but you had no say in the matter; so if a future ban is not in your interest, what will you do?
no, the government should not stifle the market of ideas. that is not in our interest in the long run.
America is uniquely individualistic, our First Amendment uniquely strong. I believe in it. But it's not clear it's the only optimum.
It is not in my interest, to become more like authorian russia for the sake of fighting them.
So I'm not sure what is the good solution now. I'd be happy if there were more money to fund school and lessons for children to understand how those fake news work. But this is long term. Short term I think I'm okay if we don't have RT in France.
You do. On the internet. An increasing amount of people are getting their (fake) news now exclusivly online via "alternative" news sources like RT. Banning one of those sources on television will just mean further entrenching of those people. ("see, they don't want the truth to spread" ...)
" I'd be happy if there were more money to fund school and lessons for children to understand how those fake news work."
And aside to lots and lots of crap in the curriculum, there would be enough school time avaiable to teach more of criticial information analysis and media skills. But partial banning of one source seems like the more comfortable solution. Except that this might really hurt us in the long run, if the next source that will be banned, won't be enemy propaganda source, but just a legitimate critical newspaper for example. But secret service will say the enemy funded and influenced them, so off they go.
Of course there is always a risk of censorship of real information. As citizens we must be vigilant to what is banned. And our reaction as citizens should absolutely be different depending of wether the ban targets RT or Le Monde (for example).
Something about thermodynamics. Random noise is free. Exposing lies and ascertaining the truth requires structure, observation, flexibility, organization, introspection, correlation, adaptation— a lot of things that take a lot of effort in multiple different ways, that is physically and socially both difficult/expensive and fragile/vulnerable.
Propaganda and fake news are not really different from a sleazy salesman, or an abusive relationship. In the time it takes you to fly a journalist to the scene, speak with and hear the experiences of people on the ground, find patterns and write accurate, digestable descriptions and cite precedents, consult with experts, then with dissenters— So on— In the time it takes you to move just one single step closer to the truth, for an answer that still leaves complex questions and won't satisfy anybody, the liar will already have invented a thousand completely new ways to lie (as well as a couple hundred reasons why you must be the lying one, for disputing them, of course). …Or hired some guy to drive a meat cleaver in your back…
Plus, lies are often directly predatory towards some of the best parts of ourselves too… The desire to trust, and assume good faith, about what other people tell you…
> or the lake of preparation to the quick rise of social networks.
Our mental and social faculties for ascertaining and communicating realities are ultimately encoded in physical structures which tend towards chaos and collapse.
…I suppose it is to be expected that vastly increasing the rate at which information can be "generated" and transmitted would cause the equilibrium to be dominated by r-strategists. ..Ah, fuck.
Do you believe Al Jazeera is spreading misinformation? Even if Israel says so? Even if the USA starts saying so as well?
I don't know where we can draw a line here.
We can draw the line when they say one thing on English Al Jazeera and another on Arabic Al Jazeera.
We can draw the line when their reporters were (since then eliminated) active member of Hamas rocket teams.
The vast majority of media companies that own media in different languages are on Al Jazeera's side of the line then, including most companies that have social media channels in different languages.
2. You can just google Al Jazeera Arabic anti Israel propaganda and you will find more content to read and watch than you can do in your life time
3. https://www.timesofisrael.com/wounded-al-jazeera-reporter-in... https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/israel-accuses-al-jazeera-jo...
1. False report about IDF rape https://www.timesofisrael.com/al-jazeera-report-alleging-idf...
2. Arabic vs English Al Jazeera, conflicting messages
https://english.alarabiya.net/News/gulf/2017/10/01/Al-Jazeer...
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/aljazeer...
3. Al Jazeera reporters doubling as Hamas members
https://www.timesofisrael.com/wounded-al-jazeera-reporter-in...
https://www.timesofisrael.com/al-jazeera-journalist-is-also-...
https://twitter.com/AvichayAdraee/status/1756728159158812921
However, Al Jazeera never corrected the story, just took it down, which is just as OP reported: "We can draw the line when they report proven false information and never apologize for reporting so."
But it's notable that the Israeli government refuses to submit itself to an election, especially in the face of widespread popular demands.
