtsov - Opposition leader, shot near the Kremlin
| (2015).
|
| Denis Voronenkov - Former Russian MP, shot in Kyiv (2017).
|
| Nikolai Andrushchenko - Journalist, beaten to death in St.
| Petersburg (2017).
|
| Alexei Navalny - Opposition leader, died in prison after
| previous poisoning (2024).
|
| ---
|
| The difference is that they murder their political opponents
| for show to make their people be afraid of dissent.
|
| You comparing it with some (disgusting, vile) social media
| company (which would improve the world immensely if it
| disappeared) is completely inappropriate.
| sharpshadow wrote:
| If you gonna mix in politicians and opposition the USA has a
| extensive list themselves.
| tdeck wrote:
| Fred Hampton would have something to say if, you know, he
| were still alive.
| basisword wrote:
| "We're not as bad as them" is a poor argument. Particularly
| while America quickly slides in that direction. Just take a
| look at the deportation of Venezuelans especially the case of
| the wrongly deported man that the government conveniently
| "can't find". That's a story comparable to the stories
| Americans tell about Russia and China.
| bradly wrote:
| I think OP is more using this incident along with many
| others. Things similar to in February when the President
| signed executive orders that imposed sanctions on American
| law firms and lawyers which included suspension of security
| clearances, termination of government contracts, and
| restrictions preventing firm employees from accessing federal
| buildings. (https://www.justsecurity.org/110109/president-
| cannot-issue-a...)
|
| I have no idea how to talk equality to speak of whether they
| are comparable or not, but I do think people are seeing a
| different atmosphere.
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| I don't think this is necessarily an issue of censorship so
| much as it is highlighting that Facebook is clearly a fucking
| news publisher and should be treated as such under the law.
|
| It's time to revoke section 230 for any social media network
| that amplifies or buries content with a non-transparent
| process.
|
| In this case it isn't even merely an algorithm designed by
| humans. They have LITERAL human editors choosing which stories
| to put on the front page, just like the NYT, and they should be
| held liable for the content on their platforms just like legacy
| media is.
| mnky9800n wrote:
| Russia doesn't just put people in jail for speaking against the
| government. They weaponise the generational fear of being
| disappeared by the government. This is not close to what
| happens in America where you can post anything anywhere and if
| Facebook deletes it you can always make your own website about
| it. If you did this in Russia you go to jail. Even if you say
| things like "it is sad Ukrainian children die in children's day
| in Russia" you go to jail. I don't think you can compare modern
| USA with modern Russia in this way. USA does plenty of other
| things that are bad like jailing so many people for petty
| crimes without pushing much on speech. USA has its own problems
| and all these comparisons only hide them.
| spencerflem wrote:
| They are now denying visas, and deporting lawful residents,
| sending them to offshore torture prisons, for social media
| posts.
|
| For non citizens, regardless of length of time or legality,
| this is the case right now. For birthright citizens and full
| citizens it will be the case very soon
| cma wrote:
| They are sending people to a concentration camp without any
| due process.
| janalsncm wrote:
| So when the government pointed to the disproportionate support
| for Palestine on TikTok vs Instagram, it was actually because
| Instagram was suppressing it. It is ironic.
|
| https://x.com/hawleymo/status/1717505662601609401
| nashashmi wrote:
| Another reason why TikTok has to come under US ownership. How
| else are we going to censor things when they are under China's
| (lack of) control?
| square_usual wrote:
| And conversely, another reason why Trump's tariffs on China
| are a bone-headed move. They are not going to sell TikTok
| while the tariffs last, and the popular demand for it makes
| banning it a non-starter.
| bradly wrote:
| Exactly. China demands Apple Maps be ran on Chinese servers
| by Chinese workers. I would expect current U.S.
| administration to be frustrated with these imbalances as
| surveillance state measures increase. These imbalances were
| less important when there was less interest in information
| and truth suppression.
| bradlys wrote:
| At least for all the surveillance the Chinese do - the
| standard of life is improving overall. We don't even get
| that shit here in the US. Our life just gets worse by
| practically every measure as the years go on and we're
| taken advantage of on top of it.
| cj wrote:
| What benchmark are you using for standard of life?
| DaSHacka wrote:
| Number of citizens reeducated, I presume.
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| More organs harvested from political prisoners.
| bradlys wrote:
| Ah yes, the US known for putting people in prisons where
| we use techniques the Nazis developed as part of our
| "enhanced interrogation".
|
| USA is totally way better than China here!
| bradlys wrote:
| At the very least, wages for the average citizen. It's
| not perfect but at least there's movement towards
| building something. What is the US building towards?
| Enriching billionaires?
| janalsncm wrote:
| There's probably not one single benchmark (and I won't
| say that all of them are negative in the US) but we can
| just think generally about the things we'd like in a good
| life:
|
| Life expectancy. Chronic disease rates. Suicide rates.
| Depression rates. Violent crime rates. Marriage rates.
| Home ownership rates. Education rates. Debt rates. Labor
| participation rates. Wealth inequity.
|
| No one metric is a complete picture but together they
| tell a story. If America was a product and the above was
| on a dashboard, you would fire the CEO.
| bognition wrote:
| Where do you think the servers that power TikTok in the
| United States are? Who do you think administers those
| servers?
