Israeli Group Claims It’s Using Big Tech Back Channels to Censor “Inflammatory” Wartime Content (theintercept.com)
from Philo@sh.itjust.works to world@lemmy.world on 11 Jan 2024 16:51
https://sh.itjust.works/post/12575154

#world

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autotldr@lemmings.world on 11 Jan 2024 16:55 next collapse

This is the best summary I could come up with:


The brainchild of Dani Kaganovitch, a Tel Aviv-based software engineer at Google, Iron Truth claims its tech industry back channels have led to the removal of roughly 1,000 posts tagged by its members as false, antisemitic, or “pro-terrorist” across platforms such as X, YouTube, and TikTok.

While content moderation trigger-happiness around mere mentions of designated terror organizations has led to undue censorship of Palestinian and other Middle Eastern users, Big Tech policies on misinformation are, on paper, much more conservative.

“It’s really hard to identify disinformation,” Kaganovitch acknowledged in an interview, conceding that what’s considered a conspiracy today might be corroborated tomorrow, and pointing to a recent Haaretz report that an Israel Defense Forces helicopter may have inadvertently killed Israelis on October 7 in the course of firing at Hamas.

Even the words “Israel lied” were suggested to Iron Truth volunteers on the grounds that they could be used in “false posts.” On October 16, two days after an Israeli airstrike killed 70 Palestinians evacuating from northern Gaza, one Telegram group member shared a TikTok containing imagery of one of the bombed convoys.

Links to similar allegations of Israeli war crimes from figures such as popular Twitch streamer Hasan Piker; Colombian President Gustavo Petro; psychologist Gabor Maté; and a variety of obscure, ordinary social media users have received the same treatment.

Chat transcripts show many Iron Truth volunteers conflating Palestinian advocacy with material support for Hamas or characterizing news coverage as “misinformation” or “disinformation,” perennially vague terms whose meaning is further diluted in times of war and crisis.


The original article contains 3,856 words, the summary contains 258 words. Saved 93%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

nekandro@lemmy.ml on 11 Jan 2024 16:58 next collapse

Censorship at a global scale to cover up a genocide. Classic.

Rottcodd@lemmy.world on 11 Jan 2024 17:13 next collapse

…Iron Truth volunteers conflating Palestinian advocacy with material support for Hamas…

So Iron Truth lies.

How unsurprisingly Orwellian…

modifier@lemmy.ca on 11 Jan 2024 21:29 next collapse

Muldoon added that Google “encourages employees to use their time and skills to volunteer for causes they care about.”

This is a great brush off but as a general statement is so broad it could come back to bite them in a big way.

stoly@lemmy.world on 12 Jan 2024 01:00 collapse

I mean Google did that like 10+ years ago and pretty famously made that go away.

ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world on 11 Jan 2024 21:49 next collapse

I’ve never seen a country lose support quicker than during this war so they’re apparently doing a real shitty job censoring content.

Siegfried@lemmy.world on 11 Jan 2024 23:00 next collapse

Where I live, not a single newsoutlet will talk against israel. Everybody wears pins and have flags on their desks as support for a country that has zero influence over our culture. But I cant find a single person that doesnt think of them as assholes

nix@merv.news on 12 Jan 2024 03:39 collapse

What country? Germany?

Siegfried@lemmy.world on 12 Jan 2024 20:38 collapse

Argentina… I doubt there isnt a big number of Germans supporting israel

Philo@sh.itjust.works on 12 Jan 2024 00:23 collapse

Take a closer look at history not just current events. Israel, Jews, and Zionism have been losing support for nearly 100 years since Arthur Balfour in 1908. Although I can agree that in some cases Zionism is wrong, hatred of Jews as a people and a religion is not right. Hatred of a country in my opinion is just not rational.

stoly@lemmy.world on 12 Jan 2024 00:59 collapse

Are you saying that it’s ok to hate religious or ethnic groups but not the countries they come from?

Philo@sh.itjust.works on 12 Jan 2024 02:14 collapse

Wow, You have no fucking idea how to read. Where the fuck did I say that?

stoly@lemmy.world on 12 Jan 2024 02:36 collapse

You should probably stop being angry and either edit and rephrase your comment to be clearer or stop denying your obvious antisemitism.

Philo@sh.itjust.works on 12 Jan 2024 02:46 collapse

This is from my original comment.

“hatred of Jews as a people and a religion is not right.”

Care to show me where this is antisemitic? Now do you care to retract that false accusation?

stoly@lemmy.world on 12 Jan 2024 16:26 collapse

You edited the comment and then quoted your edit. Seriously.

DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe on 11 Jan 2024 21:59 next collapse

The sheer level of obliviousness it takes to call yourself “Iron” anything as a Jewish group supporting a genocide is astounding.

What’s next, the Storm Squad?

samokosik@lemmynsfw.com on 12 Jan 2024 17:21 next collapse

Hence why Lemmy is great. Hence why FOSS programs such as signal are perfect and should be used primarily.

Philo@sh.itjust.works on 12 Jan 2024 17:45 collapse

Lemmy is FOSS, so is Mastodon. Are you telling me that censorship through heavy-handed moderation can’t happen on those platforms?

samokosik@lemmynsfw.com on 12 Jan 2024 22:27 collapse

It can happen, it’s just more difficult to do so.

Philo@sh.itjust.works on 12 Jan 2024 22:47 collapse

It seems you have never been to certain lemmy.ml communities where any posts against current SJW flavors of the week will be removed by moderators.