Slashdot Mirror
Israel Meets With Google and YouTube To Discuss Censoring Videos (middleeastmonitor.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Various sources report Israel's Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs Tzipi Hotovely meeting with representatives of Google and YouTube to discuss censoring Palestinian videos believed to incite violence.
Original aricle (in Hebrew) from Maariv
The open question is how Google and Youtube will define "inciting violence."
Currently, all foreign journalists in the Palestinian territories are required to register with the Israeli military, and all footage must be approved through the Israeli Military Censor's office before being released. However, according to the article in alternet individual Palestinians have been uploading videos showing violence by Israeli soldiers, including execution-style killings, and highlighting the living conditions in the territories, which Israeli authorities consider inflammatory.
>> individual Palestinians have been uploading videos showing violence by Israeli soldiers, including execution-style killings
I think all Israel would need to do is reference YouTube's own Terms of Service, which prohibit videos featuring illegal acts, right? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_YouTube) Or maybe it could copyright all videos featuring its soldiers and go the German route (where YouTube would be liable for violating copyright by hosting videos). /snark
Sadly there is actual video evidence against israeli side. This is why they are asking help from google to censor the other side, they no longer can censor the palestinians independently.
sadly both sides are acting atrociously.
That does not make them morally equivalent. Israel has far more power, and has far more options. Their violence is state-sanctioned, while most Palestinian violence is perpetrated by individuals. But most importantly, as an American, I object to Israel's violence because it is done, in part, with my tax dollars, in the form of military aid and loan guarantees.
Just wait until someone murders your children as you wait for a bus, or throws a brick through your windshield while you're driving to work. You might start to think differently about "soldiers committing violence."
It's not simply violence, it's illegal violence such as crimes against humanity which is punishable by universal law. The violence is targeting civilians that are occupied by Israel on palestinian land.
I think nearly everyone that's commented on this so far has either missed the point, gone off the deep end, or strayed way off topic.
Israel is not trying to censor speech. They're trying to stop incitement.
In other words, they're trying to stop predominantly arabic language terrorist recruiting and training material.
If you have a rudimentary grasp of Arabic, I highly recommend searching for recruiting and training material put out by groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, even Daesh. Though, in truth, if you did, you would probably get flagged by homeland security in whatever country you're in. In that pile there are some real classics like How to Make a Pipe Bomb, Optimal Use of a Suicide Vest, and (my favorite) How to Stab a Jew. These videos are already in violation of Youtube terms of service on at least three counts I can think of.
Nobody is going to take down your stupid "fuck israel" video, and seriously, nobody even wants to.
Unless you're a senior member of Hamas, your opinions simply don't matter to anyone who has any kind of sway in the government.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
Yeah, more violence sure will solve the problem.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
as long as the students at these colleges in the states today dont get to decide whats offensive we should be good
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I'll play devil's advocate:
Firstly, the mandatory [citation needed].
Also, for all Israel's crimes, it's fairly clear they aren't set on maximising needless murder. If they wanted to crush every living soul in Palestine, let's be serious: no-one would stop them. But it doesn't happen. Why? Because Israel doesn't want to do that.
The same certainly can't be said of Hamas, who would kill all Jews if they had their way (they're not exactly shy about this). But being morally superior to Hamas isn't saying much, of course.
I think nearly everyone that's commented on this so far has either missed the point, gone off the deep end, or strayed way off topic.
Israel is not trying to censor speech. They're trying to stop incitement.
... by censorship.
In other words, they're trying to stop predominantly arabic language terrorist recruiting and training material.
Trying to stop people from saying something you don't want them to say is known as "censorship". What you're saying here is "I think that in this case censorship is justified."
I admit to some mixed feelings here. I'd like to see videos recruiting people to terrorism pulled down... but I'm skeptical about giving anybody the authority to decide which videos, because that authority can be misused. As has been pointed out, freedom of speech really isn't freedom of speech until it includes allowing people to say things that you personally don't like.
