I'm not a cop. I'm a politician though, so while we're there lets murder them and traffick their kids. I love being a member of a class to whom the law very blatantly just does not apply.
To prevent premature downvotes, preface: this comment is not about the merits or demerits of the censorship, just that it took place. Whether it's good or bad was a different question, but it very much happened. One might say that it wasn't "the left" behind it, but if you'd take approval ratings of this censorship at the time across left/right, the latter would've been strongly opposed with the former mixed at best, if not broadly in favor.
> If anyone would care to educate me on this, with evidence, I am here for it.
Sure, happy to. I'll focus on the "internet" part. There was mass censorship on the major US social media platforms during COVID in the name of "preventing racist attacks against East-Asians". This is widely documented and admitted.
Yishan Wong, ex-Reddit CEO:
> Example: the "lab leak" theory (a controversial theory that is now probably true; I personally believe so) was "censored" at a certain time in the history of the pandemic
That Meta and Twitter banned accounts for discussion of it is easily verifiable, Wikipedia also banned discussion of it.
In Twitter's case, they even had a CCP figure on their board of directors during this time [1][2].
You’re right, but a large part of the reason many come here is to participate in a strongly left wing idea reinforcement operation. HN skews left and votes in brigades to enforce that.
So many times I’ve opted to not refute things because I know it’ll be downvoted to oblivion, and because the community at large doesn’t care to change their views in the slightest.
(I'm the person you're replying to, in case you might get confused)
It's very unfortunate that all I received was downvotes, without a single substantial reply as to what would be particularly incorrect about the observations I made. This does indeed seem to stem from infallibility tribalism: "I identify with group A, so literally anything that can be taken as pointing out a flaw of group A is an attack on me as a person".
At the same time, this isn't a particular hallmark of the left; it's even worse on the right. In any right-dominated space, my comment, if the roles were swapped, would simply have been instantly removed rather than just being downvoted. r/conservative is a very prime example. Twitter is another one, having become much more eager to instantly abide by requests from foreign autocratic regimes to remove/ban accounts that oppose them after the Musk takeover.
I do wonder if you're going to downvote me for this comment, reaching a new "irony level" world record :)
It's definitely worse on the left, the group that's constantly inventing new ways to censor and exclude talk, not just action, the right leans far more libertarian in that regard. Most conservatives hate Reddit though so I doubt that's a sample of anything. I don't think X is a good example either, it's far less censor prone under right-leaning leadership than before.
And I'd never downvote something that's not entirely dumb as long as it's written in good faith.
> the right leans far more libertarian in that regard
That is the advertising. Meanwhile, the reality is the the US right is banning books in school libraries, telling people what they can do with their bodies to the point of needless deaths, requiring lie detector tests for hiring in the FBI where the question is "do you harbor any bad feelings about the boss?" The Speaker of the House just stated that "separation of church as state is a myth." I could go on and on.
As a lifelong independent, to me the above disconnection from the advertising and reality is the biggest reason that I can plainly see that pledging allegiance or alignment to any political party leads to the death of one's critical thinking abilities in that space.
I don’t think happening to not fall mostly within left or right makes any of your ideas necessarily more valid, there’s a smart and dumb versions of left, right and center to an extent.
All the things you listed imo are either extremely marginal or not an issue at all, especially compared to the lefts recent antics. Then again, I was pretty left leaning until I lived in SF, which quickly dissuaded me of it, along with the American left moving pretty far leftward. 15 years ago I guess id be considered somewhat left leaning even still.
> However, 1 death = 1 coverage is clearly not how anyone expect the media should operate.
In armed conflict far away from the country in question, comparatively for each side, yes, both sides' deaths getting similar coverage is how one should expect the media to operate.
If Chile and Peru get into a war tomorrow, the expectation would absolutely be that coverage of deaths by the BBC would be similar for both.
>How many people die in civil wars in Sudan or Congo, compared to how much coverage are they getting?
The obvious key difference here is that in those wars both sides of those conflicts do still tend to get similar coverage per death; which is almost none. At the very least there's not orders of magnitudes difference. Not sure how you missed this, but it doesn't inspire much confidence.
