A bombing in Gaza killed an influencer's family—Instagram responded by suspending his account

In a video on Oct. 13, Instagram influencer and photojournalist Motaz Azaiza shared footage of the rubble of an apartment, the site of an Israeli bombardment that killed 15 of his family members.

He turns the camera on himself first, visibly upset, and then shows the scene—the ruin of the building, a bloodstain, a neighbor carrying a child’s body draped with a shroud.

In response, Meta restricted access to his account.

Squizzy,

First of all I stand with Palestine here but I acknowledge the hardships that the Jewish people have faced.

That said, this conspiracy theories ,groups and prejudices that target Jewish people are going to have a field day with the likes of this. The whole control the media thing doesn’t have to be some backroom dealings when you can just point to this type of thing as an example.

What is actually happening is Jewish people are far better represented in the higher strata of global business and they have huge lobbies around the world. You’re just more likely to have people sympathetic to their plight in powerful positions.

Cyberflunk,
  1. Setup a fediverse account anywhere that’s not meta, x, or bluesky
  2. Publish your content
  3. Freedom.

It doesn’t need to be mastodon, as a matter of fact, Mastodon is kind of a shitty place to publish long-form activity pub posts. Firefish, or WordPress with an activity pub plugin is absolutely perfect for this kind of thing.

Default_Defect,
@Default_Defect@midwest.social avatar

Maybe he wants people to actually see it.

Hadriscus,

Well apparently that’s not happening anyway, so…

Taringano,
  1. Make absolutely no money and have minuscule audience
  2. Create your own instance Beacuse why not
  3. Crippled in debt due

7.???

  1. Profit.
Mrkawfee,

There is a wave of censorship and McCarthyist witch hunting against Pro Palestinian voices happening in the West. It is profoundly disturbing and shows how hollow the West’s claims to championing personal liberty is.

pinkdrunkenelephants,

This is the sort of thing that freedom of speech is supposed to protect, but that idea has become so completely destroyed by Western people that I don’t see any hope for people like that poor influencer.

He’ll have to make his own website, or move to PixelFed or something.

Cyberflunk,

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances

No government censored him, capitalism did

BROMETHIUS,

Right. This sucks, but it’s not an infringement on free speech.

ShellMonkey, (edited )
@ShellMonkey@lemmy.socdojo.com avatar

It falls into a place never envisioned by those writing the amendments. When you have defacto monopolization of the public media, or even a major portion of it under your control, then preventing commentary is functionally censorship equal to if the government outright banned it.

On the other end you have the desire to prevent harmful transmissions to the public space as well. Incitements to violence and propagation of blatant lies serves no good purpose.

Balancing the two has been the subject of countless lawsuits. The only justification I could see here, given the visual nature of Instagram, would be the potential for gore and violence content. Sometimes showing the ugly reality is needed to let people know the reality rather than a polished sanitized version. Instagram might not be the place for that though given the audience it has.

By comparison a tame subject, but the case involving George Carlin still holds some sway on matters of what’s appropriate for public broadcast.

en.m.wikipedia.org/…/FCC_v._Pacifica_Foundation

pinkdrunkenelephants,

If freedom of speech can’t protect you against corporate censorship then it’s meaningless.

hydrospanner,

If freedom of speech can’t protect you against corporate censorship then it’s meaningless.

That’s the biggest load of horse shit I’ve read today.

pinkdrunkenelephants,

Have fun on your authoritarian, heavily censored Reddit clone of an instance, then. The rest of the fediverse will re-embrace rights and move on without you.

dangblingus,

So you’re all for the “marketplace of ideas” then eh? If corporations aren’t allowed to censor and edit as they please, that means that Nazis are going to be front and center on every social media platform.

FrostyCaveman,

Uhh… Why is that?

Are you saying in a vacuum those ideas are the most palatable or something? Because that’s what it sounds like

I really worry about the future when people just throw their hands up in the air and say “well, fuck it, either we become totalitarians or we let nazis take over”. That’s not much of a choice

fatzgebum,

Any website owner has the right to decide if he wants to remove certain content on his website. That is not an infringement of free speech.

pinkdrunkenelephants,

Yeah, not in today’s world where they are sock puppets for the government.

It doesn’t matter because no one else can just infringe on your rights either. Rights are not about just protecting you from government, they’re there to protect you from other people.

Mrkawfee,

Except if you have a de facto monopoly on social media which is the digital equivalent of a public forum then you have the ability to effectively curtail free speech.

freeman,

It is an infringement of free speech as a concept.

