Archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20250411170102/https://www.drops...

I like to think we are in a better place than russia for instance with all its propaganda and jailed journalists, but then i see these kind of article come over and over....

Most of the people in the 'free world' goes on mainstream media, like facebook to get their news. These companies are enticed to 'suck up' to the government because at the end they are business, they need to be in good term with ruling class.

you end up with most media complying with the official story pushed by government and friends, and most people believing that because no one has the time to fact check everything.

One could argue that the difference with russia is that someone can actually look for real information, but even in russia people have access to vpn to bypass the censorship.

Another difference would be that you are allowed to express your opinion, whereas in russia you would be put to jail, that's true but only in a very limited way. Since everyone goes on mainstream media and they enforce the government narrative, you can't speak there. you are merely allowed to speak out in your little corner out of reach to anyone, and even then since most people believe the government propaganda, your arguments won't be heard at all.

The more i think about it, the less difference i see.

I don't think this is necessarily an issue of censorship so much as it is highlighting that Facebook is clearly a fucking news publisher and should be treated as such under the law.

It's time to revoke section 230 for any social media network that amplifies or buries content with a non-transparent process.

In this case it isn't even merely an algorithm designed by humans. They have LITERAL human editors choosing which stories to put on the front page, just like the NYT, and they should be held liable for the content on their platforms just like legacy media is.

You’re not arrested for posting this, so that is a pretty big difference to Russia (and other authoritarian nations like China and Turkey), no?

https://rsf.org/en/country/russia

America's arrested rather a large number of people in recent weeks—university students, mostly—for expressing viewpoints on the I/P conflict. The current Administration is claiming, and no one's yet stopped them, that First Amendment rights don't apply to non-citizens such as international students.

- "You’re not arrested for posting this"

For what it's worth, it's widely reported that ICE is trawling social media to find targets (targeted for their speech/viewpoints). HN itself is one of their known targets.

Chris Krebs just yesterday had his security clearance revoked solely for saying the 2020 election was fair and not rigged.

His coworkers at SentinelOne (almost certainly most of who are citizens) also had their clearances revoked, despite never speaking out on the topic, purely as a North Korea style "punish the whole family" approach to strike fear into people of guilt by association, so that those who have spoken out in any shape or form become social pariahs.

Citizens having their career taken away for saying an election wasn't rigged, or for happening to work at the same place as someone who said this.

If you think the status quo hasn't yet changed to "In countries like China, Russia and the US, speaking out against the government puts both your livelihood and that of those in your vicinity at serious risk", you're dead wrong.

In case anyone is curious about this (as I was) here's an article: https://www.csoonline.com/article/3958808/trump-revokes-secu...

Maybe it's time to rethink the visibility and permanence of HN discussions.

It doesn't matter if they're citizens or not if the government is skipping court thus not being required to prove it either way. Then when they oopsie you to another country they have to at least try to pretend to get you back but the courts need to show "deference owed to the executive branch in the conduct of foreign affairs".

Which is a long way of saying the executive can blackhole anyone it wants to a foreign country and no one is going to do anything because god forbid we step on the executive's role to give up people in our country to other countries.

Here's the executive branch getting ordered by SCOTUS to bring someone back for doing just that: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62gnzzeg34o

They were asking about it happening to citizens. From your article:

> Mr Garcia, a Salvadoran

He's married to a citizen which gives him an avenue towards legal residency and full citizenship.

It doesn't matter anyways because the government admitted he was deported due to a administrative error and because they actively undermined and sidestepped the courts authority on several occasions, there is effectively nothing stopping them from doing it to full blown citizens. Honestly, it sounds like it's just a matter of time if this keeps up.

I agree it's bad, and yes, the government admitted they shouldn't have done it. But regardless, the question was about if it has happened to a citizen, not a person who maybe could be a citizen one day but is not, and you responded with them "doing just that" when they did not, in fact, "do just that".

I'm not sure why there's a need to mislead when what's actually happening is bad enough.

If they can ignore due process in this case what's to say they cannot do it to proper citizens? It's clear they're probing their way into creating a blueprint to get rid of people critical of trump.

You would agree that this whole discussion would be considered insanity in America like 4 months ago, right?

It's not a need to mislead. You're grasping at a technicality. Citizenship is irrelevant if you're not given the chance to demonstrate it, which he wasn't, and again, he was actually deported because of the administrative error, not an on-purpose action, the correctness of which is irrelevant.