It wasn't in the interest of freedom. Everyone reading it would know it was the russian spin. But now we are not allowed to know what the russians think. After all thinking of them as humans like us is not something we want right?
It's why referendums exist - however the more authoritarian a government becomes, the less they want the population voting specifically on issues to maintain more control over policy (and the population), e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_in_Canada
Logically the odds of the hostages being alive would be higher if this wasn't the tactic the IDF decided to use, right?
If I was in command of a military then the hostages would come first, and I would send in soldiers who signed up to potentially give their lives - to exchange soldiers lives for civilians, if need be.
I ask this question very genuinely: what world efforts are seeking to legitimize Hamas? I have seen a great many pro-Palestinian perspectives but have not seen anything pro-Hamas beyond fringe kooks.
As for double standard… I think the reason you see the double standard is precisely because the comparison is racist, homophonic, misogynistic, etc. Israel is held to a higher standard than neighbouring countries because it’s a liberal democracy as opposed to a theocratic dictatorship. I (as an outsider of course) would think it a great loss for the world if Israel starts to consider Iran to be the bar they have to clear rather than anything higher.
No real efforts. But a surprising number of young people don't believe Israel has a right to exist.
That's often not productive in terms of continuing the conversation, but I'm not trying to be clever or evasive; I genuinely don't understand why I should accept the premise of the question.
It generally means do they have the rights of a nation-state. That said, I agree it’s a new way of framing the one-state solution.
Israel was created in 1948. If that didn't happen and Israel didn't exist today, imagine how different things would be today for better or worse.
Maybe the people you're talking about believe it would have been better. Is that such a radical belief?
- Why wasn't Germany divided into half - 50/50 - or even 55% given to the Jewish people [and force the Germans off of their lands that they were on for - whether they were Gestapo and toeing the line as vicious or blind citizens during NaZi Germany] - which would seem to be a fair-reasonable punishment for Germany's authoritarians' behaviour? How fair is that to do to a population who's society was trying to genocide you vs. doing that to a population that had no part in trying to genocide you?
- Why didn't America - where the Israel lobby is arguably the strongest legal influence on the political system, politicians and policy - instead give a large amount of land to the Jewish people in America instead of Balfour Declaration somehow allowing Britain to "give it away"?
Also, there's an unmentioned sentiment usually attached to to the phrase of "Israel doesn't have a right to exist" that it's somehow akin to "Jews don't have a right to exist."
I think that feeling or belief is planted by propaganda has purposefully conflated - along with Israel state equals Judaism [just because they arguably misappropriated the Star of David for their state flag; one of multiple tactics for the what I argue is full of wolves in sheep's clothing].
Re: Hamas' Charter
Other foundational propaganda that's propagated deep and wide, and even those who are very well-informed - possibly because in reality it's a moot point, as Hamas-like organizations are inevitable to form from within an occupied-suppressed and segregated state of existence:
- The claim that in the Hamas Charter it says their goal is to "obliterate all Jews globally" stems from an arguable purposeful mistranslation, where instead it appears to be propaganda to demonize Hamas and Palestinians via guilt by association campaigns, where the proper translation says their goal is to "invalidate" any UNJUST behaviour - written within the context of speaking of just vs. unjust behaviour - which means any just behaviour, e.g. non-violence, truth, etc. is fine and won't be targeted by them; from my understanding that means actual practicing Jews wouldn't fall into this category but the specific behaviours of the specific heads of state driving towards genocide,is party to unjust behaviour, will be held to account and have their actions "invalidated" based on their Charter. Source: https://jstor.org/stable/26331116
Conclusions,
I think it's critical people begin to be asked into thought exercises to understand just how isolated in algorithmic bubbles we all are - unless we're conscious of that and not prone to confirmation bias - to understand how people could be so deeply and firmly indoctrinated into one set of beliefs, where one side is completely delusional as to the truth and reality; they know only a shallow and misleading version of the truth, but not the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth - so help us God.