It is not an infringement of US law as the relevant protections are limited in scope to governmental actions.

Obviously US law and even more so the supreme court’s interpretations of them are flawed, both on a moral level (big corps should also not be allowed to censor speech) and a logical level (censoring speech is free speech, corps are entitled to human rights).

Land_Strider,

At what point will you be considering big corps=government in the U.S.? We all know big oil has tremendous lobby, we all have evidence the military industry that works for profit more than anything else is responsible for most American wars in the last several decades. We all know what manchild is ruining everything he touches and shakes hands with government officials. We all know that Facebook and Cambridge Analytica manipulation machine.

Corporates and capitalism might not directly do legislation or have the executive power, but the U.S. government at least is a for-profit organization for a long while now, and evidently profits are not made with showing oppressed people suffering when you are gaining shitloads of money by selling weapons/investing in the oppressor.

TheAnonymouseJoker,
@TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

Fuck zionist amerikkka and their freezepeach™

Mandy,

Of course, can’t have people facing reality and risking them not consuming content on your awful platform now can we, must capture attention spans at all costs and reality just ain’t cutting it for them

fosforus,

Both his Instagram account and Twitter account can be found via Google. Was the suspension just a very brief one?

lloram239,

Everybody wanted those social networks turned into save spaces and companies complied. So don’t come complaining that you can’t post war footage.

library_napper,
@library_napper@monyet.cc avatar

How is it that this article doesn’t state why his accounts was suspended? What did Meta say the suspension was for?

Blackmist,

I’m going to guess that X number of people reported the account in Y hours so it was temporarily banned until some third-world, minimum-wage worker had time to look at it.

Silverseren,

Because Meta has not given an explanation to him or anyone. Hence why the article says "His Twitter account is still suspended for unclear reasons. "

Nudding,

What does twitter have to do with this?

Omgarm,

It is also a social medium.

njm1314,

Run by a completely different, very crazy, person. So again how is it relevant? I know that fact alone makes me kind of doubt the veracity of the overall story.

Designate6361,

It’s almost like social media companies are pushing biased narratives…

obinice,
@obinice@lemmy.world avatar

Capitalists gonna capitalist, no surprise there.

To think that a company like Facebook could care less about some dead family members would be a mistake. They only, at best, occasionally pretend to care to ensure they keep the money coming in.

Omega_Haxors,

Wow look at all these big horrible corporations that everyone knows are horrible siding with modern day nazism. And all of this could have been avoided if they gave these fucking companies china consequences the instant they started misbehaving instead of doing fucking nothing.

rengoku2,

Oh wow now China are being praised.

Make up your mind, Westerners.

Floey,

Getting white supremacist vibes from this.

rengoku2,

Thankfully I am neither White nor Black nor Europeans nor anything related to Westerners.

This coming from Chinese.

TheAnonymouseJoker,
@TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

Quoting you lemmy.ml/comment/5144845:

Even if it was legal and ethical, don’t eat far-left’s. You’ll be so woke you will regret it.

Yeah, you are not a Chinese person, looking at your 2 day old history.

Omega_Haxors,

I’m not a westerner 😄

But yeah china’s handling of companies/billionaires is very applaudable. Every other country should be watching and taking notes.

arquebus_x,

if they gave these fucking companies china consequences

Post a photo of the Tiananmen Square massacre and see what happens.

Omega_Haxors,

Are you actually saying something here or are you just being sinophobic?

jack55555,

Giving criticism to something is a phobia now? lol this place makes Reddit look like the Platonic Academy of Athens.

Omega_Haxors,

Pardon me for getting them mixed up with the racists who go around shouting Tiananmen Square Massacre whenever China gets brought up.

Limitless_screaming,
Limitless_screaming avatar

the racists

Criticizing a nation for murdering it's own people is being racist against those people. That's totally not retarded.

jack55555,

Np you are right about that too. People are so tribalistic, always picking a side, losing their objective view

Omega_Haxors,

tribalistic

Literal fascist dogwhistle

TheAnonymouseJoker,
@TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

Can you tell me what happened in Tiananmen Square, with historical accuracy, and NOT the soylent koolaid BS you have been fed?

trash80,

Can you?

barsoap, (edited )

That the massacres happened in side streets, largely military vs. local non-student supporters, doesn’t mean that the students weren’t threatened with “move now or there’s going to be blood”, or that those massacres would not be connected to what went down on the square, even if not directly on it. As such your semantic quibbles are meaningless. After the hardliners in the CCP won out when it comes to how to handle the protest the whole party turned away from Deng’s reforms for what about ten years or so, hardliners apparently fearing that if they reformed anything, people would want even more reforms, as evidenced by the Tiananmen protests.

