TikTok says it’s not the algorithm, teens are just pro-Palestine — The company denied allegations that it has been promoting pro-Palestine content in an effort to sway American opinion::In a blog post, the company denied allegations that it has been promoting pro-Palestine content in an effort to sway American opinion.
It’s almost like teens see something like a genocide being committed, think it’s wrong and say something about it.
Yeah I don’t think teens are particularly pro-Palestine or anti-Israel.
Teens throughout history have just been anti-war and anti-killing-children.
I don’t understand why so many stop doing so.
As you get older you learn that things are never black or white, and everything is grey. Global politics are complicated. The world is a giant chess board and Gaza is a pawn.
I’ve heard arguments that Israel should have essentially done nothing if they were good guys, but not retaliating sends a message to those funding Hamas that they should do it again.
Making matters worse, they are surrounded by people that constantly advocate for their eradication, they’ve already experienced such an event in their history, so to say they are more sensitive to it than other groups may be an understatement.
This was their 9/11. And back then the vast majority of Americans wanted to retaliate against Al Qaeda.
And to clarify further there is no “peace” between Israel and would be Palestine. You’re talking about 1 piece of land that three different religions have ancient ties to, with little desire to coexist on it. Chalk it up to just another failure of western powers dividing up the Middle East after WWII.
Short of some scenario where they can emigrate to Egypt or something, I don’t know what the answer is. They’re all bad options.
I am 29 and i only seem to become more radical of a pacifistic absolutists. Sure the world is grey, twisted dark sometimes even. But global politics are much more off a chaotic mess then they are complicated, and they are indeed complicated. There is no excuse to murder innocent people left and right for neither party or country.
It is naive to believe that we can just get rid of borders and become tolerant enough to let people live where they want without some issues but i much rather see us attempt that then maintain whatever we are doing right now.
I don’t think it’s healthy to be an absolutist about just about anything. The unattended consequences start to outnumber your ideals. If Israel hadn’t done after Hamas, Hamas would be empowered to keep doing it. The net effect would be more Israelis killed. Who knows, they may have been invaded by one of the several neighboring countries that would like nothing more than to destroy the country.
I think Ukraine is a better example though. I can’t fathom telling them they should try to get along with Russia. There’s the idea of being anti-war in general, and then there’s allowing a foreign aggressor to come in and take your country.
I think that you really did a good job summing up an incredibly complex issue in a fairly neutral way. No matter how smart you are as a kid/teen, there’s only so much you’re ever going to see play out, and it takes some time to get all the “data points” to start seeing the bigger picture.
As for Israel/Palestine, it’s literally one of the single most complex issues in geopolitics, and while it’s easy for someone reading articles and watching TikToks to just say “if Israel just gave them their land back and everything would be good!”, it’s ignorant of a much, much, MUCH bigger picture.
This is not saying I support any of what’s going on. I don’t think it’s particularly controversial to say that conflicts of any sort are fucking awful, but the reality is that if Israel just did pull out of the West Bank and ceded all the claims, there would be so many knock-on effects that are effectively impossible to predict, with none of them being particularly good.
Realistically, the only way you could ever hope to come to a “simple” solution that doesn’t result in a massive loss of life would be with a time machine.
Exactly. I think you’d have to go back to pre-Hitler to get any sort of major change, but then the butterfly effect comes into play heavily. What does Europe look like if Germany never escapes the grasps of their quite terrible post-WWI restrictions? Maybe all we do is flip the script and Jews are treated like the Palestinians but still in Germany? There’s no way of knowing.
I agree that it’s all awful. I don’t think there is a solution that leaves everyone happy and safe and that’s just the reality of life.
I don’t think there is a solution that leaves everyone happy and safe and that’s just the reality of life.
Sometimes a horrible outcome might be the best one. Germany and Japan were completely humiliated in WW2. Both turned out fine. Perhaps Palestine needs to properly lose this war. I mean, Palestine has lost wars several times against Israel before but they didn’t go through similar learning process that Germany and Japan did after WW2.
IDK, both can be true. Teens might be right in saying something and tiktok might be amplifying that kind of content because it helps China geopolitically. A highly upvoted post on Lemmy literally yesterday was this - https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/13/us/china-online-disinformation-invs/index.html
Tiktok also didn’t censor the major protests in France like Facebook and Twitter did at the time.
Theres only a handful of social media outlets. Tik tok is just not suppressing the Pro Palestine content like Western owned media outlets have been.
We speak lots of " free speech " in the West, but look how quick, German, British, American, Canadian government and media spheres are united in calling Palestine protestors terrorists and supporting hamas.
Its just our lack of free speech being exposed when it goes against the powers that be.
Tiktok also didn’t censor the major protests in France like Facebook and Twitter did at the time.
That proves nothing, it might equally be in China’s geopolitical interest to support discontent and protests in the West. A more interesting question is if TikTok would promote content about the Uyghur genocide the same way.
Well we know for a fact that China has it’s own Douyin (Tiktok) app and that it prioritises stopping any inkling of random social movements/organisation through social media.
So this isn’t really a mystery at all. Within China they are subject to their laws. Elsewhere they follow global norms.
I actually think all the furore about China and Tiktok was really not about Chinese control over Tiktok in the West, but about the West’s own control over Tiktok. Much like how Huawei was booted for not allowing US intelligence agencies to put in backdoors, rather than actually enabling spying itself (this came out last year iirc).
Ironic seeing as Huawei was founded with IP they stole from Nortel. They can fuck off as far as I’m concerned.
From Nortel, Ericsson, Alcatel…
Its how innovation happens. I’m pretty sure the Americans did the same to the British.
Came out where?
Maybe the U.S. upvoted that to discredit China /j
China gains nothing by Mideast conflict.
Israel - clearly does not care about things like democracy and human rights.
I can see them drawing closer to China.
Russia arguably gains via ties with Iran and decrease of U.S. influence in the region. But, as far as news, reporting, information are concerned, it’s pretty irrelevant, if there’s actual propaganda then let it be shown and debunked, and even Iranian RT right now is barely saying anything surprising to anyone who’s been watching what’s happening on the ground.
“You’re crazy to believe your own eyes!”
