Tildes should recognize the Gaza Genocide, and moderate accordingly
This has been on my mind for a while, and I've voiced a similar concern 1.5 months ago in the recurring topic, but it went unnoticed.
Israel has been and still is actively committing genocide against people of Gaza. You can read a summary of the reasons it's being called a genocide in the Wikipedia entry (and its sources) . Wikipedia itself has recognized it as genocide, naming the entry Gaza Genocide, and it's a major feat considering the contentious nature of the topic and the heavy regulation and debates in Wikipedia culture. Even a UN human rights experts said in March that there are reasonable grounds to think a genocide is being committed, and UN is dominated by US influence, and is much slower to act and react, especially when western or US interests are concerned (which applies in this case, because Israel is an ally).
Israel's online propaganda machine has been hard at work about this issue, in order to control the narrative (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Israel also now ranks among the world’s leading jailers of journalists., another evidence of their commitment to suppress dissenting voices and control the narrative around this issue. It's also worth noting that western coverage of Israel's acts has been said to be legitimising Israel's behavior.
I think most things in the world are some shades of gray, and it's very understandable for people to have ambivalent attitudes about it, but I do not think this is one of those cases, for the following reasons.
- There is an active, ongoing genocide.
- The genocider nation-state has been spreading its propaganda to control the international narrative, especially in US (because US is its biggest ally and funder). It's doing this because it knows support from US and its allies is crucial to keep the genocide going. This involves manufacturing consent in the citizens of these nations.
- Tildes is heavily populated with citizens of US and other western nations.
- Not actively opposing this propaganda means one is helping -albeit indirectly but still significantly- the genocider nation.
I should clarify that, as of this moment, I'm not blaming the moderators, and I'm not saying they are doing this consciously and with full consideration. Instead, I'm trying to illustrate what is going on in the wider context, and what the actions in this mini-environment mean in the wider context. Simply put, genocidal propaganda is not an issue where you can follow the middle-ground, especially when you have power over a community.
For these reasons, I propose two changes in terms of moderation.
- Both from now on and retroactively, change the names of the "Israel-Hamas war megathreads" to "Gaza Genocide megathreads".
- Create and, both from now on and retroactively, use the tag "Gaza Genocide" when tagging.
The first point is self-explanatory. As for the second point, there comes up only 4 topics when I search for "Gaza Genocide" in the site, even though there have been numerous discussions about it. None of them have the mentioned tag, but they have the Gaza and Genocide tags separately. Furthermore, one of the topics is mine, and I had put the tag Gaza Genocide but it was later removed by moderation, and replaced with other tags mentioning this topic. Again, not throwing personal shade to anyone, but I think this is not a good way to go about this topic. A special tag would give it more visibility, which the victims of the genocide need.
These are my suggestions. If anyone can think of anything else, they are welcome to share as well.
It sounds like you want Tildes to implicitly have an official political view on this conflict, expressed via titles and tags. I think that’s a bad idea. Tildes is a forum, not a political organization, and doesn’t speak for its membership. Members can speak for themselves. If anything, we should avoid political views when it’s unclear who’s speaking by being as generic as possible.
You’re also giving this an importance it doesn’t have. What we say in an obscure forum is unlikely to have any effect on what happens in Gaza, and titles and tags even less so. It’s something that only matters to us.
There was an attempt to rename the "Israel-Hamas war" megathread to the "Gaza" megathread (which was the furthest I felt comfortable arguing for here, since the culture is extremely hostile to rightfully pointing out this is a genocide), but it simply reverted back the next thread. I think @Deimos himself would have to make that change for it to stick. I'm not even sure "Gaza genocide" would be a sufficient title anymore, given that Israel is now more openly targeting the West Bank as well.
I agree that the culture on Tildes is extremely lopsidedly hostile towards even civilly calling this a genocide. I know earlier on in the current conflict several people were banned for being genuinely too hostile about the matter, but it seems like the pendulum has swung far past even neutrality on this matter, especially given the degree of international recognition this genocide has. I can't even remember the last comment I've seen that expressed sympathy for Palestine without hedging to assuage the feelings of pro-Israel commenters here.