| RedComet wrote:
| Yes. This was clearly the reason for the ban in the first
| place.
| nikkwong wrote:
| While this may be part of the story, it's certainly not the
| full picture. We know that the CCP is actively manipulating the
| algorithm on Tiktok to further their agenda on multiple other
| geopolitical issues--something we have ample evidence for. I
| don't know if there is a smoking gun on this one topic in
| particular, but the CCP's goal has always been to divide the
| American audience; and we know that older Americans skew pro-
| Israel whilst younger Americans are more oriented towards being
| pro-Palestinian. If someone looked in the right places, they
| would more likely than not find evidence of algorithm
| manipulation to favor a Palestinian bend.
| janalsncm wrote:
| > something we have ample evidence for
|
| Can you share some of that evidence? My impression from the
| SCOTUS case is that the government only alleged it could
| happen, not that it was happening. So I'm a bit surprised to
| see someone so confidently assert it is happening.
|
| > more likely than not find evidence of algorithm
| manipulation
|
| I think a lot of people have been looking. For years. Yet you
| admit there is no smoking gun. Perhaps if we look in the
| right place we will find Russell's teapot orbiting Jupiter as
| well. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| I'd like to see that evidence too, hopefully for more than
| one instance/source.
|
| IMO, it's been obvious that the danger seen in TikTok is
| that it's a propaganda tool out of USA's control. If it was
| really a national security danger, USA could simply ban it
| instead of fighting so hard to own it.
| throw310822 wrote:
| So, we have proof of a strong algorithm manipulation _by
| Israel_ on the entire family of main US social media (those
| used by the older segment of the population); and yet you
| still manage to point your finger to a hypothetical, unproved
| manipulation of the algorithm on the competitors ' social
| media to explain the difference in attitude between
| generations? But you have the answer here, there has been
| manipulation of the social media consumed by the older
| segment!
| mjevans wrote:
| I think my country (USA) would be healthier if a common sense
| viewpoint was selected and held.
|
| Conflicts are always terrible, and the Eurasia / Africa region
| countries are particularly brutal.
|
| Every citizen of every country has a human right (in a civilized
| civilization / society) to live a life that does not involve
| violence. A life where they are not worried about RPGs, bombings,
| (etc,) or military invasions.
|
| Some sources of conflict involve places which various (different)
| religions hold as sacred / holy. Those sites should become UN
| world heritage locations and be managed by the UN in ways that
| only allow non-military peaceful access for any who want to
| visit.
|
| With respect to Gaza my personal opinion remains unchanged. Both
| an innocent civilian people who suffer, and a terrorist
| government, remain in that region. The civilians should be
| evacuated. The terrorists who remain after (or whom are caught
| and found guilty in a trial) should be purged. The country should
| then be cleaned up, rebuilt, and returned to the innocent people
| along with a training-wheels UN supported government that brings
| stability, peace, and prevents a resurgence of hate and
| terrorism. In a few generations the country can grow more stable
| and graduate from the guided government structure.
|
| That would be not just a two state solution, but a two states and
| global peace sites solution.
| devilbunny wrote:
| I just don't see a way that a two-state solution works. A
| _three_ -state solution might be feasible (Gaza and West Bank
| governed separately), but then you have to deal with internal
| Israeli politics, and I really don't know enough about them to
| make even an educated guess about how hard it would be to get
| that through (I would imagine very, but like I said, I know
| very little about their politics).
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Hamas isn't dumb, they very intentionally blend their goons
| with the civilians. That's why this situation is such a mess.
| Israel basically said "we are going to war and we are not going
| to worry about who is and isn't a soldier anymore, they all
| dress the same"
|
| Everyone should be disbanded from Israel, the holy sites
| destroyed, and the land turned into a nature reserve with
| shoot-on-sight protections.
| mjevans wrote:
| That seems wasteful and excessive. Could you elaborate on the
| upsides of this proposal? They are not obvious from my
| perspective.
| 20after4 wrote:
| Not sure if I would call it an upside but I guess if you
| destroy everything worth fighting for then maybe people
| stop fighting? If you then execute anyone still willing to
| persist I guess you can claim victory. This is how you win
| the internet, just come up with one of the most extreme and
| cynical responses possible.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar hell.
| It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is
| for.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| tdeck wrote:
| > Israel basically said "we are going to war and we are not
| going to worry about who is and isn't a soldier anymore, they
| all dress the same"
|
| When _did_ Israel worry about this, when it comes to
| Palestinian civilians? This accusation from Israel supporters
| makes no sense because Israel has never cared about killing
| Palestinian civilians.
| thot_experiment wrote:
| this is grossly misunderstanding the situation in Gaza, a two
| state solution was never acceptable to Israel, Hamas as it
| exists today is a result of Netanyahu policy. Israel created
| the monster to justify their genocide.
| mjevans wrote:
| That might be the case, but that man cannot live forever. I
| am thinking long term, but am also just a civilian in the US.
| If there is good reason to have another policy I would like
| the experts to articulate that logic to us.