When the October 7 attack happened my teenagers noticed the one sided media and hamfisted pro Israel propaganda asked what’s really going on. Today’s kids are getting constant propaganda and advertising. They’re not immune but they recognize it and bristle.
When I was a teenager and Yitzhak Rabin was murdered i bought the anti palastine rhetoric that followed for an embarrassingly long time. And we knew that it was Netanyahu. Well, I don’t think we knew until later that he was aware that night of what he was doing. But we knew it was his follower who pulled the trigger.
Stupid thing people don’t they like killing?
Israel has already killed 10-20x as many people as died in the Hamas attack, and they’re just getting started.
A broken tiktok is right twice a day…
As far as I can tell, neither government here has the moral high ground…and I chose the word “government” there for a reason.
It is my understanding from very far away only able to see through Lie-O-Vision that two governments that hate each other because religion are basically taking it out on civilians who just want to live their lives. It’s a tragedy that has basically nothing to do with me yet it does cast my eyes toward my own capitol city with a bit of a suspicious squint.
I’m convinced this whole tiktok is manipulating the algorithm thing is actually US propaganda.
Here’s how you actually “manipulate the algorithm.”
1: take up residency in the comments, and at the same time start a few basic accts that don’t say anything too controversial (day in the life kinda stuff, thirst traps, etc). Establish a basic presence
2: once you amass a following, you start with pretty basic stuff lots of young people agree with - housing/healthcare reform, work reform, etc
3: an important part a lot of people miss - have your own team troll your comments. Stir up shit. The goal is to get people riled up, not move the needle in any specific direction
4: throw out something big (it’s been confirmed that Russia is behind distribution on TikTok of OBL’s “Letter to America” recently). Fight on both sides, tagging in as much of the greater sphere of commenters as you can.
That’s it. That’s all anyone’s doing. Just do this over and over and you eventually drive people crazy.
They did the exact same thing in 2016, they did it in 2020 with BLM, they did it with Ukraine. It’s nothing new
Sounds pretty convincing, but you lost me in the end. Who did “exact same thing” in 2016, 2020, and 2022? Are you implying that Russia and/or China were trying to increase the harm done to the US that way? I’m quite at a loss here
Yes. This is the new age of psychological warfare, and has been recorded occurring at these instances, among others.
100%
Russian trolling is pretty well documented at this point. They overthrew several Baltic nations and bought a lot of breathing room during the 2016 election.
It’s been all over the news and stuff.
US propaganda is so, so bad. Russia and China are awful, but US is no better in this regard.
A little from column A, a little from column B?
Have you seen Chinese TikTok vs America TikTok? It’s wild. The Chinese TikTok has videos of scientists and musicians and engineers all tackling major problems. It’s inspirational. The American TikTok is absolutely fucked. There’s clearly heavy algorithm manipulation. At the very least, we know China could make American TikTok not terrible and they choose not to.
The Chinese TikTok has videos of scientists and musicians and engineers all tackling major problems. It’s inspirational
My TikTok FYP is various scientists/science commenters, stand up comedians, chubby goth girls dancing, Magic The Gathering card reviews, and swinger shit.
If you engage only with things you like, you’ll only see things you like.
Yeah, Western Tiktok is just more liberal lol. If you don’t like it, go and live in… China?
Stupid lizard brains are too easily tricked with tribalism and anger though. It takes a real conscious effort to curate your feed like that.
Any nuanced opinion on Gaza gets trashed because both “teams” view you as the enemy. You’re always pushed towards absolutism.
I agree with the latter, but I don’t think it takes a lot of effort to curate a TikTok FYP.
Yeah you literally just like videos and hit not interested on shit you don’t like
A lot of the best sci-fi is coming out of China these days. People who like to theorize about these things point to a population, much like America in the post war Baby Boom, seeing for themselves the benefits science can bring to their lives as China pretty rapidly develops, and being fascinated by what could be next.
So you might need to accept that the most popular trending American social media is venal and insipid because the average American wants to see venal and insipid, while the Chinese population might just be interested in things that interest them.
Almost like when you take religion out of the picture it’s one country committing genocide against another which is never okay for any reason. Israel can scream “but muh anti-semitism” all they want but it’s a scapegoat. Ignore Jewish/Muslim backgrounds and look at what’s really going on. It’s nothing but a disgusting land grab and genocide that’s been going on since WW2.
The world would 100% be a better place without Israel, and that’s nothing to do with their religion. The country itself is evil and corrupt. They are bigoted and hypocritical. Israel deserves no sympathy or support. Out of all the bullshit I’ve seen happen in the middle east the past few decades, Israel is definitely the most abhorrent and repulsive source of conflict.
The world would 100% be a better place without Israel, and that’s nothing to do with their religion.
The world would also be a better place without Islam, but how realistic or ethical is it to seriously call for such a thing?
You can say “the world would be better without Israel” without actually calling for the eradication of the country. I think creating Israel was a historical mistake, but that doesn’t make it a mistake you can just paint over. Solutions must come from acknowledging the current reality and the innocent people who live at both sides of the border and their rights and dignity.
You can say “the world would be better without Israel” without actually calling for the eradication of the country.
As I can also say that the world would be better without Islam without actually calling for anyone’s death. All worshippers of that religion should simply become apostates and no-one would needlessly die. But it’s another thing to force this against their will, which you would be doing in both cases.
do you genuinely think israel wants this tiny stretch of land, even at the cost of all of this(thousands of israelis dead, more soldiers die every day, rockets and terror attacks from lebanon, syria and yemen, and all the public backlash) I’ll tell you a hint, they truly don’t and if they did, they won’t take it this slowly, and this carefully not to hurt civilians if they truly just wanted the tiny piece of land, it would have been so kuch easier to just indiscriminately level the entire place (without the need for a ground invasion)
I know I’m not gonna change any minds here as people like you who have already decided israel is the culmination of all evil won’t back down from that belief that easily, but just try to not assume every israeli born is a racist Palestinian hater, and try to think why would they go through all of this, what do they stand to gain or to lose, assuming of course they are rational human beings
btw if it’s genocide for the past 56 years, they are truly really really bad at committing genocide
I’d say they’re good at it considering they’re getting away with it.
Land grab? Can you explain? It looks like the status quo has been maintained since 1967 or so?
