YouTube’s Rulings on Gaza War Videos Spark Internal Backlash

Submitted ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨lemmee_in@lemm.ee⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.wired.com/story/youtube-israel-gaza-moderation/

A month after Hamas militants from Gaza attacked an Israeli music festival last October, the Hebrew rap duo Ness & Stilla premiered “HarbuDarbu” on YouTube. The military hype song celebrates Israeli forces waging war in Gaza and has drawn over 25 million views; its critics have termed the song a violent and hateful anti-Palestinian “genocide anthem.” “One, two, shoot!” its refrain thunders.

Despite demands from employees and activists for its removal, “HarbuDarbu” has been allowed to stay up on YouTube. Crucially, YouTube determined that the song’s violent rhetoric targets Hamas, not Palestinians as a whole, and that as a US-labeled terrorist organization Hamas can be subject to hate speech without penalty, according to three people involved in or briefed on content moderation work at YouTube but not authorized to discuss it.

Employees who want the video removed say it should count as hate speech because, they contend, the lyrics urge violence against all Palestinians by mentioning Amalek, a Biblical term used throughout history to describe Israel’s enemies.

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ModernRisk@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Unfortunately and sadly doesn’t surprise me anymore. All big platforms (Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, YouTube, Pinterest and such) are allowing hateful stuff towards Palestinian people.

However when someone criticizes Israel government and their genocide. Your comment, video or anything else gets removed within A day. Even if it is not even related to the entire thing.

I have a Pinterest account and have a Palestinian board and it got twice removed for “hate speech” while it shows nothing of hate. Merely Palestinian things such as flags, clothes, people and such.

It’s pretty obvious that social media as a whole is just a corrupt mess.

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- SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Money talks and Israel has the money, Palestine doesn’t. Same as it ever was.
  
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- Buelldozer@lemmy.today ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  Unfortunately and sadly doesn’t surprise me anymore.
  
  It shouldn’t surprise you at all. Any notion of “Free Speech” on Internet Platforms was shot in the head during the Trump Presidency and then the corpse was burned at the stake during the Pandemic. There were vast quantities of myopic morons making the arguments “These are private companies, they can do what they want!” along with “You have no right to speech on someone else’s platform!” simply because they approved of what was being done.
  
  Now it’s the other way around; the arguments being used by 2017-2022 MAGAtards are now being shouted by 2023-2024 Liberals / Progressives.
  
  It’s pretty obvious that social media as a whole is just a corrupt mess.
  
  It’s pretty obvious that people are perfectly happy with restrictions on the other person but never themselves.
  
  People forget that the restrictions they hammer the other person with today are going to be used against them tomorrow. Plan accordingly.
  
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- WanderingVentra@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  That’s why they wanted to get rid of Tik Tok. They can’t control its output as much to keep Americans within their propaganda bubble.
  
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Thteven@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I guess YouTube is ok with condoning genocide then because the Israeli government sure as hell is not making any distinctions between Hamas and regular Palestinians.

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pop@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
No matter how often wannabes try to point out that companies are “independent” of the government, and time and time again events like this prove that US and its crony companies are one in the same, in bed with each other.

It’s hilarious how much targeted propaganda they swallow from these “independent” big tech companies. It’s working as intended.

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muntedcrocodile@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Gotta remember google helped build the CCP surveillance system being used to track and target weagers to send to slave labour/concentration camps and to enforce forced sterilisation.

Whatever happened to dont be evil?

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NoSuchAgency@reddthat.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Why is it when anyone criticizes Hamas, they’re accused of criticizing Palestinians?

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- airportline@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Because there are a lot of dishonest people who claim they’re only criticizing Hamas, when they are actually calling for violence against all Palestinians.
  
  “Harbu Darbu” is a perfect example of that.
  
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- pixeltree@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  From what it sounds like, the song isn’t “criticizing hamas”, it’s celebrating the mass murder and systematic starvation of an entire ethnic group of people. That’s fucked up. If isreal wasn’t systematically starving an ethnic group to death and systematically murdering journalists and people providing aid, there wouldn’t be much upset about isreal waging war against hamas, because then it would actually be war against hamas and not genocide of the palestinian people.
  
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- pop@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Why is it when Israel is trying to eradicate Hamas, thousands of innocent Palestinians are dead? Seems like they planned it just like the song encourages it, doesn’t it?
  
  but keep your head up yours.
  
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- asdfasdfasdf@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I just watched the video because from reading OP’s post I was also confused about this - it’s 100% okay to criticize Hamas, but IMO the post didn’t do a great job at explaining why it feels like it’s actually targeting Palestinians as a whole.
  
  They repeat several times throughout the video lyrics about the trying to free Palestine. I think that’s the biggest reason I agree it should be removed. If they’d kept it very specific to Hamas and only talked about all the horrific stuff they’re doing, then that’s one thing. But it seems like they’re very focused on just general “Palestinian freedom” stuff, or at least they included it, which means that’s what it’s actually about.
  
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