The incongruences are glaring as the relatively unsophisticated politicians [useful fools] et al stumble their way through, placed there are useful puppets - and why the bad actors ultimately need full control over speech and communications, or else a critical mass forms against them - and those blindly toeing the line for them in various institutions waken at exponential pace: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5y-lc7RtcE/
Let us not forget: Julian Assange has been being essentially tortured in prison without being convicted of anything - because he published leaks from a violent-authoritarian regime's security apparatus, exposing illegal actions by bad actors - and instead of the bad actors who have currently captured our systems going through justice process - Assange is suppressed as an example - https://www.instagram.com/p/C5X_KC2twid/
Former head of IDF intelligence agency: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5pI0nLBxR3/
The truth is out there.
It now must be compiled and accessible in a way that is gentle enough to breakthrough and onboard the ideologues believing the nearly century of propaganda; this will also arguably take a cultural shift towards healing and developing self-awareness, the cognitive dissonance of logic working towards realizing must be fierce and will harden people in place to avoid the torment they were blindly supporting, so learning how to forgive oneself is perhaps the first fundamental lesson most ideologues need to learn - we all make mistakes, we all can be mislead until we learn better; "forgive them father for they know not what they do."
There's an obvious pattern of behaviour of producing propaganda with sleight of hand to misdirect attention to who's likely actually pulling the strings for such scenarios.
This is a common talking point that makes no sense when you think about it. Could you please explain how you envision the hostage release to be achieved through bombing and systematic destruction of the area that they are held in? It sounds much more likely to kill them instead. Why not simply negotiate a hostage exchange? Do you expect that if Hamas was about to be completely wiped out, that they would not simply kill all the hostages that were still alive up to that point?
That presumes that there is something hamas wants that is viable for israel to give them. Its far from obvious that is the case in this conflict.
Its not like "carrot and stick" negotiating tactics are unique to this conflict.
If that’s true (and I agree that it may well be) then surely Israel’s army’s efforts can’t be in aid of hostage release, because it’s an entirely unattainable goal?
I think that’s what the OP is getting at. The tactics we see don’t seem like they’d be effective ways to rescue hostages. Nor does it feel all that viable to persuade Hamas to release the hostages. So what are the current tactics in aid of?
- putting pressure - even if there is nothing now to negotiate with, military action could reduce hamas's negotiating position and in principle cause them to sue for peace. I'm a bit doubtful in this conflict, but traditionally this how war works. If your enemy refuses to surrender, you take their land until either they surrender or they have no more land. For example in world war 1, there was still a lot of deaths right up until the armistice even though people knew fighting was going to stop soon, because the sides thought the more land we have now, the better our position will be during the peace negotiations.
- second, Israeli army could find where the hostages are and take them back by force. Also pretty hard, but if negotiations are unattainable its not surprising they would go here as the only other option.
Most wars happen to obtain goals that are unattainable by peaceful negotiation. I don't think this conflict is any different in that regard than any other.
Because there are two war aims: hostage release and the removal of Hamas.
> Do you expect that if Hamas was about to be completely wiped out, that they would not simply kill all the hostages that were still alive up to that point?
No, for the same reason countries don't kill all their prisoners of war right before surrendering. You still need to negotiate the terms of the peace.
You might have reasons to believe that Israel's persecution of Hamas is going to generate a new generation of Hamas, but reasonable people might disagree and say that to the extent Israel is creating new militants, they're likely to look more like Fatah's armed wing than Hamas.
The USA seems to not have followed through (as far as I know - as Russian news sites seem to be available).
Israeli news reports and analysts say Qatar has sent more than $1 billion to Gaza over the past decade.
Qatar sent that aid through fuel to the Gaza Strip's Hamas government, which in turn sold it and paid partial salaries. In the past, the money was sent via suitcases stuffed with cash.
Israel allowed these transfers to Hamas. Supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu say the payments his government approved helped keep the status quo in the Gaza Strip and Hamas from escalating attacks on Israel.
https://www.npr.org/2023/11/02/1210110109/qatar-israel-gaza-...
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-q...
The furthest the freely accessible part goes is to say Israel "encouraged" Qatari payments to Hamas.
from what I can see it never mentioned Israel directly giving money to Hamas. But encouraging payments seems close enough.
I think pretty much any money going into Gaza should be considered funding Hamas. It either went directly to Hamas or it was taxed or it allowed Hamas not to spent that money. This means Europe and the US also funded Hamas.