Israel has allowed settlers to continuously claim land from the West Bank, enclosing its territory from the Palestinians who already lived there, preventing the Palestinian Authority from imprisoning settlers or kicking them out, and refusing to pursue legal action against settlers while illegally imprisoning Palestinians for retaliating when they see their land getting stolen without anyone defending them.
Ignoring all the ongoing colonization, didn’t they just take Jerusalem a couple years ago when Trump said they could put their embassy there?
What do you think about Hamas? Why do they exist and what is their actual agenda? Is it really at the very top simply helmed by limousine-riding desert kings in Quatar?
Hamas is as bad as Isreal, but they are Isreal’s own creation. Most Palestinians don’t support Hamas just like most Isrealis don’t support their own government. It is two governments trying to commit genocide on the others civilians. Their are no good guys here. Just thousands of innocent civilians being massacred on both sides. The main difference is the US has decided to give one of these governments committing genocide the most advanced weapons available and practically no governments are even trying to help the Palestinians anymore. Not to mention hamas is commiting genocide to take back land the palestinians had a 100 years ago while the isrealis are commiting genocide to take back land they had 2000 years ago while pretending the palestians never even existed and spouting off racist revisionist history.
Yeah, Hamas isn’t as bad as Israel, it’s literally a resistance movement to the people that ethnically cleansed their population from their land and kept them in a concentration camp for two decades. The unbalanced condemnation tbph is the result of a concerted Israeli/Western propaganda campaign to obscure the context and nature of the attacks, including the hundreds of Palestinian people killed in 2023 before Oct. 7, and more fundamentally, the fact that Israel has been keeping 2.4M people in a high-tech concentration camp for the last two decades.
The atrocity claims against Hamas from Oct. 7 have some serious evidentiary issues at this point, even including some unknown number of the civilian deaths being attributable to the IDF (literally firing at, shelling and bombing Israeli citizens - though to be clear, there is video of Hamas shooting civilians as well). You compare this to the inhuman genocide being levied against Palestinians now - food, water, electricity, fuel, medicine being cut off for 5 weeks at this point, likely upwards of 20,000 civilians killed, at least half of the buildings in Gaza damaged or destroyed, attacks on hospitals, schools, refugee camps, ambulances, journalists, aid workers, without legitimate substantiation of their repurposing for military purposes - these are crimes against humanity. There is no equivalence here.
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Where does Hamas end and the Palestinian Authority begin? I feel like there’s little discussion about PA, are they really not like an effectual provisional government or like what’s their deal/how do they fit into the picture?
The PA has power in the west bank, but not in Gaza (where Hamas is in charge). They’re not a very effective government, but they don’t seem to have genocidal intent either.
Does Hamas truly share any of the PA’s agenda, like to what extent do their purpose/mission overlap?
Do we really need to argue which murderers are slightly less murdery?
The people in charge on both sides are doing their people a disservice by killing a shit load of people which in turn leads to the other side killing even more people.
Hamas shouldn’t be even compared to Israel. Hamas is a fucked up religious/fascist terrorist organization, whereas Israel is one of the happiest and modern western countries in the world. In no way can it be said that Hamas is even on the same scale when talking about evil.
How is Isreal not also a “fucked up religious/fascist terrorist organization”?
You describe Isreal as happy and modern as some kind of defense, but having overwhelming military superiorty over neighbors, taking their land, and having extremely close ties with modernized western countries would cause that.
How exactly is Isreal not religious (state religion is Judaism). How is it not terroristic (you kill one of their citizens they kill 10 of your citizens and take your land)? How is it not fascist when Gaza is literally a concentration camp for 2 million people? Two wrongs don’t make a right, and having bigger guns certainly doesn’t make them righteous.
I wonder if the fact they aren’t muslim or as brown makes them better to you?
having overwhelming military superiorty over neighbors
They didn’t start that way. They built that capability out of very real necessity, coming many times pretty close to annihilation.
taking their land
By internationally agreed decisions, and after winning wars, I suppose?
and having extremely close ties with modernized western countries
Yes, that’s a good idea. Every country should do that.
How exactly is Isreal not religious (state religion is Judaism)
State religion is perhaps an alien concept for Americans (which I guesstimate you are), but it’s a pretty normal thing in Europe. It doesn’t say much about religiousity, although clearly Israel has more crazy in that department than Europe, but also quite a lot less than typical muslim countries.
As for Israel, the largest religious group (33% in 2016) is “Judaism/Hiloni”, which is essentially a secularist/nonobserving version of Judaism. The actual number of secularists might be even actually higher.
How is it not terroristic (you kill one of their citizens they kill 10 of your citizens and take your land)?
Terrorism isn’t defined by numbers. It’s defined by tactics and intentions.
How is it not fascist when Gaza is literally a concentration camp for 2 million people?
It’s literally not a concentration camp for 2 million people. You need to look up concentration camps.
I wonder if the fact they aren’t muslim or as brown makes them better to you?
Color has nothing do with it. Islamistic terrorism is a significant enemy of human civilization, however. That indeed does make them better for me.
State religion is perhaps an alien concept for Americans (which I guesstimate you are), but it’s a pretty normal thing in Europe.
Of the Union’s 27 states, only three have an official state religion, these being Denmark (Church of Denmark), Greece (Church of Greece), and Malta (Catholic Church).
Out of 27 countries, only three have official religions and they’re pretty small. Don’t talk shit out of your ass maybe?
Where did you grab that bullshit data from, ChatGPT? I live in a EU country that has an official state religion, and it’s none of those three countries. Or is there some semantic thing going on here? Is it not an official state religion even though it’s directly funded by the government, and government officials attend official religious events regularly?
Don’t talk shit out of your ass maybe?
Right back at you, buddy.
Except Israel is a country that wants to live in peace and Hamas has IT IN THEIR FUCKING CHARTER that they want to kill all Jews.
And when Hamas actually acts on their charter, the whole world goes shocked-Pikachu-face and condemns Israel for self defense and not agreeing to just be killed
The current charter says they would accept the 1969 borders.
No. Hamas’ charter was written at a time when Israel was committing atrocities in Palestine. It was written in anger by about half a dozen people. Noam Chomsky explains this pretty well. The original charter is basically irrevelent and has basically been disavowed by Hamas.