You're arguing whether a car wrapped around a tree has a bad alternator. Surely a fact useful to someone, somewhere, and worth knowing. But also certainly not the reason there's a problem.

100% this. To echo another poster below, it's really important to read the Supreme Court's own words here.

>"The Government’s argument, moreover, implies that it could deport and incarcerate any person, including U. S. citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene. " From https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a949_lkhn.pdf

I suspect that is one of the main reasons behind the order. It's very obvious that citizen vs legal resident matters very little here, if due process is not given.

Would his being a citizen have mattered to any of the procedures prior to his rendition? The government never made any effort to prove that he was here illegally (which is important since he wasn't), and he never had an opportunity to offer a defense.

It happens to be the case that he's not a citizen or claiming to be a citizen, but he wasn't given due process, and there's absolutely nothing stopping them from picking anybody up off the street, claiming they're here illegally, and shipping them off to an El Salvadoran prison.

All people in the us, legal or illegal, citizen or not, have fourth amendment protections, and if you strip those rights from anyone, you remove them from everyone.

Do they? We generally don’t give noncitizens the right to own a gun in the us, so clearly we are selective about applying the 2nd amendment protection. The 4th may need adjudication.

Permanent residents have the right to own a gun in the US.

The supreme court has upheld many many times that the fourth amendment applies to all people within the borders of the US.

He's a permanent resident. Splitting hairs over citizenship when he was here legally massively misses the problem with blackholing people here legally.

> Splitting hairs over citizenship when he was here legally massively misses the problem with blackholing people here legally.

And on top of that this case should be horrifying to anyone regardless of whether they want to split hairs because:

A) they admitted he was deported in error

B) they are now effectively trying to argue there is no way to get him back

So even if you believe they would never knowingly do this to an actual citizen they are only one slightly different mistake from disappearing a citizen, whether or not it has happened yet.

Nevermind the fact that Trump himself has repeatedly floated the idea of deporting citizens: https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/04/10/trump-...

And then lastly and most importantly IMO it is wildly un-American to believe anyone (regardless of citizenship or legal status) is not entitled to due process.

What about that guy who got deported to El Salvador even though he was legally here and the court had also ordered he not be sent back to El Salvador for his own protection? I’m pretty sure the admin admitted it was a mistake then refused to bring him back.

The Supreme Court resolutely batted that down 9-0 in a few days.

>> The [District Court] order properly requires the Government to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador. The intended scope of the term “effectuate” in the District Court’s order is, however, unclear, and may exceed the District Court’s authority. The District Court should clarify its directive, with due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs. For its part, the Government should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a949_lkhn.pdf

The only question at this point is how detailed in demands the District Court can be.

The administration attempted to push the boundaries of executive power and lost in court, as has been happening.

Turns out, conservative justices with lifetime appointments aren't too legally thrilled about an unbridled executive either.

Yes, that is where my quote came from. From your own quote:

> The District Court should clarify its directive, with due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.

Which is such a ridiculously bullshit line of thought. This wasn't some person who willingly went to some random country, this is someone the executive illegally put there against the person's will in coordination with said foreign government. I can guarantee you that any order with teeth will be struck down by SCOTUS on this line of thought.

I'm not sure why people obtusely intepret Supreme Court rulings as though they're part of the current administration.

The court is obviously saying that (1) it's correct and necessary to bring him back but that (2) the District Court doesn't have unbridled authority to order any foreign policy-influencing remedy it wants.

I.e. a US court couldn't order a president to sign a treaty

If the administration tries to foot drag further, the Supreme Court will likely order more specific remedies.

By not taking the L here, the administration is just burning whatever conservative goodwill they might have started with on this Supreme Court.

This order was toothless, and the administration has already flouted it.

All John Roberts is doing is asking Trump to go further next time. Whether it's intentional or just cowardice on his part doesn't really matter to the rest of us.

It matter to me, since there are 2-3 conservative justices on the current Supreme Court that are likely to tire of administration excesses.

A long game player might even say Roberts is angling for that, by tailoring consensus opinions that nonetheless leave room for the administration to demonstrate further stupidity.

- "Do you have examples of the executive doing this to citizens or are you being hypothetical here?"

"Do you have examples of this severity-11 CVE being used in the wild, or are you just being hypothetical here?" It's a horrifically exploitable bug, were it left unpatched.

