Israel meets with Google and YouTube to discuss censoring Palestinian videos

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/22471-israel-meets-with-google-and-youtube-to-discuss-censoring-palestinian-videos

Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely has met with representatives of YouTube and Google to discuss ways to cooperate in what she calls the fight against “inciting violence and terrorism”.

Israel’s Maariv newspaper reported yesterday that Hotovely agreed to work with Google and YouTube in order to establish a joint working mechanism to monitor and prevent the publication of “inflammatory material” originating in the Palestinian terriroties.

Since the latest escalation of violence between Palestinians and Israeli security services that erupted at the beginning of October, many people have been sharing videos depicting Israeli aggression towards Palestinians to highlight the Palestinian perspective of the conflict. London-based Arab newspaper Al-Araby Al-Jadeed has expressed concerns that the meetings suggest moves towards censoring Palestinian material on the part of the Israeli state.

Israel is all about censorship abroad in what it cannot silence at home.

Perhaps all that extra censored bandwidth can be use to post videos of Hotovely dreaming about the Israeli flag flying over Al Asqa Mount.

[oberliner]

1. Al Asqa Mount?

Your posts are the only place where I have ever seen those words written together in that way.

Is this a concept that you've invented?

[King_David]

3. Yep

Invention...

A ridiculous invention....

[6chars]

2. Upset that calls to murder Jews might be censored?

I am glad that calls to murder Jews might be censored. But that's just me.

[King_David]

4. I hope they cooperate

If it saves lives - do it.

[Crunchy Frog]

5. I agree that Youtube and Google should never allow videos

that call for, or advocate acts of violence. However, it sounds like this is more about videos showing some of the violent acts of Israeli settlers towards Palestinians. This is not unlike the posting of videos showing police brutality against Blacks in America, and that sort of thing should never be censored.

I would really, really hope that nobody on a progressive board would be advocating that sort of censorship. But that's just me.

Checking out the Community Guidelines for Youtube, it looks like videos calling for the murder of Jews are already prohibited.

Violent or graphic content

It's not okay to post violent or gory content that's primarily intended to be shocking, sensational, or disrespectful. If posting graphic content in a news or documentary context, please be mindful to provide enough information to help people understand what's going on in the video. Don't encourage others to commit specific acts of violence.

Hateful content

Our products are platforms for free expression. But we don't support content that promotes or condones violence against individuals or groups based on race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, nationality, veteran status, or sexual orientation/gender identity, or whose primary purpose is inciting hatred on the basis of these core characteristics. This can be a delicate balancing act, but if the primary purpose is to attack a protected group, the content crosses the line.
http://www.youtube.com/yt/policyandsafety/communityguidelines.html

If you see a video like that, you should report it immediately. I've never seen anything like that myself, but then I've never gone looking for that sort of thing on Youtube before.

[shira]

7. Looks that way, doesn't it? n/t

[Little Tich]

6. At first it seemed OK, but then I read the OP...

It seems as if Israel wants to remove documentation of Israeli abuse of Palestinians, not incitement. A better solution would be to stop abusing Palestinians. This is the kind of censorship that's usually done by repressive regimes like China or Iran. I really hope that those who seem to be in favour of censoring clips documenting abuse have misunderstood what the OP is about. The OP is only three paragraphs, however...

[Crunchy Frog]

8. I'm guessing that most of the people posting on this thread

are in favor of banning videos from Youtube and Google, that depict acts of police violence towards African Americans, as they could potentially incite violent reactions. That is, if there is any consistency to their opinions at all.

I'm continually astounded at what passes for "progressive thought" on this forum.

[shira]

9. Your guess is wrong. There are too many staged photos, videos....

Parts of videos edited or cut out in order to deliberately incite hatred. Actors within videos...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3214441/Remarkable-moment-young-girl-bites-Israeli-soldier-two-women-overpower-puts-Palestinian-boy-broken-arm-headlock-gunpoint-clashes-West-Bank.html

That kind of incitement to hatred against Jews, which is leading to a spike of attacks on Jews in Europe & within Jerusalem now.

What seemed like just another story of Israeli brutality.....was complete bullshit.

Another example:

https://www.facebook.com/goldbach/videos/10204667410996043/

There have even been 1 or 2 posters here claiming the IDF plants knives on Palestinians shot dead:

If you look exactly 12 seconds in, you see the soldier on the right passing a radio to the guy on the left.

[Little Tich]

10. I can see why you think the Daily Mail article should be removed, even though I don't agree.

The Daily Mail article is clearly trying to portray the attacker (the IDF soldier) as the victim, while it's pretty clear that the decision to arrest the boy was wrong. The article is perhaps incitement to you, but I think it's just bad journalism.

The second clip seems to be edited in a way that makes things look worse than they were, but the pictures are genuine.

The third one actually looks as if the soldier closest to the guy lying down receives a small object from another soldier that he then furtively throws at the ground close to the guy lying down.

The problem is that if there should be a standard for clips like these, it can't be controlled by Israel. Israel has a tendency to show intentionally misleading clips too. I think it's best for the court of common opinion to decide what the truth is. Should we censor clips of atrocities in Syria too, just because Assad's government say that they're incitement?

I actually don't know of any instance in the free world where clips like these are censored, and I think they never should be.

Free speech and all that...

[shira]

11. The Daily Mail actually changed the whole story & headline

...once they knew of the actors who had been staging all kinds of acts prior to this one. That repeated fabrication of news stories - with a willing media - is straight up incitement.

The 2nd article was absolute incitement as the car was being attacked. The report blamed the driver. This happens all the time, reversing terrorist with victim, as though Palestinian terrorists are victimized when they are stopped from killing Jews. Terrorists are never victims.

The 3rd article didn't show anyone planting a knife. But there have been multiple false claims in the media - without any proof whatsoever - and that's even more incitement to hate Jews. Otherwise, why lie & slander?

The only reason for all this slander is to incite. Imagine if it were the other way with false malicious reports against Palestinians. You'd cry racism without a moments thought.

[Little Tich]

12. It seems as if we're talking about different things.

I was referring to the attempt at imposing censorship on YouTube clips et al for political reasons. Whether any clips are misleading in their depiction of events isn't important in that context. The right to depict Israelis or Palestinians in slanderous and misleading ways is important and must not be impaired. However, incitement shouldn't be allowed, but there must be impartial standards for what counts as incitement.

The attempt described in the OP at imposing censorship for political reasons is dumb, and it's just another right-wing attack on democracy.