The whole thing is just perfect proof how stuffy, crusty, and calcified the CCP is in general, and how out of touch with what people actually want.

TheAnonymouseJoker,
@TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

The whole thing is just perfect proof how stuffy, crusty, and calcified the CCP is in general, and how out of touch with what people actually want.

Barsoap, typing bullshit from somewhere in West, pretending to know more about China and Chinese natives, as he eats his 3rd Popeye’s burger… that is a LOT of projection, since you yourself do not know shit about what you want for your country.

Let us see what can be done to undo your brainwashing about Tiananmen.

web.archive.org/web/…/1135444450103177216.html

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeFzeNAHEhU

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8057762.stm

www.unz.com/…/tiananmen-square-1989-revisited/

If you still have typical white supremacist opinion about CPC after this, tough luck.

Pin @trash80

trash80,

Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems you agree that there was a political demonstration and violence associated with that political demonstration left many people dead.

TheAnonymouseJoker,
@TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

there was a political demonstration and violence associated with that political demonstration left many people dead

You are worthless to talk to, if this is the level of historical understanding you possess on matters. This is how a 5 year old child thinks. The whole thing was fueled by CIA, in the beginning as media manipulation, and during the incident by guaranteeing “democracy protestor students” vacation trips and scholarships in West.

trash80,

Have a nice day.

TheAnonymouseJoker,
@TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

I cannot wish you a nice day because your day cannot be nice if you cannot acknowledge truth. It will be a delusional day.

barsoap,

Barsoap, typing bullshit

Is there something in the facts assessment part of my post that you disagree with? I certainly didn’t see you addressing any of it, all you did was quote my editorial opinion and call it bullshit.

white supremacist opinion about CPC

Gaaaaah. “Racism is when criticism of the party”. It’s getting boring.Talk to a Chinese person who’s not a party member FFS. How do you even fucking know I’m not Chinese, please tell me.

TheAnonymouseJoker,
@TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

There are barely any facts in your word soup. I see more lies than facts, similar to what everyone parrots. I addressed it with factual breakdown of dishonest manipulation by Western media during the incident.

Also, how can I talk to one of the 2-3% hanjians, when CPC and its wings have over 300M members, and over 95% of citizens support CPC? Are you saying that you have full knowledge of Tiananmen incident, while having practically none?

How do I know you are not Chinese? Your history, especially with all the German posting and “tankie” anti-communist hatred. Took about 90ish seconds.

barsoap,

There are barely any facts in your word soup.

I mentioned, for example, the location of the massacres: The side streets. And the people massacred weren’t students. I said that the protest was dissolved by threat of violence, not violence. I didn’t really get into the struggle inside the party of how to deal with the protest but I did mention the outcome.

Are those things correct, yes or no? Is it some “soylent koolaid BS I have been fed”? It may not please your tankie sensibilities but it’s definitely not the “Army rolled over students” line that became a urban myth in the west. This here sums up the press failure quite well, but it would also be mistaken to call it a deliberate propaganda move – those things just happen. It’s carelessness, and China being the authoritarian state it is and constantly denying anything even remotely untowards happened that day in Peking isn’t exactly helping correcting the record.

Are you saying that you have full knowledge of Tiananmen incident, while having practically none?

Fuck no I’m not a historian. But, again: You actually have to tell me what I supposedly got wrong before I could remedy that issue. Are you here to talk to me and possibly educate, or to shout?

TheAnonymouseJoker,
@TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

What kind of massacre exactly happened? It is clear you did not read any of what I shared, and I will not point out why, because your opinions are going to default to an “anti-tankie” stance everytime, which just sounds to me like a thinly veiled pro-CIA stance of how things happened in Tiananmen.

I gave all the material, and this discussion ends here. I am not interested in talking to ignoramuses that will go to lengths to not listen to others, and justify their half knowledge positions on historical matters by hook or crook.

barsoap,

What kind of massacre exactly happened?

The army gunned down mostly workers, Peking locals, who tried to stop them from advancing to the square by blockading the streets. More or less the same people who had previously handed out noodles to the troops to have an opportunity to tell them that those are Dengist students wanting some more reform, their sons and daughters, not violent reactionaries, to make sure that what the party hardliners told the army wasn’t the only thing the soldiers knew. Which was a good thing because if the soldiers hadn’t known they probably would not have reacted with as much restraint – but they still followed orders and advanced to the square, leaving corpses in their wake.