> Would it be biased if BBC ran more pieces about the sad plight of Ukrainian soldiers compared to Russian soldiers?
No, as Russia is a reasonable threat to the UK whereas Hamas is clearly not.
I'm Swedish. Since I was a child, for decades, I was taught and never questioned the idea that Germany had learnt from their history, in the most admirable way. That it was really ingrained into the German culture to never let anything like the holocaust happen again. That the education system there was very good in really making people understand why it happened, what went wrong, and how to make sure there would be no second one.
In early 2024, I was chatting with a German colleague of mine. Great guy, politically we were the most aligned out of anyone in our team. The genocide in Gaza was already well under way, so the topic came up. He told me, as if it was incredibly obvious "Well of course as Germany we couldn't possibly say anything about Gaza, given our history." For the rest of my life I will remember exactly that moment, where we were stood, the scene, because it came as a shock; this belief that I'd had since childhood turned out to be entirely wrong. It was the exact opposite - Germany had learnt nothing, in fact they'd learnt even less than the countries they had occupied. It was all a complete ruse, and I really lost all respect I had for how Germany has dealt with it all. A country like Japan at least doesn't even pretend to have learnt anything, and I'm not convinced that's the worse option.
I should've known the second news started flowing out of Germany such as "Award ceremony set to honor novel by Palestinian author at the Frankfurt Book Fair canceled “due to the war in Israel,", along with stuff like designating B.D.S as "antisemitic" but I wanted to believe that was just a tiny minority of ignorant people.
Yes, I know that now "the narrative inside Germany has been turning around" but imo it's far too late, and can't possibly be sincere, being entirely fuelled by external pressure rather than any kind of actual realization.
> "the narrative inside Germany has been turning around"
Fully agreeing with your post - and also, it's not. Maybe for parts of the population (though even there, many are extremely conflicted) but definitely not for the current (conservative) leadership. What worries them is that they find the country increasingly isolated and there is a growing risk they could become personally liable - this forces them to make some concerned noises if the atrocities become undeniable.
But they never stopped practically supporting Israel wherever they can, be it with military aid or preventing EU actions that might put pressure on it. They will also snap back into the unequivocally pro-Israel narrative as soon as they can get away with it.
As a German, I think you should cut your colleague some slack.
There's 8 billion people in the world who aren't German. If there's one topic that Germans don't chip in on, it won't move the needle.
Whatever we as Germans say on Israel/Palestine will be taken the wrong way by someone. Critical of Israel? Still an antisemite! Supportive of Israel? Pathological guilt!
It super sucks, but I too will leave it to others to voice strong opinions in this matter. And there's no shortage of that.
There is also an unspoken bit of realpolitik there: Israel is still an ally to Germany, Palestine isn't, Iran isn't, Hamas isn't, etc.
So this is actually a super-nice position to be in, you can support your ally no matter what they do, while still looking contrite and morally superior by pulling the "we are Germany, we are not allowed to have a say in the matter" card.
Also, Israel is a trade partner, which is important because the non-western countries are hesitant to trade with them. Israel is culturally integrated into certain European institutions, in part due to German support (soccer, Eurovision, other sports).
If this was conveyed more honestly, it would at least be understandable (up to some point).
I think what grates me is the dishonesty: We want to do both at the same time: A neutral mediator that advocates for the two state solution and the world's (second-)closest ally of Israel. That's like wanting to be both the coach and the referee. At some point it just becomes an insult to everyone's intelligence.
It half-way is, at least by the new chancellor Merz, who praised Israel for doing our "dirty work" in bombing Iran. And he was promptly criticized by the rest of the political establishment and the press for that.
Well, let's face it: Nobody likes the current Iranian government, and nobody wants yet another state (especially with a leadership like that) to have nukes. Just that nobody dares to do anything beyond sending strongly worded letters and time-wasting "diplomatic initiatives".
"Not chipping in" is very different from "Award ceremony set to honor novel by Palestinian author at the Frankfurt Book Fair canceled “due to the war in Israel," and unwavering support. "Not chipping in" implies neutrality.
> Whatever we as Germans say on Israel/Palestine will be taken the wrong way by someone. Critical of Israel? Still an antisemite! Supportive of Israel? Pathological guilt!