It's not some fringe conspiracy theory that this is how the law works and how the law would work on contact with US citizens; the Garcia SCOTUS concurrence explicitly underscored this perversity,

- "The Government’s argument, moreover, implies that it could deport and incarcerate any person, including U.S. citizens [sic!], without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene... That view refutes itself."

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a949_lkhn.pdf

> Do you have examples of the executive doing this to citizens

Feels like moving the goalposts. First they were going to clear out "illegals" by any means, now the line includes any non-citizens. Granted maybe you personally didn't say both though.

> Have you considered how allowing non-citizens to spread discontent within a country could be abused?

Is it meaningfully different from allowing citizens to "spread discontent"? Why not just start taking everybody's 1st amendment rights, by the same logic? I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure there's long precedent that non-citizens are granted most of the same rights, including freedom of speech and assembly.

If non-citizens are being supported, instructed, etc by their government in spreading discontent, there are probably laws like espionage for that; you don't have to take away everybody else's freedom to stop them.

Does the Constitution provide for due process to persons? Or only citizens?

If non-citizen have been human trafficked without due process, what additional protection against it is provided to citizens? Where is that stated?

Not great but still better than defenestration I guess.

Rumeysa Ozturk did not overstay her visa nor advocate violence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_of_R%C3%BCmeysa_%C3%...

Nor did Rasha Alawieh: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_Rasha_Alawieh

And cases like Rumeysa Ozturk's are different. I also believe DHS should have to abide by the courts as well. Her case is also getting national and international attention and legal help.

> As in that seems like there isn't a "large number". ---

> “But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.

And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jewish swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.” ― Milton Sanford Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45

---

You have to say "No" loudly and clearly at the _first offense_, and not wait until it's too late.

As someone who came from a pretty authoritarian country- let me assure you that people there do routinely criticize their government, mock them all the time. Governments often do not have the bandwidth to deal with the volume of criticism, and even when they do- they wisely realize that letting people vent a little online is better than complete crackdown. I myself routinely did this in Facebook, where many in my friend list were government employees and (ex-ruling) party members.

I am in fact far more afraid of pro-palestine speech from USA as an immigrant than I was in my home country- and please trust me I am not exaggerating here.

>I am in fact far more afraid of pro-palestine speech from USA as an immigrant than I was in my home country- and please trust me I am not exaggerating here.

I would have laughed at this until pretty recently. How wrong I was.

Do you mean pro-Palestinian sentiments scare you or are you afraid of expressing pro-Palestinian sentiment?

Likely he means expressing any pro-Palestine sentiments. Doxxing is very common and if Ivy League deans were taken down, immigrants are likely to be deported for expressing any empathy towards the Palestinian.

Actually now US citizens are impacted too.

Michigan-based attorney Amir Makled [a US citizen] was detained by federal immigration agents while returning home from a family vacation

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/09/nx-s1-5357455/attorney-detain...

They've discussed deporting US citizens to gulags - https://truthout.org/articles/white-house-press-sec-says-tru...

He was detained at immigration. This happens all the time, and has been happening routinely since 2001.

(Not saying it's good or anything - just not new).

The authoritarian future isn't evenly distributed. Some groups of people have been dealing with it for decades, while others are in for a surprise.

Freest country, hardly anyone lives within 100 miles of the coast I'm sure https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/border-zone

> and other authoritarian nations like China and Turkey

And Israel, where a history teacher was arrested for making a post on Facebook:

https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/22/meir_baruchin

This Israeli as well, had everything taken from her for 4 IG posts:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/03/magazine/israel-free-spee...

As someone said above, "America's arrested rather a large number of people in recent weeks—university students, mostly—for expressing viewpoints on the I/P conflict. The current Administration is claiming, and no one's yet stopped them, that First Amendment rights don't apply to non-citizens such as international students."

America is changing. What was true before isn't necessarily true now, and may get worse, depending on election outcomes.

If you post it and nobody ever sees it, that is functionally the same result as not being allowed to post it.

Nope. People in Russia getting murdered for speaking their opinion, and my Facebook posts getting deleted, that is exactly the same thing. Just like the starving kids in Africa, and that one day when I couldn't buy my favorite pizza because the shop was closed, also exactly the same thing.

Now give me hundred upvotes because I am a cool contrarian who is not afraid to criticize America. That basically makes me an American equivalent of Navalny.