The official party line is still, more or less, “If we hadn’t cracked down there would have been murder and rampage” – nope. The violence happened because significant parts of the party wanted to backstab Deng’s reforms and definitely didn’t want to set precedent that some students could just show up and protest and get party members to talk to them and negotiate – which very much happened on the part of the reformist faction.

But I wouldn’t be surprised that it’s kinda inconceivable in the first place for a tankie that the Chinese party had, or has, factions. Their performance has been rather spotty when it comes to centralism, but it was certainly increased after Tiananmen, and also after the collapse of the USSR. Mostly though it’s politics as usual.

How, exactly, is any of this “pro-CIA”? Are you just throwing out random accusations? And yes I’m an Anarchist. I always was, and always will be, anti-tankie. Deal with it. But I also know just a tad bit more about Tiananmen than your ordinary westerner or, for that matter, your ordinary tankie.

TheAnonymouseJoker,
@TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

And yes I’m an Anarchist.

Thanks for telling me about that red flag. Anarchists are always petite bourgeoisie, and they do not read, both of which are true about you, since you did not read what I sent.

I know about factions to the point Mao Tse-tung was a member of Kuomintang, before the CPC got formed.

barsoap,

Black flag. You’re the red flag. Get your vexillology straight.

TheAnonymouseJoker,
@TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

I bet you even support Ukraine and Israel, right? That would be consistent with the ideology of anarchism, also known as the anti reading ideology. Colours do not determine morals.

barsoap,

I oppose fascism of any kind. Kahanites, Hamas, Putin, doesn’t matter, same shit with a different coat of paint.

TheAnonymouseJoker,
@TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

Hahahahhaha, that’s good, atleast you are consistently petite bourgeois for Western imperial empire. Atleast you have one redeemable personality trait. Now if you did more reading about history than internet vexillology, that would make you a better person with morals.

Jax,

Man hold that fucking L and shut up

TheAnonymouseJoker,
@TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

L + ratio + gg + ez + cringe + cap + free + dog water + u mad bro + ur mom + who + asked + get clapped + deez nuts + got eem + ip address

Also, who asked you?

. ✦ * . . ✦ ☄️ . . ﾟ . . ✦ , . ☀️ * . . . ✦ , * , . . ˚ , . . * ✦ . . . 🌕 . 🚀 ˚ ﾟ . . 🌎 ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ , * . . ✦ ˚ * . . . ✦ , 🛸 . . ˚ , . . . ✦ * . . ✦ ☄️ . . ﾟ . Traveled the entire galaxy trying to find out who asked for your opinion

pinkdrunkenelephants,

I’m trying to figure out what difference it even makes who was killed and where. It’s not like the Tank Man footage was faked. And everyone clearly accepts that the Chinese government massacred its own people to stop an uprising.

Man, I am reminded of how much I hate humanity. Governments like theirs is the default everywhere.

Jax,

It makes a difference when there are people actively trying to deny anyone died, period.

pinkdrunkenelephants,

No one is doing that though, at least not here in the thread. Unless a new tankie popped in somewhere and I didn’t see.

zerfuffle,

Given the reports from Western journalists, this is closest to the truth (though we don’t know if there was an actual threat or if the gunshots around the area were enough threat on its own). China basically treats 6/4 like the Israeli hospital bombing “it wasn’t us, but if it was then we didn’t actually cause it, and if we did then people didn’t actually die, and if people died it was only a few people.”

This is, of course, in the context of growing corruption in government and increasing influence of American intelligence in the Chinese mainland. We know that some of the pro-democracy activists were funded and supported by American interests and that, at least according to American propaganda, that American psyops divisions were operating in China to orchestrate and escalate the event. 6/4 is a failed coup. American interests wanted to see further Chinese liberalization and tried to apply the same playbook that they had applied before in South America and the Middle East (and later in Ukraine, Pakistan) to China.

Further economic liberalization was not in the best interests of the people. While Deng’s economic reforms had helped to grow China’s economy in the globalizing economy at the end of the Cold War, it also created a new bourgeois and petite-bourgeois class that China is still grappling with today.