| HappyPanacea wrote:
| > a two state solution was never acceptable to Israel
|
| Wrong, they accepted the 1947 partition plan and agreed to
| the Oslo accords
| cbzbc wrote:
| The Oslo accords were intended - in the words of Rabin - to
| give the Palestinians 'less than a state', and arguably the
| division of the West Bank into Areas A, B and C have
| allowed for the expansion of settlements in the latter.
|
| Whether the 1947 partition was accepted as a final state
| depends on who you ask, it's fairly clear that prominent
| figures viewed it as a stop along the way to a more
| comprehensive settlement. Take Ben Gurion ("After the
| formation of a large army in the wake of the establishment
| of the state, we will abolish partition and expand to the
| whole of Palestine.") or Chaim Weizmann ("partition might
| be only a temporary arrangement for the next twenty to
| twenty-five years"). Menachem Begin's Herut continued to
| use the slogan 'Both banks of the Jordan River", and this
| language is reflected in Likud's founding charter.
| mupuff1234 wrote:
| Except Hamas took over Gaza in 2006/7 more or less in it's
| current form, before Netanyahu came back into power at 2009.
|
| Hamas has always been an extreme organization, they executed
| a bunch of Fatah members by throwing them off buildings when
| they took over gaza, not exactly a fun loving bunch.
|
| Sure Netanyahu didn't exactly help to see the least, but
| saying he is somehow solely responsible for Hamas is pretty
| biased.
| tdeck wrote:
| > executed a bunch of Fatah members by throwing them off
| buildings when they took over gaza
|
| Was this before or after Fatah lost an election and then
| refused to step down, instead staging a violent coup?
| mupuff1234 wrote:
| Are you actually trying to defend the execution of
| prisoners?
|
| And that's putting aside whether what you said is right
| or wrong (which I'm sure you'll get very different
| answers from each side)
| basisword wrote:
| >> Hamas has always been an extreme organization, they
| executed a bunch of Fatah members by throwing them off
| buildings when they took over Gaza, not exactly a fun
| loving bunch.
|
| Agreed. And Israel have annihilated over 50,000 Gazans. Not
| exactly a fun loving bunch.
| mupuff1234 wrote:
| I didn't say I agree with what Israel is doing so I'm not
| sure what the point of your comment is.
|
| The truth is that there are zealots on both sides.
| mef51 wrote:
| "The civilians should be evacuated." They don't want to leave
| and Israel uses these "evacuations" to make sure Palestinians
| never return, as they did in 1948, 1967, etc[1][2]. This is
| whitewashing genocide and is an extremely violent view,
| packaged in reasonable sounding words. Israel has a long
| documented history of using terrorism to build its state. If
| you truly oppose terrorism I recommend starting with the books
| I've sourced.
|
| [1] The ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe
|
| [2] The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler
| Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017 by Rashid Kahlidi
| mjevans wrote:
| It should be the UN, and with the express intent outlined in
| my post above. To return them back to their country once the
| criminals have been removed.
| xp84 wrote:
| The criminals would all line up with the civilians if it
| came to that, and they'd also still raise all their
| children to become the next generation of terrorists.
| yoda97 wrote:
| A two state solution is never possible when one state keeps
| expanding with impunity, and every time the second state
| resists it is called a terrorist state. My country resisted
| colonization in the mid 20th century and the resistance efforts
| were called terrorism by everyone, nobody calls them terrorists
| now.
| HappyPanacea wrote:
| What country are you from? It is entirely possible they are
| still terrorists you just decided as society to ignore it.
| yoda97 wrote:
| The ICC has never issued any arrest warrants for our
| elected/appointed government officials if that's what you
| are asking.
| tmnvix wrote:
| And I assume after this evacuation, purging, and installment of
| a new government Israel will magically change its ways? You
| need to address both sides to find a solution.
| MPSFounder wrote:
| Realistically, how can we uncover this type of foreign
| interference? As in, is there any hack someone in our community
| can perform to expose Israeli propaganda? Israel locked
| journalists out of Ghaza, and has pretty much dominion over
| social media in the US. How can someone remain informed or expose
| misinformation campaigns (ideally without repercussions, which is
| a dangerous control they have over our gov)?
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Meta could start by being transparent when they are asked to
| take down a post and could be transparent when they comply.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| They have released this data for at least ten years at this
| point. That's one of the sources the Human Rights group used.
| ajb wrote:
| This sort of thing has happened before in the US:
|
| https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/05/how-the-robber-b...
| plsbenice34 wrote:
| Why is the word Israeli removed from the title? and Meta added?
| Seems like quite a politically-important modification
| dang wrote:
| I did those title edits to (marginally) reduce the flamebait
| effect of the title, in keeping with standard moderation
| practice (see
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). Titles have
| by far the biggest impact on discussion quality, so this is a
| big deal. Especially when the topic is divisive.
| mef51 wrote:
| I think in this instance the perpetrator is central to the
| story/article
| zzzeek wrote:
| speaking as someone who gets a lot of their posts flagged
| (to the annoyance of dang), a less-inflammatory headline
| can be less satisfying but a post that isn't flagged will
| get a lot more traffic than one that is flagged
| alistairSH wrote:
| The entire endeavor was orchestrated by Israel - that's kinda
| the point here. Meta didn't act on its own, as the edited
| title would imply.
| dang wrote:
| I know, but for HN purposes, the point I made about titles
| is the higher-order bit.