They don't need to arrest him because the narrative is already controlled, as shown by the article, and by going to any traditional news site.

People who have spoken out against the genocidal apartheid regime are being black-bagged in the street by plainclothes officers all across the United States. The gap between the supposedly enlightened West and Russia grows smaller by the day.

Why arrest if you can silence?

Yea but there's also not much point in critiquing the government here. What we ever been able to do about it except riot? We can endlessly discuss the failures of government and as it stands I don't think we will never see these failures distinguish candidates in the voting booth. Which is confusing, because you'd think the democrats would have wanted to win this time.

He could have his visa revoked though.

You do realize that this is where things are going, right? Have you not heard of the arrests and recent deportations of student protestors?

I don’t understand why we keep forgetting that authoritarianism is a slippery slope.

You have a point with democratic backsliding - but then your rights hinge on the impartiality of the judicial system (as a whole, and eventually, not necessarily individual decisions evidently). It’s pretty obvious that the legal systems even in flawed democracies is still vastly better than in those autocracies.

A tale as old as time: watch from the sidelines while things are relatively “good” before suddenly finding yourself on the naughty list.

Checks and balances are a crucial feature of American democracy.

It's almost as though the framers of the Constitution foresaw the possibility of the two elected branches of government (executive and legislative) being monopolized by the same group, at some point.

And that the very flexibility of regular, open, direct elections also required a check to protect the fundamental rights of all people in the country.

They may have foresaw it but they did little if anything to prevent it. They lamented that political parties would probably be the downfall, and here we are...

> little if anything to prevent it

The prevention is literally in the Constitution! Do you think other branches of government would be deferring to the Supreme Court if it weren't spelled out that they must?

Agreed. And nowhere did I say that the problem is Trump. I was simply using current events as proof that we are already in a bad state.

Yea people are actually https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3rnzp4ye5zo

The western endorsement of the genocide in Gaza has been some of the best PR Putin could ever have hoped for.

It simultaneously underlined the viciousness, the lack of moral credibility and extreme hypocrisy of western leaders in the eyes of the nonaligned world (e.g. the global south), none of whom sanctioned him.

> You’re not arrested for posting this

Your funds might be cut off though: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/07/trump-...

Or your president might declare a wartime law to deport all the immigrants: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp34ylep987o

Or you, a honors student (but not a citizen) might find yourself in an unmarked van if you dared to question the powers that be. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czrn57340xlo

Sure it happens to immigrants only for now, brings memory to this poem:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

> Sure it happens to immigrants only for now

... and they're trying to end birthright citizenship. I.e. people who are literally not immigrants (were born here and perhaps have never lived anywhere else) are already being lined up for this.

It's not unreasonable to see the situation as "Then they came for the Jews, and the administration finally deported the people who were coming for the Jews".

The president's literal argument for doing it is that the activist groups are coming for all of American life.

I'm not a big fan of either side's rhetoric, but clearly the horseshoe has become a ring.

> I'm not a big fan of either side's rhetoric, but clearly the horseshoe has become a ring.

Either side? Tell me which "side" does that sound like?

- hostility towards non traditional sexuality

- immigration being used as the scapegoat for economic problems

- strong feeling of national exceptionalism

- assault on women's productivity rights

- politicizing of science

- deportation for political reasons

- "Roman" salutes

It brings parallels with some things happening in Europe some time ago.

> activist groups are coming for all of American life.

I wonder who's actually going for all of American life though. Let's take Birthright citizenship, which has been established in 1868. Is that American life enough for you?

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

And guess who goes against this American way of life value? An orange grandpa married to an immigrant. You really can't make this up.

https://www.npr.org/2025/03/14/nx-s1-5327552/trump-takes-bir...

Indeed. The editorial boards of these newsrooms are often staffed with people who attended the same schools and classes as those running the country. The social circles of the two worlds are extremely closely linked.

Of course, this means that the reporting isn't very good at addressing its blind spots–i.e., most of the news in the country, let alone the world, that isn't relevant to the ivy league coastal elites. And I say this as a member of that same class. Most of the political perspectives in my life are completely unrepresented in the opinion columns, which generally tend to pander upwards rather than downwards.

I don't tend to put much weight in freedom of the press so long as that press is floating on the cream of society and asking the government permission to report on what they're doing.

And here is an article on Raffi berg, BBC’s Middle East editor:

https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/bbc-civil-war-gaza-israel-bia...