The reason for funding was to create chaos, not to remove it. Why else do you fund a group that destabilises the area. Basically Israel wanted Gaza to be more chaotic as they felt it gave them more control.
The decision to pursue power and chaos as opposed to seeking resolution and a path to peace has had obvious consequences.
This whole thread is so strange, people keep claiming Palestinians cannot be trusted to rule themselves, while at the same time accusing Israel of genocide for not giving them the ability to rule themselves.
> But encouraging payments seems close enough.
Hmmm. I don't think I agree with that. It's such a polarized and emotional debate. It could really benefit from being precise with words.
Making everything sound just slightly worse than it is will help rile up the side that feels slighted and it will let the other side just pass the speaker off as a liar. The result is fewer shared facts, more polarization and a more emotional debate.
The truth of war is bad enough. It doesn't need to be stretched.
Iran is Hamas' main backer. Qatar funded Hamas with Israel's consent, so it's not really fair to hold this against Doha. (Their continuing to host Hamas' leadership is fair to criticise.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_and_state-sponsored_terr...
Sure. Hence why I qualified my statement with "continuing." Doha hosting Hamas in '17 was fine. Doha hosting them after October 7 is fair to criticise.
Yes. Hamas was seen by even Israel as better than anarchy. That's why they let Doha fund them.
We're now seeing American lawmakers criticising Qatar [1]. That's prompting Dohas to "re-evaluat[e] its role as mediator in ceasefire talks" and weigh "whether to allow Hamas to continue operating [its] political office" [2][3].
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/qatar-says-gaza-ce...
[2] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/qatar-says-gaza-ce...
[3] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/qatar-considers-fu...
Better then anarchy or better than peace? There is some people on both sides of this conflict which are happy to see it radicalized and I think those people all benefits from the other being strong on the other side.
All that said, the actions taken by the Israeli right are certainly not helping the possibility of a future peace agreement, but it's not clear whether this specific action belongs in that group. One might argue that a stronger central authority in Gaza means there is a partner for a future agreement and that if Gaza can transition to be a more peaceful place (and it seemed to be heading in that direction) that would also support a future agreement.
Qatar is not a western country, there is no reason to expect it to buy into western exceptionalism. This is not to defend Hamas but simply to point out that the western double standard doesn’t reach much beyond Europe.
America is (a) a country and (b) major trading and security partner.
> Qatar is not a western country, there is no reason to expect it to buy into western exceptionalism
We are their security guarantor. It’s why Doha is publicly debating shutting down Hamas’ political office.
Are missiles coming out of Qatar? Are they even supplying arms to Hamas, or do they simply fund the civilian portions of the government?
AlJazeera is known to be untrustworthy on matters of the middle east. Just as BBC is untrustworthy on matters of UK international politics and the NYT [1] can't be trusted on US foreign policy matters.
AlJazeera, NYT and BBC are weapons of mass propaganda just like Globaltimes or RT. The main (and admittedly stark) difference is how often these weapons are deployed.
[]1 https://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/may/26/pressandpublis...
I don't think you can compare Al Jazeera and RT, because one has been a firehose of bullshit that has literally advocates invasion of Ukraine, and the other does not. As far as I know, Al Jazeera is banned purely because they've been critical of current Israeli policy. There are some reasonable criticisms of Al Jazeera and things they could have done better, but that applies to every media outlet on the planet.
Both have the same aim, just as Qatar Airways sponsor your flights with oil money so you might fly through Qatar, Al Jazeera pays journalists so they can push Qatar's narratives to Western or Arabic audience. This is highly similar to RT in intent.
Looking from Israel standpoint, it's a news outlet that pushes your enemies propaganda arm videos unfiltered and also uses it to radicalize part of your population
I've spent a while translating various articles on the Al Jazeera Arabic site from Arabic to English with mistral-7b. Everything seemed to be very fact based, and was emphasising things like civilian deaths, which aligns to what I'd consider public interest.
The Arabic text does consistently use the term شهيد (martyr) to describe Palestinian civilian casualties in Gaza, which is the closest thing to biased language I found across multiple articles about Israel and Palestine - but I think that is normal in Arabic for describing even non-combatant casualties and not necessarily reflective of bias given Arabic conventions.