|
| Threads like this, at best, waver on the edge of a hell
| pit. If it plummets in, the discussion won't stay on HN's
| front page anyhow. Title de-baiting is a way to support
| having a discussion that doesn't completely suck, to the
| extent that this is doable.
| bawolff wrote:
| Its meta's website. Its entirely in their control as to how
| they respond to a takedown request.
| instagib wrote:
| At this point, is it feasible to implement user-submitted or
| generated tags for submissions that can subsequently be
| concealed?
|
| Our focus is shifting towards the news aspect rather than the
| hacking aspect, which is the primary reason for my presence
| here.
| dang wrote:
| There are fluctuations, such as a swing towards current
| affairs stories during turbulent times, but the basic mix
| has been stable for years and the baseline isn't likely to
| change. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869
| for how far back this question goes...
|
| Not that it helps, necessarily, but the people who have the
| opposite preference to yours are complaining loudly about
| how much they feel the current affairs stories are being
| suppressed on HN.
|
| Re tags: I've always resisted the idea of adding it to the
| core HN site, but I do think we can do more to support
| alternate front-ends to HN. With any luck, we can publish
| the next version of the API this year, which should make
| that a lot easier.
| instagib wrote:
| Least favorite anecdote: Reddit. After an introduction, a
| friend said, "Why are you on the front page like a new
| person?" I am auto-subscribed to the front page content
| channels when I want to be in my subscriptions. However,
| I miss relevant content because others overwhelm the
| front pages.
|
| I appreciate your response and the work you continue on
| the front ends. I obtain political news content from
| other sources, so my cumulative content feed contains a
| significant amount of duplicate content.
| square_usual wrote:
| FWIW I support this. It's more relevant to HN to talk about
| Meta, the big tech company, doing something wrong than a
| nation, regardless of where you stand on this issue.
| ncr100 wrote:
| The current title (11:36 AM PST) is:
|
| "Leaked Data Reveals Massive Israeli Campaign to Remove Pro-
| Palestine Posts on Facebook and Instagram"
|
| @dang IDK if this matters, nor when the title was changed (from
| submission, to now). Just an FYI.
| dang wrote:
| Btw there's a lot more information about the moderation on
| this post here, if you or anyone want to read about that:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43657264.
| dpifke wrote:
| It's unfortunate that turning off flags for a story
| empowers the people who want to use this site for
| ideological battle. "dang made an exception once for <my
| pet topic>, so the guidelines forever more don't apply to
| it!" There were several variants of this sentiment
| expressed on the tomhow welcome thread.
| dang wrote:
| I'm not following the argument here, but turning off the
| flags on a given story doesn't turn HN into a free-for-
| all on a topic (on the contrary, we don't want too much
| repetition of _any_ topic), and certainly the guidelines
| continue to apply as much as anymore. More, in fact ( "
| _Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not
| less, as a topic gets more divisive._ " -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).
| switch007 wrote:
| Because you can't imply Israel is a bad actor. It's
| politically-censored in the US, including self-censorship.
| dang wrote:
| We can't control which words people are super-reactive to in
| titles; we can only empirically observe what they are and try
| to dampen the effect, with the hope of making a thoughtful
| discussion at least a little more likely.
| bad_haircut72 wrote:
| I this case you have completely changed the meaning of the
| title though. It sounds Like Meta did this of their own
| initiative which is a very different message.
| dang wrote:
| I don't read it that way, FWIW.
|
| I think some of you are overly focusing on the title
| instead of the overall effect of the moderator
| interventions here, which is that the article gets more
| attention and the story more coverage. In that sense, I'd
| think it would be in you guys' interest to take yes for
| an answer, much as zzzeek has here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43657317.
| jrflowers wrote:
| I am not sure that linking to one post that agrees with
| your decision to provide your own title for the article
| (in contradiction to one of HN's core rules no less) in
| order to intentionally steer discussion _away from the
| subject of the article_ is that compelling of a way to
| convince people that your editorial decision here was
| correct. It certainly does nothing to address a valid
| concern about the precedent that this sets.
|
| Rather than taking on the task of manually editing
| headlines to be more sympathetic to Israel perhaps the
| site could implement a filter that disallows the word
| from being used in titles or posts altogether? If that is
| the aim, it would save you time having to answer
| questions about it.
| dang wrote:
| > in contradiction to one of HN's core rules no less
|
| There's no contradiction. The rule is " _Please use the
| original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait._ "
|
| Nor is there any attempt to steer discussion away from
| the subject of the article. That would have been a
| hapless attempt, had it existed, since the thread is
| filled with such discussion.
| Maken wrote:
| The problematic point here is that Facebook is more than
| willing to obliterate certain topics and political views when
| requested, not which ones or by whom orders in particular.
| switch007 wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| No, what it proves is that users will flag unsubstantive
| flamewar posts on Hacker News, regardless of the topic or the
| commenter's position on the topic.
|
| This is a good thing. Posts like your comment here break the
| site guidelines badly*, and the users who flagged it were quite
| correct to do so, regardless of your (or their) political
| opinion.
|
| * for example, this one: " _Comments should get more thoughtful
| and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive._ ",
| and this one: " _Don 't be snarky._". Can you please review
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stop doing
| those things? We'd appreciate it.