The NYT's Executive Editor Joe Kahn is the son of a billionaire who was on the board of lobby group CAMERA, a group devoted to pressuring US media to be more pro-Israel.

Russia doesn’t just put people in jail for speaking against the government. They weaponise the generational fear of being disappeared by the government. This is not close to what happens in America where you can post anything anywhere and if Facebook deletes it you can always make your own website about it. If you did this in Russia you go to jail. Even if you say things like “it is sad Ukrainian children die in children’s day in Russia” you go to jail. I don’t think you can compare modern USA with modern Russia in this way. USA does plenty of other things that are bad like jailing so many people for petty crimes without pushing much on speech. USA has its own problems and all these comparisons only hide them.

They are now denying visas, and deporting lawful residents, sending them to offshore torture prisons, for social media posts.

For non citizens, regardless of length of time or legality, this is the case right now. For birthright citizens and full citizens it will be the case very soon

They are sending people to a concentration camp without any due process.

It's still humans being humans, we just have a covert culture while they are more overt. I personally like being tricked/manipulated more than forced. I'd rather get Tom Sawyered into painting a fence than being held at gunpoint.

Is Meta really considered “mainstream media”? I always took that phrase to refer to NBC, CBS, NY Post, etc - the big legacy news organizations (print and TV).

The big legacy news organisations would be legacy media.

Social media is not even 20 years old but it’s a tall order to deny it mainstream status since the younger generations get their news from scrolling TikTok and not cracking open the daily broadsheet.

Legacy media has been sourcing from Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit for years. They’re as mainstream as AP and Reuters but without the reputation or the credentials.

How does "mainstream" America increasingly get its news?

I read “mainstream” as one of those words like “modern,” to apply the media that was prevalent when the phrase was coined. Technically modern architecture, if we read the words literally and individually… well, I guess that would be tent-cities, that seems to mostly be what gets built nowadays.

Facebook, the tent-city of media, actually it would kinda work if only the platform wasn’t centrally controlled.

It's mainstream, it's media, people read their news on it, so yes. But I'd rather trust NPR, BBC, the Guardian or some other legacy news outlet, because these unscrupulous tech bros will skew the narrarive by silencing some sources while brainwashing people with whatever suits them best.

I think OP is more using this incident along with many others. Things similar to in February when the President signed executive orders that imposed sanctions on American law firms and lawyers which included suspension of security clearances, termination of government contracts, and restrictions preventing firm employees from accessing federal buildings. (https://www.justsecurity.org/110109/president-cannot-issue-a...)

I have no idea how to talk equality to speak of whether they are comparable or not, but I do think people are seeing a different atmosphere.

If you gonna mix in politicians and opposition the USA has a extensive list themselves.

Fred Hampton would have something to say if, you know, he were still alive.

"We're not as bad as them" is a poor argument. Particularly while America quickly slides in that direction. Just take a look at the deportation of Venezuelans especially the case of the wrongly deported man that the government conveniently "can't find". That's a story comparable to the stories Americans tell about Russia and China.

The difference with Russia is that they are much worse at hiding their corruption and censorship.

Russia doesn't bang the drum of "free speech" ad nauseam the way US social media magnates do.

True. I was born in Russia and to be honest I wish Russia would at least "bang the drum of free speech" as well. If you pretend to have some values you actually make people start to believe in them a bit

Sure, the 'free speech' propaganda is a conscious part of the (better/more effective) public opinion manipulation playbook.

So when the government pointed to the disproportionate support for Palestine on TikTok vs Instagram, it was actually because Instagram was suppressing it. It is ironic.

https://x.com/hawleymo/status/1717505662601609401

While this may be part of the story, it's certainly not the full picture. We know that the CCP is actively manipulating the algorithm on Tiktok to further their agenda on multiple other geopolitical issues—something we have ample evidence for. I don't know if there is a smoking gun on this one topic in particular, but the CCP's goal has always been to divide the American audience; and we know that older Americans skew pro-Israel whilst younger Americans are more oriented towards being pro-Palestinian. If someone looked in the right places, they would more likely than not find evidence of algorithm manipulation to favor a Palestinian bend.

> something we have ample evidence for

Can you share some of that evidence? My impression from the SCOTUS case is that the government only alleged it could happen, not that it was happening. So I’m a bit surprised to see someone so confidently assert it is happening.