Do you think this does not apply to others? Especially the antisemite thing is extremely commonplace in the US and UK.
If Germany had learnt, then yes, they would be voicing strong opinions. That's the thing - fine, do whatever you want, but don't claim to have learnt.
> Whatever we as Germans say on Israel/Palestine will be taken the wrong way by someone. Critical of Israel? Still an antisemite! Supportive of Israel? Pathological guilt!
How does that distinguish Israel/Palestine from any other issue?
I am interested to know why you call out Japan as learning nothing. Obviously modern Japan has an excellent reputation and is not known as a warring nation( "no military" but ofc they have the JDF) so I'm guessing there's something deeper I don't know. Genuinely curious.
That's not representative of the Japanese public opinion at all, so I fail to see how it supports the view that the entire country "hasn't learned anything at all."
What is the average level of knowledge around the history of imperial Japan. Is that period covered thoroughly in school?
I was under the impression that Japanese people don't so much deny war crimes, as they just don't talk/learn about the uglier parts of what happened during the first half of the 20th century. Is the Rape of Nanking a well known event in Japan? Are the significant battles and general tactics of the war(s) talked about? Do they talk about the Japanese Army's general treatment of foreign civilians?
I guess, what I'm wondering is if I asked the average person on the street these questions, would they know at all what I'm talking about? Would they have the knowledge to talk about it in more detail?
Is this like in the US where most people have no idea about American intervention in Cuba, and the rest of the meddling that the US was involved in in Latin America?
> I guess, what I'm wondering is if I asked the average person on the street these questions, would they know at all what I'm talking about?
They would, yes, but mostly because South Korea won’t shut up about it nearly a century and several ‘final’ sets of reparations later. It seems to be about as popular a political crutch in SK as it is to kill Palestinians in Israel.
I don’t know. It is about as relevant to current Japanese as the Dutch colonial past is to me. I’m sure we did plenty of bad stuff, but feeling remorse for it now is just bizarre. People several generations before me committed those crimes.
History isn't supposed to be about your personal feelings of ethnic pride or remorse. It's about learning from past successes and failures, and better understanding how people from different cultures may view each other. Other countries can and should learn from Japanese history too, because no country is immune to the mistakes that Japan made during WW2. Especially in this day and age, people around the world should have a hard look at how propaganda was used to commit atrocities.
Also if you care about national interest, it would be counterproductive to "shut up" or forget about past failures for an ego boost. That would make the country detached from reality, isolated from the rest of the world, and prone to the same failures.
Last but not least, it's very insensitive and inconsiderate of you to label South Korean trauma as a mere "political crutch" or the Dutch colonial past as no longer "relevant." Historical injustices can carry on to today's injustices much more than you think. You should try to see the perspective from the other side more before dismissing these things.
> People several generations before me committed those crimes.
It isn't that long ago.
There are still women alive who were used as sex slaves by the Japanese Army. I can see why their (SK) government is unwilling to let the issue be forgotten. Paying reparations does not mean that you can now forget the attrocity. Should the US not teach about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki because it was our grandfathers who did it, and we feel like we have made it up by rebuilding Japan? Should we tell the Hibakusha that its time for them to shut-up, and there is no point in talking about what happened since the people who made those attacks are all dead?
The point of this knowledge, at least in the west, isn't to make you feel badly, or remorseful. The point is to remember that there are monsters lurking beneath the surface, even in the modern era. The Banality of Evil (the book) is about demonstrating that even a mediocre, non-fanatical, reluctant Nazi bureaucrat like Eichmann can be a pivotal figure in a genocide. We remember so that we don't repeat. Should we not learn from experiences?
If it’s before my lifetime it’s not something I’m going to feel responsible for.
I completely agree we should ‘learn’ from history. Even teach what happened in school, but we shouldn’t harp on it forever, or manufacture grudges based on it.
At least, not in the way that’s currently happening in Japan anyway. The crux of the issue seems to be they don’t think people that were never involved aren’t sorry enough.
It's covered in much detail as the other eras of Japanese history. At least it's widely understood that there were massacres, rapes, targeting of civilians, displacement and forced labor, etc etc.