| turnsout wrote:
| Mark needs to go
| jsheard wrote:
| I think he has a majority of the voting shares, so nobody can
| get rid of him unfortunately. Meta is too big to fail and Zuck
| is set to be dictator for life if he wants to be.
| abeppu wrote:
| ... so while we were all worried about TikTok, being owned by a
| Chinese company, would be a vector for that government to push a
| skewed/propagandized stream of content on the world, Meta has
| already been doing it for a foreign government despite not having
| foreign ownership.
| submeta wrote:
| Well, I'll leave this here:
|
| ,,100+ Meta employees, including Head of AI Policy, confirmed as
| ex-IDF"
|
| https://thegrayzone.com/2025/04/08/100-meta-employees-ex-idf...
|
| Isn't X's community lead Israeli as well?
| megaman821 wrote:
| Since service is manditory for most Isrealies, that just mean
| the 100 Isrealies in a company of 74,000 employees and somehow
| that is a conspiracy?
| submeta wrote:
| These are people having stronger loyalty to Israel than to
| the US. Also, would US conpanies employ people with strong
| ties to Russia, knowing they would suppress any criticism of
| Russia's war in Ukraine? Apparently that's what these Meta
| employees with strong ties to Israel did: Suppress any
| criticism of Israel's apparent war crimes in Gaza, for which
| there are arrest warrants from the ICC.
| 9283409232 wrote:
| > knowing they would suppress any criticism of Russia's war
| in Ukraine?
|
| This is a leap in logic. You have no idea that they would
| know they would do this.
| submeta wrote:
| Ahh, that's why university presidents were fired because
| they allowed students to protest against Israel's war
| crimes in Palestine? But no Meta employee is fired for
| suppressing criticism of war crimes?
| 9283409232 wrote:
| For all the illegal or immoral things Meta employees do
| and do not get fired for, this is very low on the list.
| smt88 wrote:
| The US is about 0.05% Israeli, so it's not a conspiracy, but
| Israelis are certainty a much higher proportion of Meta than
| most other companies and countries outside of Israel.
| MaxDPS wrote:
| 100/74,000 = 0.00135 or 0.135%
| submeta wrote:
| in what positions are these 100 ex IDF soldiers? Just
| some random frontend developers? Or overseeing community
| management?
| submeta wrote:
| Yeah, and in _what_ positions are these 100 ex IDF soldiers?
| Just some random frontend developers? Or overseeing community
| management?
| bradlys wrote:
| It being only 100 seems kinda low for the size of Meta and how
| many Israelis live in the Bay Area. There is a very large
| contingent that lives in Palo Alto and Sunnyvale.
|
| They're nowhere near as large as the Chinese and Indian
| population but probably close to third place for largest
| foreign born tech worker populace in SV.
| submeta wrote:
| in what positions are these 100 ex IDF soldiers? Just some
| random frontend developers? Or overseeing community
| management?
| bradlys wrote:
| All positions. I've worked with many devs to executives
| that all were from Israel and had served in the IDF.
| submeta wrote:
| Then it's doubly critical. A tiny country having citizens
| in top positions in critical media companies suppressing
| any criticism of their governments conduct sounds like
| accusations we make against NK or Russia.
|
| You might think: Well, what does that effect the world if
| a tiny country flattens an even tinier other region. Then
| have a look at how Netanyahu for decades pushed for US
| wars in the ME and is now pushing for the US starting a
| war against Iran.
| bradlys wrote:
| You could say the same about all the Chinese and Indian
| people who are _massively_ over-represented in these
| companies. Go into the FB Ads org and try to find a
| single all American team, lol. You 'll have a hard time
| even finding one American to begin with.
| submeta wrote:
| Downvote however you like. We know how strong the influence is.
|
| ,, LEAKED AUDIO OF CEO OF AIPAC Rubio, Stefanik, Waltz ... they
| all have sth in common ... relationships with key AIPAC
| leaders"
|
| Ratcliffe, one of the first candidates I ever met as an AIPAC
| rep ... he took the oath as CIA director, for crying out loud
| https://x.com/TheGrayzoneNews/status/1910101143268508094
| yes_really wrote:
| Virtually all Israelis, both men and women, serve in the IDF
| from 18 to 21 years old. So the criticism is that Meta employs
| 100 Israelis out of its 74k US employees?
|
| That's 0.1%. The Indians and Chinese immigrants cover a much
| larger percentage. Does that mean that Meta is controlled by
| India and China?
| bazalia wrote:
| Is it just me or is this post very low on the hacker news order
| even though it has much more upvotes in a short time than much of
| the posts above it.
| dang wrote:
| This is in the FAQ: see
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#whyrank ("Why is A
| ranked below B even though A has more points and is newer?").
| But here's a longer answer.
|
| In the case of a story like this, which has significant new
| information (SNI) [1] on a major ongoing topic (MOT) [2], and
| at least some hope of a substantive discussion, moderators
| sometimes turn off the user flags on the story [3] so that it
| can spend time on HN's front page.
|
| In such cases, we usually adjust the degree to which we turn
| off the flags so that the tug-of-war between upvotes and flags
| isn't affected too dramatically. Usually the best way to
| support a substantive discussion is for the story to remain on
| HN's front page, but not in the highest few slots, where it
| would burn much hotter.