> more likely than not find evidence of algorithm manipulation

I think a lot of people have been looking. For years. Yet you admit there is no smoking gun. Perhaps if we look in the right place we will find Russell’s teapot orbiting Jupiter as well. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot

I'd like to see that evidence too, hopefully for more than one instance/source.

IMO, it's been obvious that the danger seen in TikTok is that it's a propaganda tool out of USA's control. If it was really a national security danger, USA could simply ban it instead of fighting so hard to own it.

So, we have proof of a strong algorithm manipulation by Israel on the entire family of main US social media (those used by the older segment of the population); and yet you still manage to point your finger to a hypothetical, unproved manipulation of the algorithm on the competitors' social media to explain the difference in attitude between generations? But you have the answer here, there has been manipulation of the social media consumed by the older segment!

Another reason why TikTok has to come under US ownership. How else are we going to censor things when they are under China’s (lack of) control?

Exactly. China demands Apple Maps be ran on Chinese servers by Chinese workers. I would expect current U.S. administration to be frustrated with these imbalances as surveillance state measures increase. These imbalances were less important when there was less interest in information and truth suppression.

Where do you think the servers that power TikTok in the United States are? Who do you think administers those servers?

At least for all the surveillance the Chinese do - the standard of life is improving overall. We don't even get that shit here in the US. Our life just gets worse by practically every measure as the years go on and we're taken advantage of on top of it.

What benchmark are you using for standard of life?

There’s probably not one single benchmark (and I won’t say that all of them are negative in the US) but we can just think generally about the things we’d like in a good life:

Life expectancy. Chronic disease rates. Suicide rates. Depression rates. Violent crime rates. Marriage rates. Home ownership rates. Education rates. Debt rates. Labor participation rates. Wealth inequity.

No one metric is a complete picture but together they tell a story. If America was a product and the above was on a dashboard, you would fire the CEO.

Number of citizens reeducated, I presume.

More organs harvested from political prisoners.

Ah yes, the US known for putting people in prisons where we use techniques the Nazis developed as part of our “enhanced interrogation”.

USA is totally way better than China here!

At the very least, wages for the average citizen. It’s not perfect but at least there’s movement towards building something. What is the US building towards? Enriching billionaires?

And conversely, another reason why Trump's tariffs on China are a bone-headed move. They are not going to sell TikTok while the tariffs last, and the popular demand for it makes banning it a non-starter.

Yes. This was clearly the reason for the ban in the first place.

Not a surprise. I remember last year seeing that posts to https://www.birdsofgaza.com/ were being blocked, and it's hard to think of a more innocuous way of speaking out.

Just want to call out that the head of the trust and safety/integrity division, Guy Rosen, is an Israeli citizen with a strong pro-Israel bias. He’s also a person of questionable morals. From Wikipedia:

“ Guy Rosen and Roi Tiger founded Onavo in 2010. In October 2013, Onavo was acquired by Facebook, which used Onavo's analytics platform to monitor competitors. This influenced Facebook to make various business decisions, including its 2014 acquisition of WhatsApp. Since the acquisition, Onavo was frequently classified as being spyware, as the VPN was used to monetize application usage data collected within an allegedly privacy-focused environment.”

That Meta considered his questionable ethics a feature not a bug, and repeatedly promoted him, is very problematic.

I was there during the onavo scandal. It was straight up spyware. They would regularly show graphs of snapchat usage vs messenger vs whatsapp and the snapchat data was explicitly attributed to onovo logs.

I'd like to see examples of actual posts that were taken down, rather than talk of the quantity, or who filed the reports.

I am part of a neighborhood group where I grew up in Bangladesh and lived until 5th grade in the 90s.

The group admin this morning let us know via Facebook post that he has received warnings frm Facebook. The group is "at a risk of being suspended" because way too many posts relating to "dangerous organization and individuals" have been removed. He wants everyone to be extra careful when posting about p*l*s*i*e, I*r*e*, g*z*, j*w* etc. He used asterisks himself just to be extra careful himself.

Not to mention my country is dealing with rohingya crisis, which was fueled by Facebook and WhatsApp misinformation campaigns, and Facebook had 2 moderators for the whole country of Myanmar and refused to do anything about said misinformation campaigns. But they sure make exceptions for I*r*e*.

> Not to mention my country is dealing with rohingya crisis, which was fueled by Facebook and WhatsApp misinformation campaigns, and Facebook had 2 moderators for the whole country of Myanmar and refused to do anything about said misinformation campaigns. But they sure make exceptions for Ire*

Not sure why you're downvoted. This is all true.