It's true that the far right, disproportionately loud in online circles, tries to downplay all of this like in the sibling comment. It's concerning how social media amplifies these voices, but it's still not mainstream opinion.
So some Japanese people are skeptical that history as kept by the victors is 100% accurate, especially when that history is still being used to limit the Japanese people in ways that other nations are not limited. There is nothing wrong with this.
>As part of a lesson, they were banned having an army
>They have powerful army anyway
>Millions of Koreans live in constant fear of the power and brutality of their army
I've been to SK numerous times. The older people dislike Japan A LOT. But their biggest base is a US one. I've never heard fear of the JDF. They have another more problematic neighbor.
The United States - who made the constitution that banned the military - does exercises with and supports the JDF. Idk if that fits unconstitutional anymore.
Their denial of horrid events and their attempts to suppress the fact that comfort women happened is undeniably awful though and shows many did not learn.
David Simon (creator of The Wire) once gave a lecture at a Jewish conference trying to make the case that Jews in America should be uniquely aligned with the plight of Black Americans in the inner cities. The case was that the Jews went through an experience during WW2 that makes them uniquely qualified to always align in solidarity against oppression, poverty, and general suffering.
To be children of ethnic cleansing (obviously I’m describing the Holocaust lightly here) and still commit the same crime in Gaza is profound.
It’s a great point you bring up, that being, what have we learned?
Jews in America are not the ones committing a genocide in Gaza. Quite a significant proportion of the American Jews are absolutely horrified.
Can I ask why you think that American Jews are any more responsible for the crimes of Israel in Gaza than non-Jews, or Jews elsewhere in the world? Do you think that Judaism is a monolith, or that American Jews are the same as all Jews?
I ask because blaming Jews elsewhere for the acts of Israel, and conflating all of Jewry with Israel is a common tactic of anti-Semitic movements. I can't tell if you are doing that intentionally, or if you have just made your point poorly.
Assuming you are acting in good faith, you should look at the history of Black/Jewish relations in the civil rights eras. There was a disproportionate amount of support from American Jews (compared to the population at large) towards the civil rights movement.
MLK himself was outspoken about the support from American Jews:
"How could there be anti-Semitism among Negroes when our Jewish friends have demonstrated their commitment to the principle of tolerance and brotherhood not only in the form of sizable contributions, but in many other tangible ways, and often at great personal sacrifice. Can we ever express our appreciation to the rabbis who chose to give moral witness with us in St. Augustine during our recent protest against segregation in that unhappy city? Need I remind anyone of the awful beating suffered by Rabbi Arthur Lelyveld of Cleveland when he joined the civil rights workers there in Hattiesburg, Mississippi? And who can ever forget the sacrifice of two Jewish lives, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, in the swamps of Mississippi? It would be impossible to record the contribution that the Jewish people have made toward the Negro's struggle for freedom—it has been so great."
I dont believe you're the same. Just saying that Zionists wants this conflation, it plays into Israel being the only safe place for Jews and they want it like that.
I would not extrapolate from the discourse with one German to a general statement of a heterogeneous population of ~80M people. There are many different opinions and positions in Germany - like in every country in the world. Please keep that in mind.
Germany has indeed still have a ‘vaccination’. How well it works, and whether it is not exploited by politics, is another matter.
Lastly, the conflict in the Middle East is one of the most complex conflicts in recent human history - and there is no easy way out. That also applies to the situation in Gaza.
As someone living in Germany, that philosophy of "we don't have the right to intervene or say anything" is definitely embedded in the culture here. Obviously there are plenty of people who don't follow this philosophy, and there are left-wing pro-Palestine movements here as well, but overall there's a big cultural sense of obligation to Israel due to Germany's history.
A friend of mine even ended up talking to a German diplomat in Israel, who said much the same thing: they could cosign other nations' condemnations of Israeli actions when they happened, but they couldn't condemn Israeli actions unilaterally. Obviously that was just his opinion and not an official viewpoint of the German government, but I found it fascinating that Germany still felt this sense of needing to make things right to Israel specifically.
Weird take. When does it end? Do you feel guilt and hold your tongue on subjects where your country has a history of doing bad? What’s the time limit? 100 years? 10000?