|
| Since upvotes and submission time are public data but flags
| aren't, it can appear like a story is being downweighted when
| in fact the opposite is the case, as with this thread. That's
| not a rule, though--we do also downweight stories sometimes.
| That's why the FAQ explains that you can't derive rank from
| votes and time alone.
|
| The reason moderation works this way, btw, is that HN is a
| curated site [4] (and always has been--here's me explaining
| this when I took over HN 11 years ago:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7494621).
|
| Moderators' job is to jiggle the system out of the failure
| modes [5] it would otherwise end up in if the software were
| running unattended. Turning off flags on certain stories, and
| adding downweight to other stories, are two examples. The goal
| is the same: to support substantive discussion on interesting
| stories, and (as a necessary condition for that) prevent the
| site from burning too hot if we can.
|
| [1]
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
|
| [2]
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
|
| [3]
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
|
| [4]
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
|
| [5]
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
| nahuel0x wrote:
| Just like IBM on "IBM and the Holocaust" (a must read). A
| genocide being supported by the US companies / media just in
| front of our noses.
| nova22033 wrote:
| >Meta's Director of Public Policy for Israel and the Jewish
| Diaspora, Jordana Cutler, has also intervened to investigate pro-
| Palestine content. Cutler is a former senior Israeli government
| official and advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
|
| Concerning...as another billionaire would say
| submeta wrote:
| It is not only Meta suppressing any criticism of apparent Israeli
| war crimes, for which there are ICC arrest warrants. Many
| plattforms suppress criticism of Israel. Directly--as in the case
| of Meta--or indirectly, by an army of hasbara bots downvoting any
| post that criticises Israel. Even on this very platform.
| tdeck wrote:
| They really proved you wrong on this one.
| garbagewoman wrote:
| Who is "they"?
| tdeck wrote:
| When I replied to OP their post had already been flagged
| and downvoted to nothing. I had to vouch for it as I have
| seen the same thing.
| jmyeet wrote:
| The role of the media (including social media) is to move in
| lockstep with US domestic and foreign policy. This has been known
| for some time [1]. It's never as simple as the White House
| calling up Mark Zuckerberg and saying "hey, silence X". It's
| about a series of filters that decides who is in the media and
| who has their thumb on the algorithmic scales, as per the famous
| Noam Chomsky Andrew Marr interview [2] ("What I'm saying is if
| you believed something different, you wouldn't be sitting where
| you're sitting").
|
| Noam Chomsky is a national treasure.
|
| When a former Netanyahu adviser and Israeli embassy staffer
| seemingly has the power to suppress pro-Palestinian speech on
| Meta platforms [3], nobody should be surprised.
|
| If you're a US citizen who is a journalist critical of a key US
| ally, that ally is allowed to assassinate you without any
| objection of repercussions [4].
|
| This is also why Tiktok originally got banned in a bipartisan
| fashion: the Apartheid Defense League director Jonathon Goldblatt
| said (in leaked audio) "we have a Tiktok problem" [5] and weeks
| later it was banned. Tiktok simply suppresses pro-Palestinian
| speech less than other platforms.
|
| [1]: https://chomsky.info/consent01/
|
| [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvGmBSHFuj0
|
| [3]: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/metas-israel-policy-
| chief...
|
| [4]: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/16/israeli-forces-
| kil...
|
| [5]: https://x.com/Roots_Action/status/1767941861866348615
| cypherpunks01 wrote:
| Hey this Chomsky guy seems pretty smart! Would be great to get
| him on mainstream media sometime.. hah
| tdeck wrote:
| Not a surprise. I remember last year seeing that posts to
| https://www.birdsofgaza.com/ were being blocked, and it's hard to
| think of a more innocuous way of speaking out.
| shihab wrote:
| "Meta has complied with 94% of takedown requests issued by
| Israel...Meta removed over 90,000 posts to comply with TDRs
| submitted by the Israeli government in an average of 30
| seconds...All of the Israeli government's TDRs post-October 7th
| contain the exact same complaint text, according to the leaked
| information, regardless of the substance of the underlying
| content being challenged. Sources said that not a single Israeli
| TDR describes the exact nature of the content being reported"
| breppp wrote:
| Heavily based on research by Human Rights Watch an organization
| financed by Qatar, which also incidentally financed Hamas and has
| close ideological backgrounds with that movement.
|
| Qatar also has its own heavy human rights baggage, but money is
| money
| skyyler wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| Please make your substantive points without attacking others.
| If someone else is wrong or has a bad argument, it's enough
| to post correct information or a better argument.
|
| If you wouldn't mind reviewing
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking
| the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be
| grateful.
| skyyler wrote:
| I suppose I should have included a source for the 75%
| number.