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Listen to what Chomsky has to say on the matter. If you can’t find it, I’ll see later.
If you listen to what Sam Harris has to say on the matter, then it’s a deal.
“living in peace” is not invading someone’s land, taking their homes, slaughtering them, and putting them in a concentration camp for decades while killing kids when they retaliate.
You mean returning to the homeland after the Holocaust to a country as per UN resolutions , self-defense from terrorism in civilian areas (like suicide bombers and rockets into cities), and unilaterally disengaging from the Gaza Strip in 2005 while giving millions of dollars to a corrupt system that embezzled most of what wasn’t used to build weapons and terrorism infrastructure and teach children to love death and murdering Jews in their beds like they did on October 7th
You don’t get the use the homeland excuse by saying “oh well we were here 2,000 years ago”.
IN THEIR FUCKING CHARTER
Have you read it? It doesn’t say that.
Wow you literally went so “whataboutist” that you actually say “what about” in your sentence.
I’m pro-human beings and opposed to killing and maiming people who are trying to enjoy their life.
They’re just trying to survive. We’ve already made it impossible for them to enjoy life
Yet we’re not seeing calls for Hamas to step down and let innocent Palestinians live in some version of peace that can never be known under Islamic jihad…
Which I find very weird. The lack of conversation surrounding the admitted goals of the leaders of the Palestinian people is something that needs to be part of any conversation.
It’s a false dichotomy to condition ceasing the extermination of a whole innocent population to protests towards a terrorist organization. Israel does not need to bomb several hospitals to stop Hamas. There are other ways to go about stopping terrorists.
Maybe you don’t see many calls at Hamas because people are catching up with how wholesale persecution and extermination of people is often justified by pointing to a few malicious individuals that are part of that population.
Israel does not need to bomb several hospitals to stop Hamas. There are other ways to go about stopping terrorists.
How do you know this? Are you an expert in counter-terrorism or warfare?
I am not stupid and I’m capable of empathy. Really, do you need a reason to understand that bombing hospitals full of innocent civilians is a horrible thing?
I also know enough recent history to have some inkling that widespread bombing might not be that effective at stopping a terrorist movement. Say, like US wars against Afghanistan and Iraq.
Really, do you need a reason to understand that bombing hospitals full of innocent civilians is a horrible thing?
I don’t understand how being a horrible thing relates to this discussion. Things can be horrible and necessary at the same time. Things might even be horrible and the best course of action at the same time.
Consistently groups that do horrible, entirely excessive atrocities insist that they are necessary and vital. It does not mean that they are, and it’s definitely something you should not assume blindly, or at all.
There needs a lot more than “might” to even begin to justify it. Then again, might alone is often used to get away with it.
There’s no extermination. Quit getting your talking points from Tiktok and Twitter.
Do you have anything but dismissive snark or are you going to pretend continuous bombing of civilian buildings is some sort of surgical targeted action.
There’s a pretty big difference between stupid declarations about things that simply aren’t true, and trying to start a conversation. I just assumed with an axiom like that there was no conversation to be had.
Clearly there’s no conversation to be had, but because you want to pretend whatever you don’t like to hear is false and stupid, without even trying to offer any reason for it.
They can fuck off to any other 20 Arab/Muslim countries. How many other Jewish countries are there?
Oh yeah, somebody goes to you and tells you to move to diffent country or they’ll drop a bomb on you and your family, I’m sure you’ll happy to comply. Whatever religion and ethnicity you are, I’m sure you can just go anywhere vaguely similar and know everyone on a first-name basis.
This is neither a matter of handing the whole region exclusively to palestinians or to israelis. Justifying it because “there are other arab/muslim countries” is such a frankly childish way to justify a conflict as serious as this. Needing to say this is almost ridiculous, but a region doesn’t need to be populated by only a single kind of people.
Because they’re not going to do that. You can’t call them terrorists and expect logical reasonable action or reaction.
The Palestinian people by in large did not vote Hamas in, over 50% of the people in Gaza were not alive during the last election.
Because they’re not going to do that. You can’t call them terrorists and expect logical reasonable action or reaction.
So we shouldn’t call them terrorists and hope they stop killing people? I’m sorry that doesn’t make any sense. Israel isn’t about to stop their war on Hamas, yet it doesn’t stop the world criticising them.
The Palestinian people by and large did not vote Hamas in, over 50% of the people in Gaza were not alive during the last election.
While technically true, almost 70% of Gazans support armed attacks on Israeli civilians.](https://pcpsr.org/sites/default/files/Poll 89 English Full Text September 2023.pdf) I know it doesn’t fit the oppressor/oppressed narrative, but the vast majority of people in Gaza support what Hamas is doing. If elections were held today, according to that same poll, they would vote Hamas back in.
TikTok is banned in India so there’s way less anti-muslim sentiment on the platform.
Yes, let’s combat racism with more racism, way to go.
How is this racist? Behavior of BJP mob on Reddit was observable by how r/worldnews looked like depending on time of the day.
Oh so it wasn’t just me who felt that was feeling off in r/worldnews. The comments are horrific at times.
r/worldnews is some of the most diverse hivemind of -isms and -phobias I’ve seen concentrated in one subreddit. The flavour just depends on the time of day.
Turns out a lot of very reasonable people actually did leave Reddit over the summer and now the trolls and crazies have an amplified voice.
I’m so glad to see other people mention this because damn that sub has been wild lately.
55% of Islamophobic tweets originated in India: https://apo.org.au/node/318935
Racism is when you don’t want muslim people to be oppressed and murdered? 🤔
Islam isn’t a race, and Indian Muslims aren’t Arab…they’re Indian, like Pakistanis are Indian and not Arab…
Everyone’s pro-palestine. They’re just fucking people caught in the middle of some retarded bullshit. Every time someone gets killed, that entire family is probably radicalized, and they’re right to be.
Israel has unrelentingly taken the worst possible approach to the problem, having learned nothing from their own experience. They’ve made the worst possible mess of it, which is no surprise considering it was made by a bunch of people trying to make the Bible come true like dipshits.
Every time someone gets killed, that entire family is probably radicalized, and they’re right to be.