They’re rabidly and actively supporting & covering for a genocide, and have been working tirelessly to suppress all internal dissent to this position (good old Stasi days peeking from under the covers).
Further, they’re going to lengths no other European country is going to in pursuit of this goal of covering for a genocide, all out of national guilt? It is a delusional position to take.
Now, if they actually were holding their tongue on this instead of providing unconditional support and cover, no one would be bringing up that these are the grandchildren of Nazis lecturing us about the right thing to do here :)
> Germany is the absolute last country on this planet to lecture the rest of us on how to criticize Israel
What a bad take. Germany, if it learned its lessons from the Holocaust, which was a genocide they did on the Jewish population, is absolutely the FIRST country in the world to teach Israel that what it's doing is absolutely abhorrent. Don't repeat my mistakes, so to say.
> So they perpetrated the Holocaust, claimed that they learned from their mistakes and drowned themselves in guilt, and now act as holier than thou unconditional defenders of Israel as it commits a genocide in Gaza.
Yes, because they haven't learned shit from their past.
The idea that the injustice & domination should continue because there is no clear cut solution is pure evil.
Imagine saying that South African apartheid needs to be maintained because there is no “simple” solution, or that African colonies must continue to be subjugated because the solution to the settler problem is not “simple”.
Regardless, the solution here has been regurgitated endlessly: end the blockade of Gaza, end apartheid in the West Bank, either as one state with equal rights for all, or as two states (with full sovereignty) and right of return extended to all Palestinians and not just to Jews.
> idea that the injustice & domination should continue because there is no clear cut solution is pure evil
It’s prioritisation. There are multiple horrible civil wars, rebellions and displacements happening around the world right now. Every person doesn’t need to have a position on each one; there is an argument that’s counterproductive. (Exhibit A: the Columbia protests.)
Since you brought up the Columbia protests and general dissent inside the US: how many such conflicts and genocides are directly backed and propped up by the US?
Well, that’s my point. This is the only major ongoing conflict where the US and major Western powers are virtually unconditionally backing the “bad guys”.
So it makes sense that there would be more attention and pushback on this one versus others.
How exactly do you suggest that a country like Germany (since Germanys inaction was the topic of this thread) reach those goals? How does Germany end the blockade of Gaza? How does Germany end apartheid in the West Bank?
Just because I can’t do anything to improve the situation does not mean that I am in favour of the status quo. That does not make me evil either.
> Just because I can’t do anything to improve the situation does not mean that I am in favour of the status quo. That does not make me evil either.
It does. The Germans who stood aside when the Nazis rose to power and the soldiers just "executing orders" were as much to blame for the rise of Hitler as the ones supporting it. Not taking a side against evil is taking evil's side. And you of all peoples should have learned from your history. Genocide is bad.
> How does Germany end apartheid in the West Bank?
By applying pressure on the international community to boycott Israel. Same way Germany is applying pressure on the international community to boycott Russia.
Are you seriously asking me this question, or is this an attempt at a rhetorical? And why are we shifting the goalposts once again?
How do you think apartheid South Africa ended? How does any country pressure another?
In a supposedly democratic nation like Germany, how would citizens pressure their government to stop supporting & providing diplomatic cover for another to commit a genocide & maintain apartheid?
The idea that Isreal is occupying the west bank and or Gaza goes back to the 1967 6 day war and has jack all to do with Palestinian borders real or imaginary.
Those lands were the property of Jordan and Egypt...
Can you please stop posting flamewar comments? It's against the site guidelines because it destroys the curious conversation we're trying for. I know that topic is both important and activating, but that makes it more important, not less, to stick to the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
Instead, please make your substantive points thoughtfully, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are.
Was the problem with my comment the use of profanity? I did not insult the commenter, nor did I make any ad hominem attacks.
I don’t see any rules against profanity in general, or the use of profanity to respond to an argument. I also took the time to clarify why the argument is “bullshit”. But maybe I am missing something.
The German relationship with Israel is very weird, to put it mildly, and I don't mean just the official government position, but the more broad political culture.
To the best of my knowledge, they are the only Western country in which there are far left groups that proactively support Israel specifically wrt what it's doing in Gaza. And by "support" I mean e.g. posters encouraging to drop more bombs on "Hamas Nazis".