I'm afraid I'd err on the side of freedom here. I don't know if I can trust the government-- any government, but least of all the Israeli government--with the power to decide what to censor.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
If the land is Israel, why don't its citizens get to vote in Israeli elections?
Except it is quite explicitly not theirs by both international and even israeli law. And since the borders are locked down, even if they wanted to leave they would be unable to.
If someone killed my wife and children... I would not be above genocide utilizing a bioweapon, and I would be capable of building such a thing, targeted to a specific set of tribes or genomes
Good luck with that one. The problem here is that the two ethnic groups are almost the same: they're both Semitic people, and are extremely closely related genetically. Any bio-weapon targeting Jewish genetics is also going to affect Arabs, and vice-versa.
Something like that might work if, for instance, the Nigerians were really pissed at the Chinese. But with most cases where some ethnic group really hates some other ethnic group, the two groups are more similar to each other than to anyone else. It's kinda like all those cases you see where there's a family-run restaurant, but two brothers in the family have a big fight and suddenly there's two restaurants, the original one, and then a new one across the street with the exact same menu and almost same name.
One has a totalitarian martyrhood culture, and the other is using them as substitute culprits to avenge the Holocaust on. Why side with either? Unless, of course, your apocalyptic cult sees Israel as a key to its end-of-the-world prophecies, which seems to be the case for alarmingly many people.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
If they wanted to crush every living soul in Palestine, let's be serious: no-one would stop them.
Wow, what kind of pro-Israel echo chamber do you live in?
I don't know exactly what would happen if Israel embarked on an intense and systematic campaign of genocide (e.g. designed to kill every non-Jew in the West Bank and Gaza in less than a year). But I can guarantee that there would be major international efforts to stop Israel from doing it. At the very least, Israel would face major trade sanctions - along the lines of apartheid South Africa. But there's a good chance that at least a few countries would hit Israel with bombs and missiles. Some might even send in ground troops. The whole situation could easily escalate into a world-wide nuclear war.
Getting back to the whole incitement/propaganda/censorship topic, I have the sense people in the pro-Israel camp are unaware of how much mainstream opinion is shifting against Israel. They seem to imagine that a century from now Israel will still be happily discriminating against people who are not Jewish - e.g. Jewish (only) "right" of "return". But, at the same time, any hints of discrimination against Jewish people will be absolutely crushed - e.g. public careers destroyed by accusations of "antisemitism".
As a matter of basic fairness, though, that doesn't seem sustainable. Eventually everyone's going to have to play by the same rules when it comes to discrimination.
Fair enough for this case, giving you the benefit of the doubt, but there are plenty of situations where the corrupt bunch of extremists currently in charge of Israel do so.
One sided war propaganda from a bunch that very much resemble what the Jewish people had to flee from is the order of the day. If this keeps up Israel is going to be treated like South Africa was some years back.
So, you believe the issue here is about choosing a side? To a certain extent that might be true. But let's be fair, until the UN renounces Israel's sovereignty, takes over, disarms the entire region and enforces peace.. preferably peacefully while treating all the people fairly and with respect, there will be no right side. I don't give a shit if you favor Israelis or Palestinians. They're both a disgrace and behave like something out of a grapes of wrath type experiment.
The issue here is whether or not a nation like Israel should be allowed to censor "their enemy" on YouTube and other sites. I have no love for anyone who preaches hate like the Palestinians and Israelis do. I have no respect for anyone who would look their brother in the eye and see an animal when what they really see is a mirror. But, for a moment, imagine Israel being able to claim the videos you site as instigating violence... they do... only a fool would disagree with you on this. There are many videos like this and if I believed I had the right to have them taken down, I would.
But, what about the video of a crying child who lost his mother or father or sister to bombings and raids led by the Israelis... when that child cries out in fear and terror and agony that the Israelis did this to him. That he hates the people who took someone he loves from him. Would you also agree that this video would insight violence? Would you not agree that only a heartless man would not want to cry for this child? Would you not agree that a fighter would see this as his duty to avenge? Would you agree that this video should be taken down too? I personally wouldn't. A video like this should be seen.