Meanwhile, I was more or less told that I was a fascist who doesn't belong in Germany for criticizing the country for prosecuting pro-Palestinian speech -- and I didn't even directly mention the genocide there, merely criticized it on civil rights grounds, because even calling it a genocide is enough to get a bunch of sealioning at best. Even the bare minimum in support of someone supporting Palestine is enough to invite open hostility, and iirc that hostility doesn't even get your comment deleted even if you openly admit to being furious at me for my comment.
There are other international issues where I think the culture on Tildes is unfairly biased, but none so distressingly as this one. I can ignore threads about the topic and avoid engaging to keep my experience on this site sane. But when pretty much anyone who isn't pro-Israel has to do so because of how bleak the rhetoric on those topics is here on Tildes... it only makes the contents of those threads consist almost exclusively of Israeli propaganda and people agreeing with it. I genuinely think banning discussion of Israel/Palestine (which I'm not advocating for, fwiw) would be better than the current level of discourse, since at least there would no longer be Israeli propaganda and people dogpiling anyone who criticizes them.
It feels, currently, like one has to fight tooth and nail to get even the veneer of neutrality on this issue, much less express any view that's genuinely sympathetic towards Palestinians and in opposition to the current genocide.
Just so that this isn’t your last interaction or experience on the topic, I’d like to express that, as another German, someone saying this was not representative (just as me writing this isn’t), and you’re definitely welcome here!
Thank you, it's really nice to have someone say that. I try to remind myself that the loudest voices are simply that -- the loudest -- and that people who disagree just often aren't getting heard over them. But it's rough sometimes.
This thread is already quickly devolving into arguments, and I don't trust it to be unmonitored overnight.
I will review your suggestions tomorrow.
The war is between Israel and Hamas, so it's an accurate term. You're welcome to use whatever language you'd like, but there are mountains of historical evidence that changing language does little to change reality (messaging is different from terminology).
On visibility, you'll be hard pressed to find an English speaker that hasn't heard about Israel/Palestine (especially on Tildes). Plus, Gaza isn't even close to the largest ongoing conflict right now, so why not focus on other, under-discussed issues?
At the very least, what action items are you really looking for here? Sharing and upvoting for visibility has the same energy as "thoughts and prayers".
I don't decide the name of the recurring megathreads, the moderators do. And when I do use a tag I deem appropriate, it gets removed.
Not true. Manufacturing consent has been a topic of intense academic interest for decades.
"Hearing" is a vague term. Hearing about a war between Israel and Hamas, and hearing about the Gaza Genocide are very different things. Refer to my point about manufacturing consent.
Whataboutism. Also, if you're concerned about it, why don't you do it yourself (you don't seem to have done that)? It's not a mutually exclusive thing. It sounds like a very insincere criticism to use that only as a gotcha moment.
I already outlined my logic above, but you're ignoring it. I'm going to lay out, step by step, why this is significant (for US).
I think @daywalker already clearly laid out what actions they want taken (and why):
Those changes aren’t just “sharing and upvoting”, they also change the overall framing of the discussion on Tildes, acknowledge that a genocide is being conducted in Gaza, and signal an official stance on Tildes that supports calling it a genocide.
Given all the effort @daywalker put into writing up this suggestion, it’s clear they care about this issue and they’re looking to effect change on Tildes in a way that they obviously think is more impactful than “thoughts and prayers”.
plz no ackchyually
(To be clear I haven’t taken a stance on this suggestion yet, or whether it’s a genocide or not, I’m just trying to reiterate @daywalker’s motivation and suggestion as best I can intuit them. Please no one waste your time ackchyually-ing me about why it isn’t a genocide until I have actually taken the time to say whether I think it is or not.)
Arguably, there is a use case for a ‘gazan genocide’ tag in addition to the existing tag for certain kinds of article, such as one discussing the humanitarian impact of aspects of the conflict. For instance, an article about tunnel clearing operations might not have the genocide tag, while an article about, say, the humanitarian impact of a hospital’s destruction would be more accurately tagged with both the war and gazan genocide tag.
To make an analogy, if I wanted to discuss the long-term demographic effects of the Rwandan genocide, it would not be appropriate to tag that post solely with ‘rwandan civil war’
I do not talk politics in internet because I live in a nation without free speech thus fear of arrest. Cherry on top, it is currently governed by neo-islamists. Also mostly a lurker on Tildes as well.