Every pro Palestinian protestor has experienced some form of awareness suppression and content removal. They have known this was a thing long before anyone else did.

Same thing happened during 9/11. Muslims saw suppression, bullying by the police and no one covered it. Then the tables turned on maga republicans after j6.

I’m too stupid to navigate this topic in anything other than a crude and adolescent way, however I think it could be tricky for pro-palestinians because they can fall easily into the trap of using party slogans used by proscribed organisations.

My understanding of Hamas is that they are not considered a legitimate army, but if they were they would be guilty of an insurmountable number of war crimes (not unlike the IDF as many would say). Showing support for such things is beyond reasonable accepted discourse in my home country.

Since nobody here has actually read the article, it states that the reason the posts were taken down was "prohibits incitement to terrorism praise for acts of terrorism and identification or support of terror organizations." This type of speech (incitement) is illegal in the United States and support is very borderline depending on the type and meaning of "support". Now, if the reason doesnt match the actual content removed that should definitely be addressed which is your point, but I think that the reason is valid.

As a recent example, the instagram of guardian journalist Owen jones (well known Israel critic) was suddenly suspended without any explanation today.

It has been since restored, after a predictable twitter storm.

It sounds like you're using the fact that the posts aren't available for you to view to evaluate as a weakness of the reporting on this suppression campaign, but of course they're not available because of the suppression campaign.

Surely the burden should be on the censors to establish clearly that something is in fact incitement to violence, rather than on external reporters to magically show that content which has been taken down is not incitement?

Generally i hold the burden to prove wrong-doing is on the party allegging wrong-doing. Otherwise we get in a situation where it can be effectively impossible for the accused to prove their innocence, as it is much more difficult to prove a negative than a positive.

... and you're absolutely right, innocent people had basically no recourse when Meta took down their content, or shadow-banned them etc on the claim that they were inciting violence, pro-terrorist, engaging in hate-speech etc. The accused cannot publicly point to their post which merely used a palestinian flag emoji, or mentioned an assassinated writer. The burden should have been much higher for Meta when casting such accusations about.

Both of these things can be true.

Sure the burden _should_ be high in both directions.

But the journalists seem to be doing a decent job of announcing and describing the data they have, and confirming it with multiple sources within Meta. They're engaged in a seemingly earnest and forthright effort to make the case. And to the degree that it's limited, it seems those limits are due to Meta itself.

Meta, on the other hand, excepting these whistleblowers, makes very little information available about their take-down actions both at the level of individual cases or at the level of their systematic responses to governments. The whistleblowers claim that Meta regularly took down posts without human review when requested by the Israelis. That's the exact opposite of the high burden of proof that you're asking for.

If we want to blame meta for having opaque review processes with little option to appeal then i'd agree.

In terms of the implied proposition that israel is intentionally using the take down process to shield itself from criticism. I just dont think the evidence in the article supports that proposition. I would expect the stuff mentioned in the article to happen both in the case Israel is trying to get criticism taken down and in the case Israel is only interested in having "kill 'em all" type posts taken down. So i don't find the article very compelling.

The HRW report[1] goes into details, at least on the 1050 takedowns they documented

> A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report investigating Meta’s moderation of pro-Palestine content post-October 7th found that, of 1,050 posts HRW documented as taken-down or suppressed on Facebook or Instagram, 1,049 involved peaceful content in support of Palestine, while just one post was content in support of Israel."

[1] https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/12/21/metas-broken-promises/...

> Human Rights Watch also found repeated inaccurate application of the “adult nudity and sexual activity” policy for content related to Palestine. In every one of the cases, we reviewed where this policy was invoked, the content included images of dead Palestinians over ruins in Gaza that were clothed, not naked. For example, multiple users reported their Instagram stories being removed under this policy when they posted the same image of a Palestinian father in Gaza who was killed while he was holding his clothed daughter, who was also killed.

> While “hate speech,” “bullying and harassment,” and “violence and incitement” policies[74] were less commonly invoked in the cases Human Rights Watch documented, the handful of cases where they were applied stood out as erroneous. For example, a Facebook user post that said, “How can anyone justify supporting the killing of babies and innocent civilians…” was removed under Community Standards on “bullying and harassment.”[75] Another user posted an image on Instagram of a dead child in a hospital in Gaza with the comment, “Israel bombs the Baptist Hospital in Gaza City killing over 500…” which was removed under Community Guidelines on “violence and incitement.”[76]

HRW is a "complicated" organization. It took money from Saudis in return for not advocating for LGBT rights in the middle east [1]. It agreed to take money from the Qatari government, a government that also supports Hamas [2][3] and is involved in corruption cases and buying of politicians all over the world.