This is why I say Hamas playing the entire world like a fucking puppet. Sure, the individual fighters are probably not happy they kicked a hornets nest but the people who planned the attack I’d be fucking shocked if they were anywhere near Gaza.
Israel’s anger is justified, the attack from Hamas was truly heinous, but holy shit Israel’s leadership acted in the most predictable manner which is horrifying the world that many who would have supported Israel earlier this year is now wondering why countries like the US is involved, especially when the fight with Russia and Ukraine is going on and having trouble getting support. I’m sure many Palestinians did not want anything to do with Hamas, but every family member killed is likely to bring another one over to the fold. The US promptly moved in behind to support Israel, and bent everything to get the US citizens in Israel home immediately, while sending over a carrier group to keep any other country from getting involved… however let US citizens who were in Gaza when all this went down remain there for a month until Egypt finally opened a corridor, citizens that probably now trust the US just a little bit less along with those that payed attention to it.
The obvious plan is to be a destabilization measure, and I fear it will certainly be that. I just hate the feeling of those that know history are doomed to watch others repeat it.
IMO there are big risks consuming news & opinion from any single source.
Whether it’s the CCP manipulating the TikTok algorithm, Russia buying ad space on Facebook, or American conglomerates pushing narratives on western mainstream media, there will be implicit biases everywhere.
The only real answer is to get news from multiple sources with diverging perspectives, try to find where facts overlap, challenge your own implicit biases, and form a perspective in line w/ your values.
Seeing America blame TikTok for pushing propaganda is the pot calling the kettle black – and honestly more of a distraction than anything else.
The real important issue is that people are dying, and the existing power structures are doing jack shit to stop it.
Maybe it’s not so much they’re “pro-Palestine” but anti-genocide.
I never would have thought that “anti-killing-people” would be a controversial position to take, but here we are.
My ancestors since the 1700s were part of a pacifist tradition so I’m well aware of how controversial it is lol
Does that pacifist tradition have a name, or better yet a Wikipedia page?
They were Mennonites who initially migrated largely due to increasing mandatory conscription in the Russian Empire (now Ukraine), a lot of them went to Weimar Republic then to Canada, so really good timing. In WW2 they were contentious objectors and were conscripted to civilian service, which apparently my grandpa loved.
Other side were Merchant Navy marines and got royally fucked after the war, those vets weren’t even recognized for their service until the 90s.
I think you’d be surprised how many people are pro-Palestinian liberation struggle. And for a good reason. Sometimes the liberation fight may result in war crimes which we are all against, but that doesn’t discredit the liberation struggle itself. If anything, maybe the colonisers should stop oppressing and mass murdering the people if they don’t want them to react so violently.
I wouldn’t trust TikTok
no one with a functioning brain does. at the corporate or content level.
Which is why so many americans are obsessed with it, since the overwhelming bulk of americans are fucking idiots.
Thanks A_Random_Idiot
I may be a random idiot, but I dont have tiktok on my phone, or social media accounts.
Which makes me a cut above the rest.
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If you aren’t anti-oppression or anti-apartheid you aren’t progressive
Yeah well, one can be anti-oppression and anti-apartheid as well as anti-terror, anti-killing-civilians, anti-bombing-hospitals, anti-using-civilians-as-shields, anti-hostage-taking and anti-warcrimes.
The israeli Government is not the only one with blood on their hands and while nothing can excuse what the IDF is doing, nothing can excuse what HAMAS is doing too.
Both sides fucking suck, the only difference I can see is that HAMAS is bad for Israelis and Palestinians moreso than the Israeli Government is also bad for Israelis.
You literally listed off everything Israel is doing. Good job.
Israel’s killed over 11k civilians since Oct 7th.
Israel’s bombed over 20 hospitals.
Israel refused to take their hostages back even when Hamas offered them in exchange for the Palestinians hostages Israel has. Then bombed the locations they know hostages were at.
Hamas is using hospitals as staging grounds to fire rockets at Israel, over 9,500 rockets so far since Oct 7th.
The hostage exchange was for a ceasefire that Hamas wanted so they could regroup and start attacking Israel from stronger positions. And they only offered 15 of the 200+ hostages. It was fucking bullshit, and Israel was right to reject it.
nothing really found in the hospitals yet - https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-11-16-2023-6c7daa3b8c3a6b8dddf186ce631dfaad
We know Hamas fighters have been using the hospitals to stage rocket attacks, and fire out of. Whether there is an actual base of operations hidden in them is beyond the point, Hamas uses civilian infrastructure to fire at Israel from. They have said as much, they fight from among civilians to get Israel to kill civilians so Israel looks bad to the world. It’s how Hamas operates.
where is your citation?
edit: even if there is, that does not justify the shelling of hospitals by the IDF
We don’t know that, that’s just what Israel claims. Israel is known to lie about that stuff.
Netanyahu be like… “Hmm, they are going to attack but if I stop them I may still go to jail, but if I don’t then I get more power… Let me have the Kushners put me in touch with Donny to see what he’d do.”
Israel’s killed over 11k civilians since Oct 7th.
Bullshit statistic until it is verified by independent sources. Currently, the only source for that number is Hamas and they have a great reason for exaggerating it.
In past conflicts, the death toll provided by Hamas (if you call the Ministry of Health in Gaza that) was largely accurate and didn’t differ much from independent counts conducted by the UN.
This article has an example on how it was in a conflict in 2014. There is another article that had more examples, but I cannot find it. It was from the Guardian I believe.
Great list
I feel hospitals (warcrime) were visible from satellites and independent sources covered it.
Attacking a hospital is not a warcrime if the hospital is used for military operations.
The only sources that the hospital was being used for military operations was the IDF who is known for lying. They even showed pictures of metal objects in the same room as an MRI. Literally something you would never do because an MRI will destroy anything metal.
https://x.com/muhammadshehad2/status/1724782542304559215?s=20
https://mobile.mako.co.il/news-military/6361323ddea5a810/Article-b124ea2e7bfcb81027.htm
All they do is lie
https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/12/middleeast/israel-hamas-beheading-claims-intl/index.html
They said a calendar was a “terrorist list”. A literal calendar.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/need-comic-relief-watch-israels-pr-stunt-collapse
They even higher actors
Attacking a hospital is not a warcrime if the hospital is used for military operations.