This is obviously a source with a considerable bias, but they link to many concerning examples of Al Jazeera reporting. I personally don’t speak Arabic but anecdotally I’ve heard that the translations are accurate, the bias is manifest in choosing what to translate. This example was especially concerning, exacerbating civilian deaths:
> Al-Jazeera Fabricates Information Designed To Thwart Israel's Instructions To The Gaza Population
>Al-Jazeera broadcast footage of bodies of civilians strewn over a road, presenting them as victims of an Israeli attack against people who had abided by the IDF instructions to evacuate to southern Gaza.[91] Israel in fact had secured safe passage to the south for those civilians who wished to go there, while Hamas exerted pressure on them to remain put in order to use civilians as human shields.[92]
Also note that the Israeli government spends tons of money to push Israeli narratives and viewpoints. That's fine, they're allowed to do that, but we can leverage the same "highly similar to RT in intent" accusations against them. In the end we should judge actions, not intent.
The discussion here is about the actions of Israel versus Al Jazeera, not a possibility of banning Al Jazeera in the United States or maybe Israeli viewpoints.
Also, I am pretty sure Israeli spendings to push Israeli narratives in the US are minuscule, especially compared to Qatar's.
This is quite popular in europe and is a result of lesson learned from the nazis
Well, you can. You're allowed. But at that point I decide to stop engaging. So good day to you.
Quite the contrary, just look at ADL or AIPAC.
It seems you think Israel has direct finance or control interest in AIPAC, do you have something to support that?
AIPAC is nominally funded by "individual donations", but the problem with that it is fairly trivial for a nation-state to fund things in this manner, so it doesn't really tell us anything. And then, of course, there's the question of personal connections: if you have a private person donating huge amounts of money to AIPAC, and they just happen to be heavily involved with the governing political party in Israel, I would consider them an agent of the state of Israel ipso facto even if they don't have such official position (just as I would consider, say, one of Putin's pet oligarchs a Russian agent if they donate money to an American political campaign in their private capacity).
“because one has been a firehose of bullshit that has literally advocates invasion of Ukraine”
How is that different from CNN/BBC/whatever advocating NATO/US invasions in the last half century? (Serbia, Iraq2, Libya, etc). And more recently Gaza.
AFAIK, there has been no ban. It would probably face some backlash given the First Amendment right to freedom of press. (Though I'm not sure that truly extends to the press of a foreign country?)
rt.com, enter… loads instantaneously.
sputnikglobe.com, enter… loads instantaneously.
Please don’t lie.
Edit: it was not a lie, my apologies.
One of the most ineffectual bans I have ever seen.
To me this is more a discouragement of promotion than any real ban, but I will edit my previous comment.
Try one of these (none accessible to me in Sweden):
My wife is Belarussian and was upset she couldn't read her news, that's how I know they banned many websites. They didn't ban the "opposition" websites run from outside Russia/Belarus though :).
Yes it did. And that was a dark day for Europe.
Whatever the interpretation, I think it's clear that things are degrading fast in the last few decades. I don't think an EU-wide block on Russian media such as RT wouldn't have passed with such indifference 20 years ago.
That's the most worrying to me: not the measure itself, but the indifference from the general population. In fact, I have another comment in this thread saying that block was abhorrent and it's gathering downvotes... In HN, a community where most are well-educated people from the US, a country that has arguably been the staunchest defender of freedom of expression and of the press. I find that worrying. And then there is cancel culture, and other factors, that have eroded effective freedom of speech.
At this rate, in a few more decades Western democracies will be hard to tell in practice from Chinese authoritarianism, which is worrying, because they have better economic projection, more safety, booming infrastructure, a less aggressive foreign policy... Democracy and freedom is basically what makes the West worth it, if we lose it, what's even the point?
Illiberal maybe, but not undemocratic.
If a supermajority opposes free press, it would be undemocratic to force it upon them.
Too many people - usually Americans - confuse liberal democracy with democracy.
Liberal democracy is a phrase for a reason - and the liberal comes first for a reason!