At which point between these extremes do we decide which video is appropriate and which insights violence and which insights violence and should be seen... and which ones shouldn't.
This IS NOT an issue of black and white. While I sympathize with the Israeli leadership that these videos are easily a weapon being used against them... I also sympathize with the Palestinians who lack better channels to communicate and sadly lack better things to communicate about. What's worse is, I feel deeply for the Israelis and the Palestinians who actually believe they are doing the right thing because some fool in "their leadership" has convinced them that this is how they should think and behave.
Israel is a completely failed experiment and a place which could be a world wide symbol of peace representing some of the biggest religions is a cesspool of steaming shit instead. Quit picking a side like Israel or Palestine. Instead fight to have them both dissolved and if the US and UN are going to pay for "peace keeping" in the region, then treat it like post-was Germany and just take the damn thing over and treat it as a haven instead and bring peace there.
> Why don't you list the fucking real atrocities that are going in Syria, or in Africa, or in 100 other places where there is conflict in the world.
Because they're not lobbying Google to censor Youtube uploads of their atrocities. Also, after the atrocities suffered by the Jewish people, we should expect better from Israel. And also, because don't give Syria privileged access to US funding, military hardware, and intelligence reports.
OK, I'll give you your citation.
This post refers to the well-known Goldstone report:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
It should be noted that the author of the report retracted the claim that it was Israeli government policy to deliberately target civilians. Read the whole wikipedia article or google it for details, TLDR: The report stated that both Hamas and Israel targeted civilians, then the part about Israel targeting civilians was retracted because the author concluded that his sources were bias and inaccurate. Even with that having happened, the anti-Israel crowd still quote the redacted parts of the report because it fits their narrative, and fail to mention the part about Hamas targeting civilians.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
you realize that it's not a concentration camp right? seems like you drank up that cooled real good.
So If you lock up close to 1.9 million people in a limited strip of territory and don't allow them to enter and exit freely, tightly control the influx of supplies and seek to censor and suppress information about what you are doing in there? what is that? The Zionist idea of a holiday park?
It really is super double twisty speak to claim showing acts of violence being committed somehow incites violence, kind of fucking late you know, violence is already being committed. Reality is, showing those acts of violence being committed is putting enormous pressure on, to stop committing those acts of violence. So, question, is it an act of violence for a occupying force to drive around telling families they are going to gas them to death or not, https://www.youtube.com/watch?... (rather ironic considering the source). Honestly it looks like many of the acts of violence committed by the Government controlling that region, are being done purposefully to incite violence in return, so that an excuse can be fabricated to carry genocidal policies, without ramifications from the rest of the world.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
DICE should be ashamed to publicize such trashy liberal propaganda !!
The Palestinian government is run by Hamas & Fatah - DICE has nothing to do with it.
The propaganda problem is with Israel: trying to keep the rest of the world ignorant about their oppression of Palestinians.
It was a war. Shit happens.
No, it wasn't a war. It was a series of heavy-handed, ultra-violent overreactions to minor incidents which themselves were responses to systematic oppression. Military action often does kill civilians, the so-called "collateral damage", but herding groups of unarmed women and children into a building and then deliberately shelling that building to kill them all is not collateral damage; the unarmed civilians were the target.
If you want to understand what's really going on in Israel, I highly recommend you read "Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel", by Max Blumenthal. It's a hard book to read, not because Blumenthal isn't a good writer but because the truth is so horrible. And if you doubt that it is the truth, check the included citations.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Why don't you list the fucking real atrocities that are going in Syria, or in Africa, or in 100 other places where there is conflict in the world.
When the first response to an accusation is "why aren't you looking at some different crime some different place," I read this as an acknowledgement that the accusation is accurate.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com