It is, you have the right to defend yourself if the opponent is attacking from inside. But no even if the enemy is doing a war crime by using non-combatants as protection you are not allowed to engage them in that situation. You are allowed to inspect a hospital or ambulance to make sure the enemy isn’t using it to transport or hide munitions. You are not allowed to attack anything marked with protected signs, such as the Red Cross, red crescent, or red diamond. If you as a solder break these rules, even on a direct order you are still personally responsible and might be judged in national or international courts. In practice, it might be hard to get soldiers to stand trial for these crimes. But it has happened. All my education in this has been in Swedish from the Swedish armed forces so some translations might be wrong.
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Israel is not allowing anyone to to conduct outside verification, and hasn’t for literal years. They deny UN workers visas, disallow any humanitarian worker from entering or leaving Gaza ( https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/04/03/unwilling-or-unable/israeli-restrictions-access-and-gaza-human-rights-workers)
but Hamas is not fighting outside verification. The UN has also repeatedly verified hamas’ death counts in previous instances.
That alone should tell you whose statistic you should be more trusting of, and it’s not israels.
Except that in this case, the UN is explicitly saying that the numbers they’re quoting cannot be verified and they’re merely cutting the numbers Hamas is giving them.
So the question is: if the IDF cannot be trusted, why should we trust the terrorists?
yea exactly I’m sick of all this whataboutism about Hamas. Hamas is the sole response to the atrocities that the idf has started. they hold all the power in this situation, they have killed many many many more people then Hamas ever could. They have also committed and are committing insane like Nazi level war crimes and all we get is… okay but Hamas bad.
also lets not forget… most Palestinians didn’t even want Hamas. they havent had an actiall election in almost two decades. Because it’s literally not safe enough because the idf keeps bombing them.
stop all the back and forth finger pointing, America could pull funding from isreal, instead of this E fleas posturing. If isreal wanted peace then we could hve peace but there will never be peace until the idf stops bombing refugee camps and hospitals lol.
so sick of all this whataboutism, obviously any killing is wrong but Hamas is just a glorified token a red herring being used to justify brutality on a Holocaust level scale. and we need to stop allowing it.
they have killed many many many more people then Hamas ever could
Not for lack of trying. If it weren’t for the billions of dollars spent on the Iron Dome every year, and the Israeli intelligence apparatus allowing them to evacuate their cities before attacks, many more Israelis would be dead. Attempted murder by Hamas is still atrocious.
most Palestinians didn’t even want Hamas
Hamas still had broad support as of 2020, so no most Palestinians do want Hamas.
stops bombing refugee camps and hospitals
Tell Hamas to stop using them as bases of operation and firing rockets at Israel from those locations then. Hamas wants dead Palestinian civilians, that’s their goal in the war to make Israel look bad.
Hamas wants dead Palestinian civilians, that’s their goal in the war to make Israel look bad.
It pains me to admit but that works and I think Israel does look bad because of this. Also when you have people indoctrinated to the level that they will gladly act as a shield to become martyres it is hard to fight clean :( I haven’t thought about this possibility before
That’s the only difference you see? Not the extreme disproportionality of the bloodshed? Not the comparisons between civilian casualties on each side?
Hamas is like the cave-dwelling dwarf people that America made up for the middle-east to justify killing over a hundred-thousand civilians. Seriously, are we to believe that Gaza has a bunch of Gringotts vaults underneath it?
Seriously, it is clear that the bombing is not about saving hostages nor destroying Hamas. Would it surprise anyone if they found out that Israel’s far-right government is like the ex that attacks you and then punches themselves and screams like a Karen that you attacked them first… and then when asked for evidence because their wounds look self-induced, they yell… you don’t believe me you antisemitic Nazi!?!
Yeah well, one can be anti-oppression and anti-apartheid as well as anti-terror, anti-killing-civilians, anti-bombing-hospitals, anti-using-civilians-as-shields, anti-hostage-taking and anti-warcrimes.
Sure, and if you are those things its going to be hard to get enthusiastic about voting for Biden.
Oh no! Not a German overcompensating for their countries role in the holocaust.
Both sides fucking suck, the only difference I can see is that HAMAS is bad for Israelis and Palestinians moreso than the Israeli Government is for Israelis.
- Israel has effectively removed freedom of speech in Israel and are incarcerating thousands of dissenting Israelis (believe it or not this is bad for Israelis)
- Israel has policies for killing soldiers and civilians if they are going to be taken hostage (dying is generally seen as bad for everyone)
- Israeli helicopters indiscriminately shooting at the festival are responsible for most of the deaths at the festival on the 7th (pretty bad for Israelis)
- Israel has killed more Israeli hostages than Hamas and has tried to refuse accepting the return of hostages (I’d be more scared of Israel than hamas if I was a hostage right now)
- Israel has a 99% civilian kill ratio when targeting hamas in this latest operation (IOF just being a shit army, bad for Israelis to be linked to this)
If you want to dismantle Hamas for the the operation on the 7th, by the same logic we should dismantle Israel 10x for all their operations since 2003 such as operation lead.
Israeli helicopters indiscriminately shooting at the festival are responsible for most of the deaths at the festival on the 7th (pretty bad for Israelis)
Do you have a source for this?
If you aren’t anti-religious-fascism you aren’t a civilized person. But it seems that more and more “progressives” are falling in that category.
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And that’s why we need to let the fascist religious ethnostate commit genocide
No, you’re confused. I’m against Hamas committing a genocide.
Do you really consider them progressives though and not just violent anarchist? Progressive to me means forward-thinking. If you think it is a good idea for future generations to destroy civilization and attack people then you’re not a progressive to me.
Violent anarchists are Libertarians, whom literally state their mission is to remove all government limitations at all costs.
How Libertarians avoid the anarchist label is beyond me. They’re like weird corporate anarchists, compared to the actual anarchy movement.
Progressives are people who value the freedom of religion for all people, the freedom to be who you truly are, even if that’s the opposite gender you were born as, and the advancement of human rights on topics concerning body autonomy and well anything humans rights related. We also tend to firmly believe in addressing income inequality, poverty, availability of medical benefits to everyone as a human right, and an end to monopolies and corporate malfeasance.