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20090722190606/http://www.hrw.o
| r...
|
| Apologies for missing the mark there.
| jmathai wrote:
| Where did you read they are funded by Qatar? Some quick
| searching indicates that's false.
|
| [1] https://www.hrw.org/financials
|
| [2] https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/human-rights-
| watch...
| breppp wrote:
| HRW was caught in the past soliciting donations from Saudis
| in return for restricting their Middle East reporting [1]
|
| Project Raven, a UAE offensive cyber operation has leaked a
| document by the Qatar government concerning financing of HRW
| [2][3]
|
| [1] https://theintercept.com/2020/03/02/human-rights-watch-
| took-...
|
| [2] https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/middle-
| east/1700763578-human-...
|
| [3] https://www.memri.org/reports/raven-project-leaks-
| alleged-qa...
| jmathai wrote:
| Thanks for sharing. I don't personally see how those
| disqualify the information in the article though.
| DAGdug wrote:
| Just want to call out that the head of the trust and
| safety/integrity division, Guy Rosen, is an Israeli citizen with
| a strong pro-Israel bias. He's also a person of questionable
| morals. From Wikipedia:
|
| " Guy Rosen and Roi Tiger founded Onavo in 2010. In October 2013,
| Onavo was acquired by Facebook, which used Onavo's analytics
| platform to monitor competitors. This influenced Facebook to make
| various business decisions, including its 2014 acquisition of
| WhatsApp. Since the acquisition, Onavo was frequently classified
| as being spyware, as the VPN was used to monetize application
| usage data collected within an allegedly privacy-focused
| environment."
|
| That Meta considered his questionable ethics a feature not a bug,
| and repeatedly promoted him, is very problematic.
| frob wrote:
| I was there during the onavo scandal. It was straight up
| spyware. They would regularly show graphs of snapchat usage vs
| messenger vs whatsapp and the snapchat data was explicitly
| attributed to onovo logs.
| seydor wrote:
| Facebook's boss has repeatedly shown that he's an amoral
| hypocrite , most blatantly after Trumps election. I m not
| particularly sympathetic to palestinians but what's going on
| here. Its not just Israel, facebook has succumbed to
| authoritarian governments like Turkey in the past. The ubiquity
| of facebook and its monopolies are directly contradicting the
| spirit of democratic Constitutions worldwide. What's the point of
| guaranteeing freedom of expression when a single entity/person
| controls the attention of billions and billions of people.
|
| I think we need a rethink of freedom of press laws in the age of
| international monopolies.
| bawolff wrote:
| The missing part of this article: are the requests valid? Are
| they actually incitements to terrorism and violence or is it just
| a clamp down on criticism? The headline of the article implies
| the latter but the body does not provide any evidence for that.
|
| Like there is a war going on, a pretty nasty one at that. I would
| expect there to be quite a lot of incitement to violence related
| to that. I would expect the israeli government to be mostly
| concerned with incitements of violence against its citizens. In
| the context of this conflict i would expect such incitements to
| be mostly be made by the demographics cited in the article due to
| the nature of the conflict. The article seems like it could be
| entirely consistent with take downs being used appropriately. It
| needs more then this to prove its headline.
|
| Heck, from this post we dont even know relative numbers. How does
| this compare against take down requests from other groups?
| janalsncm wrote:
| If you have valid rules but in practice only enforce them
| against a single group, then in some sense you are asking the
| wrong question.
|
| In other words, for people who assume rule enforcement is
| supposed to be fair, they see unfair enforcement as hypocrisy.
| However, if you just see enforcement as another tool to wield
| against enemies, hypocrisy is irrelevant. What matters is
| power. It's my basketball, I make the rules.
| bawolff wrote:
| > If you have valid rules but in practice only enforce them
| against a single group
|
| I'd agree. Is there any evidence that that is happening here?
| The article reports on israeli take down requests but does
| not report on take down requests from other groups. Meta
| could very well be using the same rules against pro-israel
| groups, we just dont know because the leak didn't include
| that information.
| garbagewoman wrote:
| What would you define as "valid"
| bawolff wrote:
| I guess as "violating facebook terms of use". At some point i
| don't think what the standard is matters that much as long as
| its equally enforced against everyone.
|
| Generally though i do think its legit for facebook to take
| down posts advocating for violence and terrorism. Devil is in
| the details.
| xp84 wrote:
| Edit: I'm deleting most of my post, to avoid politics part and
| only preserving my "point"
|
| Basically I'm saying: Nobody has a right to free wide
| distribution of their thoughts on social media anyway, and also,
| those who provide these free ad-supported platforms have many
| reasonable motivations to remove content -- including the belief
| that the speaker is wrong/spreading lies and propaganda. That
| doesn't 'silence' them any more than not letting them into my
| house silences them.
| onionisafruit wrote:
| It would be interesting to see a random sample of these posts.
| I know any sample they released would be groomed to make them
| look good, but it would be interesting if it were possible.
| basisword wrote:
| Fair enough, but the social media companies should be honest
| about it. Instead they brag hypocritically about free speech.
|
| I disagree with you though. These global social media platforms
| have an incredible amount of sway over our society. As long as
| they have that reach, they should not be allowed to distort and
| silence.
| dvdhnt wrote:
| I suspect 90% of "pro-Palestine" posts actually means "pro-Hamas"
| which, yeah, you can't promote terrorism of which Hamas is
| recognized as.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| It's good to suspect that but the article distinguished
|
| Although did not quantify
|
| I think it isn't helpful when Israel designates all teenager
| and older males in Gaza as Hamas militants, even their own
| hostages because of the shares phenotypes, heritage, genetics
|
| Makes consensus impossible
| adhamsalama wrote:
| Good thing nobody cares what you suspect. Try writing something
| insightful instead.