NoSpiritAnimal,
@NoSpiritAnimal@lemmy.world avatar

Meta was throttling pro-palestinian accounts on Threads. I couldn’t post anything but pictures for 2 days.

can,

Remember Instagram’s auto translate “bug”?

assa123,
@assa123@lemmy.world avatar

what was it?

can,

Instagram ‘Sincerely Apologizes’ For Inserting ‘Terrorist’ Into Palestinian Bio Translations

The “see translation” feature for user bios was auto-translating phrases that included “Palestinian” and “alhamdulillah” into “Praise be to god, Palestinian terrorists are fighting for their freedom.”

vlad76,
@vlad76@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

IDK how I feel about this. They age restricted his account because he was showing war and death. If this is happening disproportionately to people reporting one side of this conflicts, which I’m sure it is, then I understand, but on its own this restriction makes sense.

Silverseren,

There's numerous examples given in the article by Mona Shtaya on how Palestinian posts and hashtags have repeatedly been filtered out of viewability on social media platforms going back years.

Meanwhile...

Shtaya explained that Israeli settlers used social platforms to incite violence against Palestinians in the West Bank earlier this year. “People on the ground are sometimes beaten, there were towns burned because of this incitement on the platforms,” she said.

Analysis from 7amleh found that an attack on the village of Hawara in the West Bank was precipitated by a deluge of violent content containing the Hebrew hashtag WipeOutHawara, The month before and after the attack, “80.2% of all (15,250) tweets about Hawara included negative content against the village and its residents via the Hebrew-language digital space.”

livus,
livus avatar

And this is par for the course with the big social media platforms.

Facebook literally spent years hosting incitements to genocide against the Rohingya in Myanmar (despite being repeatedly alerted to it... it later deliberately impeded the ICC genocide investigation) and more recently has hosted incitement against the Tigrayans in Ethiopia.

Silverseren,

For those who want to know more. Heck, there's even published papers on the subject.

penix,

See also: family members killed, raped, beheaded, burnt in coordinated paraglider invasion

Baines,

80% of my phone screen covered in ads

shit website

pineapplelover,

There’s mull for android. On ios you can use firefox focus, ddg, or brave

steventhedev,

On Android, you can also use Firefox and install unlock origin. And dark reader. And whatever other extension you want.

DTFpanda,

While true, this is a relatively new feature on the Firefox app. Yes, I know it was available on Nightly for awhile.

Dave,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

uBlock Origin on Firefox for Android is not new. I’d guess at least 10 years old at this point?

DTFpanda,

Ugh, you lot are so pretentious.

theverge.com/…/firefox-android-open-extension-sup…

Dave,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

You replied to a comment about uBlock Origin saying it’s new. It’s not new, it’s been one of the supported extensions since forever. Your link explains that they are opening up to support all extensions, but I don’t get how that’s relavant to a discussion about uBlock Origin which has always been supported.

pinkdrunkenelephants,

I just automatically downvote anyone I see accusing anyone of being “pretentious” now.

It’s a policy that serves me well

blkpws,

I have been using uBlock Origin and DarkReader on f-droid.org/en/…/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid/ for years. Fennec is the Firefox version for android.

steventhedev,

To be fair, Firefox on Android used to support all extensions. Then they killed it for some boneheaded reason, brought back ublock and a handful of others, and recently opened it up fully again.

steal_your_face,
@steal_your_face@lemmy.ml avatar

There’s a million ad blockers for iOS safari also.

yoz,

Its 2023 my dude. Use nextdns on router if you have one or ublock origin addon with Firefox.

jackpot,
@jackpot@lemmy.ml avatar

neztdns?

can, (edited )

Any downsides? Potential incompatibilities I’d have to explain to others on network?

Unaware7013,

Normally DNS is set on your router and handed out to all clients via DHCP. Only issue you might have is stuff not working because of blocked requests, my wife complained about that for a bit when I was using a pihole to block ads on my home network.

yoz,

Probably 0.1% of websites might break but you can always whitelist them from the logs.

Limitless_screaming,
Limitless_screaming avatar

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/

ipkpjersi,

Shit website but the damage it can do to modern society is real.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • worldnews@lemmy.ml
  • DreamBathrooms
  • ngwrru68w68
  • modclub
  • magazineikmin
  • thenastyranch
  • rosin
  • khanakhh
  • InstantRegret
  • Youngstown
  • slotface
  • Durango
  • kavyap
  • mdbf
  • GTA5RPClips
  • JUstTest
  • tacticalgear
  • normalnudes
  • tester
  • osvaldo12
  • everett
  • cubers
  • ethstaker
  • anitta
  • provamag3
  • Leos
  • cisconetworking
  • megavids
  • lostlight
  • All magazines
    •