I think a lot of conservatives try to paint Progressives as anarchists because we riot. But they ignore the literal mission statements of the right wing which is that smaller government is better and that people should run their lives completely freely. THAT is anarchy my friend. And what that gets us is a dying planet full of pollution with infinitely rising cost of living and slavery to corporations, and we’re dangerously close to that now. You’d better hope like hell Progressives win this fight, because everything you enjoy, everything that’s good in your life, is a result of Progressive policy. Or are you actually going to sit here and argue policies like Reaganomics are a good thing despite almost 60 years of data to the contrary?
Honestly, humanity needs to get over religion as a whole. Freedom of religion ultimately leads to religious extremists attempting to force their baseless beliefs on everyone else, which is the exact scenario we find ourselves in today. That’s why instead of focusing on religious freedom, we should focus our efforts more on STEM.
NOT ONE SINGLE RELIGION holds up against even the Socratic Method. Theism is unfalsifiable and overall useless to society. Now that we have STEM, we have methodologies to help us grow our understanding of the ACTUAL nature of reality, and not some sci-fi fantasy gobbledygook!
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This is an incredibly stupid thing to say when the current president is supporting genocide.
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I have skin in the game, because if America aids in a genocide, I as an American am partially responsible. I’m okay with being arrested, or even a second coup attempt by trump, if it means preventing a genocide.
Ah yes the choice between democracy (fascism lite) and fascism.
It’d be nice if Americans finally overthrew their system or just voted for other parties/independents.
Also not everyone here is from the US btw.
Democracy is demonstrably far less oppressive than fascism.
If you are actually anti-opression, the choice for Democracy is a no-brainer.
Good thing our democracy in the US is exceedingly healthy and citizens vote directly and not through sellout politicians. Oh wait
It’s just not a Democracy, unfortunately.
Bad faith actors weaponizes this against the concept of Democracy itself.
My point is that the incumbent party and the opposition are both anti democracy and authoritarian compared to the rest of the world.
Look at the police brutality against peaceful activists in the capitol last night and tell me if that was China that wouldn’t be used by the American media to tell Americans how authoritarian China is.
This is happening under the democrats, the alleged protectors of democracy. Last time I checked freedom of speech was a democratic ideal in America and the right to protest was a human right.
You’re running in nonsensical circles my dude. First you say “Democracy” is “fascism-lite”, now you’re saying that to be “anti-Democracy” is “authoritarian”.
Did you slip up and accidentally reveal to the wrong community that you’re anti-Democracy, or did you poorly communicate your original intent and write out the wrong statement?
The ultimatum posed to me was democracy vs god emperor, in this context it is clearly putting democrats as the democratic option and republicans as the theocratic authoritarian option.
Me saying in response:
democracy (fascism lite) vs fascism
Is not me saying democracy is fascism, its me saying the two options both look like fascism from outside the US.
Lol, yet.
Fascist nations aren’t exactly known for not invading weak nations with excess money.
Swap excess money for excess natural resources and you’ve got the US
Wow you’ve solved the whole issue we’re discussing.
/s
The current problems in the middle east are mainly due to western powers. Whether that is the British or French drawing random lines on a map over 100 years or america destabilising resource rich countries.
Things that make it look like the US is the bad guy once again:
- the US and Israel funded Hamas to take power away from the more secular left PLO (not the first time funding religious extremists)
- the US tried to stage a coup after Hamas took power in a democratic election
- Gaza has oil and gas deposits that Israel is selling contracts for
- Israel has released plans to build a bigger competitor to the Suez canal that would benefit the US as they would profit from international trade and not Egypt who isn’t aligned with US interests (read Muslim country)
- going through Gaza would make this proposed canal straighter therefore cheaper to build and faster to navigate
- US arms companies benefit anytime a country is buying stockpiled armaments
Unironically we wouldn’t be in this situation if the US and israel weren’t dicks about everything.
That’s the idea, yeah.
Can you say “The European Protectorate?”
Neo-colonialists the lot of them sadly
Sure, but who is the “oppressor” and who is the “oppressed” can flip on a dime based on context.
A lot of oppressed people eventually find themselves to be the oppressor.
If you take a hard stance joining any side, you are at some point siding with an oppressor.
I don’t need to describe how horrific and oppressive Nazi Germany and the Holocaust was. But you take a hard stance siding with the Jewish people, you are siding with the oppressor in the Israel-Palestine conflict.
I don’t need to describe how horrific the situation in Gaza is, but if you take a hard stance siding with Palestine and Hamas executes a bunch of festival goers, you’re siding with the oppressor.
The only way to be anti-opression (and according to you, a real progressive), is to not take sides but take every situation as it is and support the best possible outcome for everyone.
Israel doesn’t represent every Jew that ever lived around the world.
Yes I support the Warsaw uprising.
Yes I support the dismantlement of apartheid states.
These are not conflicting stances.
If the oppressed become an oppressor my stance can change on them. Not taking the side of the oppressed while they are being oppressed is cowardly and indirectly supports the status quo/the oppressor.
I must have missed history class where the Warsaw Uprising attacked a peace festival.
Being oppressed is not a license to become a monster yourself. I refuse to condone cold blooded revenge (both Hamas and IDF).
That the festival was for peace in Gaza is an onboarding lie spread by the IDF. The festival was simply in celebration of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. The motto was “friends, love and infinite freedom”, so just about a regular rave.
Sadly mandatory: This doesn’t make it okay to slaughter and abduct the attendees.
Alright what about warcrimes committed by resistance fighters and the allied forced during ww2?
If you support those groups even though they have done bad shit then you’re a hypocrite and you should try and understand why you consider them differently.
Hamas wants to get Palestinian’s killed by Israel, that’s their goal. They want their own people to die so Israel looks bad and maybe Hamas can get Saudi Arabia to attack.
That’s worse than what the allies did.
At this point i support hamas uncritically because israel is an apartheid state and its stepdad, the USA, is the largest state sponsor of terror in the world.
Hamas wants hostages to do a hostage swap for Palestinians that Israel is holding hostage in their prisons.