| spencerflem wrote:
| Judges have now ruled that suspected "expected beliefs" that are
| "otherwise lawful" is grounds for deportation, if those suspected
| thoughts are "antisemitic" (read- supportive of peace in
| Palestine).
|
| They are literally arresting and deporting people for suspected
| thoughts.
|
| Student visas are being denied based on social media posts.
|
| This is fascism.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > Judges have now ruled that suspected "expected beliefs" that
| are "otherwise lawful" is grounds for deportation, if those
| suspected thoughts are "antisemitic"
|
| Do you have a link to what you are referring to?
| spencerflem wrote:
| Quote from Marco Rubio (confirmed 99-0 in the Senate)
|
| "Rubio said that while Khalil's "past, current or expected
| beliefs, statements, or associations that are otherwise
| lawful," the provision allows the secretary of state alone to
| "personally determine" whether he should remain in the
| country." https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mahmoud-
| khalil-deported...
|
| The article is a day old, the judges just affirmed that Rubio
| is allowed to do this today
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Thanks for the information. FWIW, I think this is total
| bullshit and fascism, but your comments aren't telling the
| whole story.
|
| The most important thing to point out is that "the judges"
| in this case was actually a single immigration judge.
| Immigration judges belong to the executive branch, not the
| judiciary. I agree this law that says that the Secretary of
| State can essentially just deport anyone they want can't be
| squared with the constitutional rights of freedom of speech
| and due process. But that wasn't really this immigration
| judge's determination to make, i.e. questioning the
| constitutionality of the law that Rubio is using to deport
| Khalil. There is a separate case going on in federal court
| that should address that topic.
|
| This article has more info: https://archive.vn/D890d
| spencerflem wrote:
| In a different deportation case they just defied a
| supreme court ruling - https://www.theguardian.com/us-
| news/2025/apr/11/trump-deport...
|
| Didn't realize that the judge in the linked one was an
| immigration judge and not a judiciary judge thanks for
| the clarification
| herf wrote:
| This is a _really_ hard problem. Just consider that there are
| ~150 Muslims for every Jew worldwide. In the USA it 's the
| reverse - 2:1 in favor of Jews, concentrated in particular
| geographic areas.
|
| Imagine what it means to get ranking right here - if you let just
| 1% of the international population into the USA ranking system,
| you have a majority in favor of Palestine, and of course these
| ideas will spread in communities without a lot of people who can
| represent Jewish history. It's clear to me _why_ this happens,
| but fixing in an algorithmic but fair way is also extremely
| difficult.
| wesselbindt wrote:
| I think there's an erroneous implicit assumption in your
| reasoning, namely that to be Zionist is equivalent to be
| Jewish, and to be anti-zionist is to be Muslim (otherwise, why
| would you be talking about Jew:Muslim ratios). The fact of the
| matter is that not every Zionist* is Jewish (in fact, the vast
| majority of Zionists are christian), and vice versa not every
| Jewish person is a Zionist (Jewish voice for peace, the ultra
| orthodox, etc).
|
| But even beyond that, I think engaging in censorship to hide an
| ethnic cleansing is an affront to humanity.
|
| * Here, I'm taking Zionism to mean to be in support of the way
| Israel has formed and continued to form in the past 77 or so
| years. I am aware that there are many different interpretations
| of Zionism (to illustrate the breadth; Noam Chomsky considered
| himself a Zionist), but this particular interpretation is the
| one that is relevant to this conversation.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| "According to internal communications reviewed by Drop Site, as
| recently as March, Cutler actively instructed employees of the
| company to search for and review content mentioning Ghassan
| Kanafani, an Arab novelist considered to be a pioneer of
| Palestinian literature."
|
| So this person is actively thinking about a Palestinian
| revolutionary that was assassinated by Mossad over half a century
| ago, and is using their position to push for internal censorship
| of him accordingly.
|
| Imagine if a Palestinian employee at Meta suggested censoring
| mentions of past members of Haganah.
| Am4TIfIsER0ppos wrote:
| Oh dear! Now the boot is pressing on you, Human Rights Watch, it
| isn't so fun.
| khaledh wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| > Israel is such a bitch.
|
| I realize that this topic produces legitimately strong
| feelings, but you can't post like this here, no matter how
| right you are or you feel you are. It just makes everything
| worse, and you owe this community better if you're
| participating in it.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| yes_really wrote:
| It is perfectly reasonable for Meta to remove posts supporting
| terrorist organizations or glorifying terrorist attacks like
| October 7th or 9/11. I hope we can all agree on that.
|
| That title gives a nondescript "pro-Palestine posts" to try to
| imply those are innocent posts suffering censorship. That's hard
| to believe. Mahmoud Khalil, the ex Columbia student famous for
| being deported, has made posts justifying the "armed resistance"
| of Hamas and was also disingenuously described as simply "pro-
| Palestine" by some news outlets.
| morkalork wrote:
| Was anyone else confused reading the title? At first pass I was
| asking myself "metadata from what?" then figured out oh not
| metadata, data from Meta.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| And then Zuckerberg says he's all about free speech, even mocking
| Europe as not being free-speech enough
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