But I have a question to ask.
Why do you people (non-middle easterners) care about this war ?
I think tildes should be on the lookout and correct for coordinated manipulations, but the topic itself is a pretty complicated issue where differences of opinion with pretty good arguments abound and I don't think it's reasonable to argue that they should moderate in favor of your viewpoint.
The issue is that the topic is already moderated in favor of a certain viewpoint, and if we actually value neutrality on the topic, the question is whether the current framing remains as accurate as it may have seemed when it was introduced, given the events of the past 11 months. If the Ukraine megathread was being labeled “Special military operation in Ukraine megathread”, I think many people here would recognize that as a a framing that does not correspond to an international consensus regarding the situation there, despite the fact that it is a framing acceptable to one of the major parties involved.
These are extremely different situations. Impartiality seems slanted in the eyes of the impassioned. Take deep breaths, clear your mind as best as you are able and engage in a closer look at the many decades of context before being carried off by the current state of the zeitgeist.
I find it interesting that a) you assume that I have only become interested in this topic recently and lack broader context and b) that I am being driven by emotion and would benefit from ‘taking deep breaths’. The first is objectively not true, and I do not believe the second to be true either.
I don’t believe the comparison I made is as unwarranted as you seem to imply, and I’d be interested in why you think it might be, other than that you agree with one of the framings presented and not the other.
When was the last violent action taken by Ukraine towards Russia since the societsoviet era prior to the current conflict? Have there been popular calls amongst the ukrainians to exterminate the Russians prior to the current conflict? Was there extensive propaganda aimed at children created by ukrainians to raise the next generation to hate and aim for the extermination of Russians prior to the current conflict? Different. Period.
I do not think there are any "differences in opinion" whether genocide is taking place.
You want to label it in as harsh terms as possible because you feel strongly about it. I get it. I don't really even disagree in a certain sense, but the way it got to this point is not all one sided. It never should have started; Displacing and suppressing one ethnic group in an attempt, claiming they never even had a "real country" to justify colonialism to correct for the crimes against a different ethnic group is a darkly comical farce, but this is an entrenched issue spanning multiple generations by this point and the current situation has come about because of a sustained attitude of extreme intransigence and intolerance from the side that the Internet has suddenly decided is their darling. They've been screaming to kill all the Jews for much longer than the Internet has been protesting that Israel has been killing too many of them. I lament the situation, it never should have started as it did, but it's not as simple as everyone suddenly wishes it was.
This isn’t some online argument that the internet has “decided is their darling”. You may feel that it is irrational, but many many people have looked at the facts that they have available to themselves and quite rationally decided they think there is an ongoing genocide. You are free to disagree with that, but I think it would be a mistake to think that you’ve arrived at your stance through a somehow more rational or more dispassionate analysis.
I completely fail to see how this is relevant. Regardless of past rhetoric, the fact is that 40,000 Israelis have not been killed in the past 11 months, their fertile land has not been ecologically damaged, infrastructure has not been decimated, and a foreign power does not control access to water, food, and medical aid. If any of that was true, then what you raise could maybe be pointed to as evidence of genocidal intent. But that is not the world we live in.
Palestinians have been explicitly broadcasting genocidal intent for decades. Decades. The fact that they don't have the relative power to bring this to bear is the only reason that the situation is not reversed. I don't wholeheartedly agree with the actions of Israel, but simply being the underdog does not automatically make you better and that is something the internet needs to come to terms with.
Look, anything can happen, as I don't have insight on anyone's minds However, given the overall philosophy that guides the administration of this website, I am inclined to say don't hold your breath.
Generally speaking, Deimos is more attentive to civility and tone than to any particular position user's might hold. Tildes admin has a bias against heated emotion. That is problematic for subjects which cannot be dealt with without anger. Or situations in which anger is the ethical emotion to express.
But I digress.
My guess is that Deimos will continue to remove content and people that fail to keep their cool. Regardless of their opinions.
EDIT: And even though I may be sounding critical here, if I was in Deimos place l would at least try to do exactly what he's doing. I do not have that kind of mental fortitude, and if I was in North America I probably wouldn't say shit about it either. Maybe I'm not as virtuous as some but my mental health comes first. Fuck that. Let the neurotypicals take a stand.