The notion that Germany specifically needs to have learned something from WWII is completely absurd to me and as far as I am concerned anyone that holds it has themself not learned the correct lesson - that is that normal mundane humans, that is all of us, are capable of committing atrocities. Instead the lesson the world seems to have learned is "German nationalism (and by extension western nationalism) bad, Jews must be protected at all cost", which leads us to where we are now. That Germans are brainwashed with this nonsense more than others is true but not exactly something the German people chose for themselves.
I'm not sure how to phrase this within the rules of HN, but I don't understand how anyone on HN 1. can not understand why Meta and Microsoft aren't fighting this 2. can still be remotely surprised by any of this 3. can act this has a single thing to do with security or even with Israel - neither of which remotely factor into the reason behind this policy.
Genuinely, have people been living in Bikini Bottom? I'm so tired of this cognitive dissonance, not wanting to face the reality. As tired as I am of these developments themselves, really. I'm too tired to still be nice. I thought people here were bright.
The title does not do the content justice. Since Snowden it's been known to the entire world, even outside of HN, that the US government has had this capability for decades now, with mass dragnet surveillance of all internet traffic.
What has changed is that now they're actually using this to a degree that even China generally does not do. If a German had written a comment in support of the Hong Kong protests on Facebook at some point in time, they're extremely unlikely to get denied entry to China over this, despite them almost certainly having even stronger capabilities and databases to easily find this out.
> that the US government has had this capability for decades now, with mass dragnet surveillance of all internet traffic.
This is an important point.
The Bush admin established systems to surveil ~everyone in the US (not suspected of a crime) in bulk. Bulk surveillance is the well known, core component of systems intended to harm people (in bulk).
This got a pass from Bush supporters (inc me at first). It got little-to-no strong pushback elsewhere.
The Obama admin massively expanded Bush era surveillance systems. This got a pass from nearly everyone (excepting a period after the Edward Snowden revelations).
Not holding a reasonable PotUS accountable - this gifts power to the unreasonable ones that follow.
> The Obama admin massively expanded Bush era surveillance systems. This got a pass from nearly everyone.
Obama's first campaign ran on him opposing warrantless wiretapping and blanket immunity for telecoms. He also unequivocally condemned torture, promised to revise/sunset the Patriot Act, copperfasten Roe v Wade 'Day 1', etc...
But virtually all the Democrats I knew didn't give a single shit when he 180'd on all of that in his first few months. Still blows my mind a bit to this day; a marvel of mass brainwashing.
Now we're at the point where Democrats can arm and enable a literal holocaust inflicted on some of the world's poorest and most beautiful people, then get on a high horse when someone suggests voting for a non-genocidal party.
The ratchet effect is beyond extreme; and quite obvious for observant people with an outside perspective. Yet somehow Americans still seem to have hope that voting Dem hard enough will fix things. I wish I knew what it would take to inflict a sense of morality on the country.
> Obama's first campaign ran on him opposing warrantless wiretapping and blanket immunity for telecoms
That's what I thought.
What I recall more clearly: He and Clinton both pausing their 2008 PotUS election campaigns to return to DC and vote in favor of granting retroactive immunity to AT&T.
Yes, that was the thrust of the comment; but the bigger point was that most Democrats really didn't seem to mind.
The 'team sport' character of US politics has separated Americans from even the most widely agreed on objective morality; torture, mass spying, arming and enabling genocide, bailing out banks and polluters, etc.
Snowden showed that the tools were available to intelligence agencies operating under questionable rules. Now the coordination of those agencies is led by a Russian agent, and poorly trained keystone cops have access, courtesy of Palantir.
Also note that the IRS and Social Security data is protected and access is a serious crime. So the responsible Feds are long fired or resigned.
No, im suggesting that what Palantir is illegal, the IRS and Social Security staff bullied into allowing it are likely felonies on providing it to the company.
My statement was confusing. The employees who were responsible stewards of this data have either been fired or resigned in protest.
Its funny how trump is actually helping China long term to become top superpower. He either can't see long term consequences of his emotional tantrums or simply doesn't care in the name of ego polishing games.
Assuming you're a cop of course, otherwise we'll go to jail.