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Comment by mrguyorama

1 year ago

Anyone who has ever posted a "I need help" here on HN and gotten support has also used "backchannels".

An actual concern would be if this "backchannel" turned out to be messaging an insider who acts outside of policy. We know the Saudis and other state backed groups had insiders in Twitter at least, but I'm much less inclined to believe there are any pro-israel insiders in say, TikTok.

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mrguyorama

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dijit  1 year ago

> I'm much less inclined to believe there are any pro-israel insiders in say, TikTok.

The sheer volume of pro-palestine, pro-hamas (those are not the same), pro-islam and anti-jewish sentiment[0] I am bombarded with on Tiktok tells me that either:

* there is no moderation

* There is absurdly overwhelming pro-terrorism and racist sentiment

* The bot/spam farms are in full war mode.

I find it hard to believe that content is being moderated with any pro-israel bias on tiktok.

[0]: https://imgur.com/a/JBC8EL3

  • IOT_Apprentice  1 year ago

    Ask the pro Palestinian content creators about how many posts get smothered with zero traction, how many get infractions and how many replace the word Israel with invented words to not be blocked by TikTok’s algorithm. How many now have backup accounts because they are threatened with removal.

    • dijit  1 year ago

      The implication here then is: that pro-israeli commentators are not facing lack of traction and infractions?

      FWIW: when replying with purely facts to add context I am often reported, sometimes automatically it seems.

      Not that I have a pro-israeli stance, I just think these topics are so divisive that we need to at least have some common understanding.

octopoc  1 year ago

FTA:

> Iron Truth members have flagged thousands of posts for removal, from clearly racist or false content to posts that are merely sympathetic to Palestinians.

(emphasis added)

If you aren't connected enough to get Google to fix your email, your business is disrupted. It's unfair but life moves on. Maybe next time you don't use Gmail.

The stakes are much higher here in an actual war / genocide. People are starving, dying, having their homes stolen, etc. and this is an attempt to deny them a voice.

Also FTA:

> I copied the URL of the video and sent it to a team in [Facebook parent company] Meta, some Israelis that work for Meta, and I told them that this video needs to be removed and actually they removed it after a few days.”

American companies should not engage in propaganda for a foreign country. I find it reprehensible that foreign nationals from a nation currently engaged in conflict are deliberately working together to push a foreign agenda on the people of the entire world.

This is way, way different than not being able to use Google apps for business.

  • baz00  1 year ago

    I think it would be safer to remove all political posts from social media (both sides) as policy. There is a massive propaganda war on both sides and all it does is amplify sentiment, create further division, hurt more people and compromise security over time.

    The press are bad enough at coming up with verified claims from the right people. Social media is 1000x worse.

    Of course our current American social media dictators are pretty lax on doing anything positive for society as a whole while it benefits them.

    • shadowgovt  1 year ago

      How do you disambiguate "political" content from "content people want to share?"

      The hard thing about "getting politics out of X" is that every time people are involved, politics is involved. Politics is just what people think the group should be.

      > The press are bad enough at coming up with verified claims from the right people. Social media is 1000x worse.

      No doubt. One of these days we might successfully drill into people's skulls "Stop getting your news from social media; that's not news that's rumors."

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