This is true of any organisation fighting a nation state.
The IRA did hostage swaps with the British government and this was one of the reasons there is peace in northern Ireland.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/18/prisoner-swaps-cornerstone-northern-ireland
Edit: looking at tavarins comment history it is most likely they are a Zionist mouthpiece. Hope they are getting paid and not doing unpaid labour ❤
You’re demanding to view this as “good team” / “bad team”. Fix that first because it stops any hope for peace.
Did looking at Nazis as the bad guys stop peace?
But no I’m asking if you support critically or uncritically the allies in ww2.
If you support the allies even though they committed war crimes and you don’t at least uncritically support an oppressed peoples struggle then you are at best a hypocrite and at worst a racist.
Interesting, so do you support the oppression of women in the US, or are you against the oppression of women?
Whatever Palestine does to free themselves from oppression is justified. Israel has never been oppressed by Palestine.
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If the Jews had had a group similar to Hamas during the Holocaust, any rational person would say that’s a good thing, as it might have lessened the horrors the Nazis could put them through. So yes, if the victims of a genocide retaliate against the perpetrators of it, that is good. Learn critical thinking skills please.
Critical thinking - would a little Jewish strike group attacking German civilians make the Nazi party hold back and lessen the horrors, or would it have scared the Germans into further supporting the Nazi party and lead to an even more outright assault on Jewish people, making the horrors even worse?
It would have made it worse. Without a doubt, the Holocaust would have been even worse.
You need to be honest with yourself, is this about protecting human life, or do you just fetishize violence against people you hate?
Hate to break it to you but violence has been the solution in every successful civil rights movement.
All your rights we’re violently fought for and defended at some point in history.
Saying killing Nazis would have made the holocaust worse has to be one of the dumbest things I’ve read. How could it be any worse!?
It’s the kind of progressive that only counts things that affect you personally
Ah yes, the nuanced thinking of a 5 year old - everything is black and white and everyone who doesn’t agree w me 100% is evil
Do you know what genocide is? It’s pretty much the most black and white issue there could possibly be. People who disagree with me on this ARE evil. There is actually such a thing as truth.
If it’s so black and white, then why are there numerous international councils, courts, and meetings where accusations of genocide are fiercely debated?
Because Israel is good at propaganda, and the most powerful country ever supports them. It’s not remotely debatable though, the American hegemony just wants it to be.
Ironically the same mindset held by hamas and israel.
I mean if you think apartheid south Africa, Jim crow laws and indiscriminate killing of second class citizens by the police or army are issues deserving of nuanced debate you need to take a look at yourself.
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You’d think the fact Biden is significantly trailing in most swing states would be a sign for Democrats to wake up and offer something better. Or you know, not support the ethnic state doing a genocide. As this comment shows, instead of blaming the party, it’s the voters who have the right point of view who are shamed for not bringing themselves to support the party. They’re shamed for being on a high horse instead of compromising on their values and supporting a system that causes genocides. Sometimes the Democrats convince leftists but after enough time something like this happens, then they’re cast as the enemies causing the other party to win.
You can’t win as a leftist in this situation, “oh you don’t want to support the party enabling a fascist ethnic genocide? Well it’s your fault the fascist will win then!” Eventually it’s just like fuck off. The Democrats made it clear they don’t want a candidate with an almost certain chance of beating Trump, I mean they helped him get the nomination in the first place. If Trump wins again it’s because the Democrats didn’t do the bare minimum to select a candidate who actually connects with the voters they need. Blaming the people who are actually on the right side of every issue for their failure is more of a confession.
The only person who agrees with you on every subject is: you. This is why you vote for the least worst candidate. I’m Australian though. We have our own problems but I’m trying. Is that what progressive means?
Exactly why Hamas attacked when they did.
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I don’t think an algorithm is responsible for the fact that most sane people are generally against genocide. People being pro-Palestine in this specific situation is a humanitarian response and should not be causing any amount of concern because it is the morally correct position here.
HOWEVER, the fact that we just witnessed the fucking letter to america go viral on tiktok, wherein a soul crushing amount of people publicly stated they agree with a fucking jihadist manifesto, is cause for a massive amount of concern. Tiktok definitely needs to face consequences for letting that happen. We also can’t excuse the audience for that type of behaviour. Whether it came from a deliberate propaganda campaign, or a sketchy algorithm, or just mass stupidity, audience members need to be better. If you read the letter to america and you think bin laden was right, you’re a moron, and you’re contributing to the problem.
I wholeheartedly agree with you. However, I can tell you from my experience as an antitheist that TikTok is heavily PRO-religion. It is ABUNDANTLY CLEAR that much of the problems in the world stem from religiosity, and this long-standing war between Israel and Palestine is the best example of this.
However, TikTok works tirelessly to suppress ANY criticism of theism of any kind. Thus, those jihadists you mention are allowed to promote their extremist ideology, yet if someone like me analyzes and critiques their baseless claims while using logic, reason, fact-based evidence, and the scientific method, I get cited for bullying and hate speech. This is one of the biggest problems facing humanity today…
I think you should pay less attention to mainstream media which propped that issue up disproportionately. It wasn’t as big of a deal as many made it out to be.
But regardless of that, I don’t think one should be concerned about opinions of people and I certainly don’t think it is an issue at all if young people hate the US. It has done some of the most fucked up things in the world since the start of the last century to say the least. This may be expressed in stupid ways like sympathising for Bin Laden, but the broader sentiment of hate towards the US isn’t wrong.
The entire point of an app like TikTok is to stir stories and headlines so they get more clicks. Everything is for the algorithm.
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tiktok discourse is designed to create the narrative that no one could possibly be pro-palestine, and that humanity can be split into “people who see the truth and support Israel absolutely” and “people who have been fooled by propaganda”. do I think there’s pro-palestinian propaganda? absolutely. there’s also literal commercials for israel in between the youtube videos that I watch.
an asshole loves nothing more than another asshole, so that while he’s being an asshole he can point his finger and go “look at what an asshole that guy is!”
It might be a surprise to Americans that many people think that Israelis are evil bastards.
It might be a surprise to non-Americans how many of us think so, too, despite the narratives that Zionist organizations like AIPAC and ADL spend a lot of money to push.