Just because people vote for something doesn't make the thing they voted for democratic. Historically people have voted to install a non-democratic government before.
If not, it's not democracy! You're deciding to overrule the demos and enforce your minority opinion!
I know it seems like pedantry but we shouldn't confuse liberalism with democracy.
I read Clark's Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia (<https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002RI9PMM/>) right after hearing about YouTube shutting down Russian state media channels. I was surprised to learn in the book of the extent of the freedom of the press in late 18th-century Prussia. A British visitor wrote that people were as free to speak as back home, citing a work that was very critical of the king in the context of Poland. During the Napoleonic wars, despite the existential threat to Prussia from France, at least four newspapers that celebrated Revolutionary France as the next step in human freedom were allowed to publish.
It's always preferable to counter propaganda with free speech. Even liars deserve the opportunity to speak. This is especially true when there is no formally declared war between US/Europe outside Ukraine and Russia.
Clearly they're not doing that, just criticizing the government.
The obvious next step is outlawing any speech criticizing the government (or rather 'speech that is a threat to national security'), then you've got the same laws as in Russia.
They were not closed because they're "criticizing the government". They were closed because they're acting on behalf of a foreign agent and spreading propaganda (I think the actual language "is harmed national security"). Qatar is not a free country, it funds Al-Jazeera, it hosts the Hamas leadership.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/al-jazeera/
"Mixed for factual reporting due to failed fact checks that were not corrected and misleading extreme editorial bias that favors Qatar."
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/mar/18/will-ofcoms-de...
Notice a pattern with the British Govt? They get their "independent" depts and businesses to do their dirty work for deniability!
To resort to official declarations of war or lack thereof, to hamstring the US response to widespread dissemination of Russian propaganda is plausible on the face of it.
But consider: the US is under no obligation to facilitate Russian propagandists. To deny them access is a matter for the State Department, as it's dealing with foreign nationals. It's quite routine to deny rights to non-American citizens.
Finally, a declaration of war with Russia could destabilize politics everywhere. Or even, destroy the world. It's disingenuous to ignore that and quibble over the rules, especially since those rules clearly don't apply to foreign governments trying to operate in the US.
Not yet, they're not.
In my own industry I commonly hear people talk about self regulation in order to keep governments from interfering. This has benefits, but it also makes the action of the industry a dialog between government and private sector. Voluntarily removing undesired content is technically not censorship ordered by the government, but it is also not completely separated from the wishes of the government.
> We examined the educational backgrounds of 75 terrorists behind some of the most significant recent terrorist attacks against Westerners. We found that a majority of them are college-educated, often in technical subjects like engineering.
> In the four attacks for which the most complete information about the perpetrators' educational levels is available -- the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the attacks on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, the 9/11 attacks, and the Bali bombings in 2002 -- 53 percent of the terrorists had either attended college or had received a college degree.
[https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/14/opinion/the-madrassa-myth...]
I would never expect any theocracy to be a bastion of democracy. Israel can't really realize its goals and be free at the same time. Those goals are not compatible.
This is mostly a symbolic move that will make very little difference. Likely it will push Al Jazeera to be more anti-Israeli but I'm sure they can make up (pun intended) for their lack of physical presence in the region. People that want to consume that content in Israel will have no problem (many already get this via satellite).
A by the way is that this can still be challenged in the courts. If Al Jazeera chooses to go to the supreme court I imagine there's a pretty good chance that the decision will get overturned. They might intentionally decide not to do that because that outcome will put Israel in a positive light.
One of the genuine cultural differences between the US and Israel is that while Americans prefer greater liberty (even if it means less security), Israelis prefer greater security (even if it means less liberty). Which is to say, both cultures appreciate both values, but they have different priorities.
Israel is a country where you will have your bags searched before entering shopping malls or train stations. That Israelis' privacy is violated on a daily basis by other Israelis is popular. There is a sense that the privacy violations are genuinely needed, result in genuine protection, and are not abused by those in power.
Once you’ve established that the government can unilaterally ban a voice for reasons of “national security” you’ve essentially given them a free pass. As Americans living post-9/11 will know, “national security” is a deliberately elastic term that can cover anything required in the moment.