In France, Most Comments on Gaza Conflict Yanked From Mainstream News Sites

An anonymous reader writes with an unpleasant statistic from France, quoting David Corchia, who heads a service employed by large French news organizations to sift through and moderate comments made on their sites. Quoting YNet News: Corchia says that as an online moderator, generally 25% to 40% of comments are banned. Moderators are assigned with the task of filtering comments in accordance with France's legal system, including those that are racist, anti-Semitic or discriminatory. Regarding the war between the Israelis and Hamas, however, Corchia notes that some 95% of online comments made by French users are removed. "There are three times as many comments than normal, all linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," added Jeremie Mani, head of another moderation company Netino. "We see racist or anti-Semitic messages, very violent, that also take aim at politicians and the media, sometimes by giving journalists' contact details," he added. "This sickening content is peculiar to this conflict. The war in Syria does not trigger these kinds of comments."

Comments

Or maybe you're not so good at math

[popo]

The problem is that in terms of mathematical relativity, the fighting in Gaza is not a terribly important ongoing conflict.

There are an *exponentially* larger number of ongoing casualties in Syria. Where is the outrage?

There are more ongoing casualties in Sudan, Pakistan and other non-reported conflicts as well. Where are the street protests?

Selective outrage is inherently indicative of a motivation *other* than humanitarian concern.

Great stats here: http://notquant.com/the-israel...

We must care about civilian casualties. But we must not care more about some casualties over others.

Re:Or maybe you're not so good at math

[Anonymous Coward]

"Israel is supposed to be a civilized Western country, so..."

Dead. Wrong.

Israel is a civilised *Middle Eastern* country. It is where it is, surrounded by enemies who have sworn to exterminate every last Jew. It doesn't have the luxury of being thousands of miles from the actual conflict, and it can't afford to "try one more time" because any mistake could be fatal. The day that militant Islam starts launching rockets onto the territory of the continental United States -- and it is coming -- people like you will wake up and start baying for blood like so many "savages". How many people did America kill in response to the Twin Towers? How many billions of dollars did it spend on vengeance?

Re:Or maybe you're not so good at math

[dbIII]

The problem is that any suggestion that the current government of Israel is imperfect is taken as "anti-semitic".

I like Israel, it has a lot of good things going for it. However currently it is run by a bunch of fucking fascists who have timed yet another pogrom into Gaza to coincide with an election. That seems to run contrary to everything Israel is supposed to stand for.

Re:maybe

[war4peace]

My non-jewish family was victimized by fascism. But I don't run around yelling "I'm offended!" every time the subject is brought up. My family moved on 5 decades ago, and I still think it took the a bloody long time to do it.

Seriously, stop it. Just let it go and move on. You're doing nobody any good.