[1] https://theintercept.com/2020/03/02/human-rights-watch-took-...

[2] https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/middle-east/1700763578-human-...

[3] https://www.memri.org/reports/raven-project-leaks-alleged-qa...

This feels like a dog whistle rather than providing something substantive.

The Israeli government also helped facilitate Qatar's support for Hamas[0], what's your point here?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_support_for_Hamas#Isra...

This is exactly why I want to see the posts, because I don't really trust 3rd parties to accurately classify "peaceful content in support of Palestine". It's possible Facebook is wrong. It's also possible that it's filled with content that is peaceful in only the most shallow, ignorant reading possible. e.g. (paraphrasing from my facebook feed last year, on a post which was not taken down): "I'm planning a celebration on October 7th in support of my Palestinian friends, who wants to join me :)"

The article mentions requests to remove posts quoting Ghassan Kanafani. The article introduces Kanafani as a literary figure, but then discusses his involvement in the PFLP. I don't know if they want the reader to form a particular judgement about this, or if they're just reporting the facts.

This sort of thing has happened before in the US:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/05/how-the-robber-b...

"Meta has complied with 94% of takedown requests issued by Israel...Meta removed over 90,000 posts to comply with TDRs submitted by the Israeli government in an average of 30 seconds...All of the Israeli government’s TDRs post-October 7th contain the exact same complaint text, according to the leaked information, regardless of the substance of the underlying content being challenged. Sources said that not a single Israeli TDR describes the exact nature of the content being reported"

If you have valid rules but in practice only enforce them against a single group, then in some sense you are asking the wrong question.

In other words, for people who assume rule enforcement is supposed to be fair, they see unfair enforcement as hypocrisy. However, if you just see enforcement as another tool to wield against enemies, hypocrisy is irrelevant. What matters is power. It’s my basketball, I make the rules.

> If you have valid rules but in practice only enforce them against a single group

I'd agree. Is there any evidence that that is happening here? The article reports on israeli take down requests but does not report on take down requests from other groups. Meta could very well be using the same rules against pro-israel groups, we just dont know because the leak didn't include that information.

What would you define as “valid”

I guess as "violating facebook terms of use". At some point i don't think what the standard is matters that much as long as its equally enforced against everyone.

Generally though i do think its legit for facebook to take down posts advocating for violence and terrorism. Devil is in the details.

“According to internal communications reviewed by Drop Site, as recently as March, Cutler actively instructed employees of the company to search for and review content mentioning Ghassan Kanafani, an Arab novelist considered to be a pioneer of Palestinian literature.”

So this person is actively thinking about a Palestinian revolutionary that was assassinated by Mossad over half a century ago, and is using their position to push for internal censorship of him accordingly.

Imagine if a Palestinian employee at Meta suggested censoring mentions of past members of Haganah.

And then Zuckerberg says he's all about free speech, even mocking Europe as not being free-speech enough

The role of the media (including social media) is to move in lockstep with US domestic and foreign policy. This has been known for some time [1]. It's never as simple as the White House calling up Mark Zuckerberg and saying "hey, silence X". It's about a series of filters that decides who is in the media and who has their thumb on the algorithmic scales, as per the famous Noam Chomsky Andrew Marr interview [2] ("What I'm saying is if you believed something different, you wouldn't be sitting where you're sitting").

Noam Chomsky is a national treasure.

When a former Netanyahu adviser and Israeli embassy staffer seemingly has the power to suppress pro-Palestinian speech on Meta platforms [3], nobody should be surprised.

If you're a US citizen who is a journalist critical of a key US ally, that ally is allowed to assassinate you without any objection of repercussions [4].

This is also why Tiktok originally got banned in a bipartisan fashion: the Apartheid Defense League director Jonathon Goldblatt said (in leaked audio) "we have a Tiktok problem" [5] and weeks later it was banned. Tiktok simply suppresses pro-Palestinian speech less than other platforms.

[1]: https://chomsky.info/consent01/

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvGmBSHFuj0

[3]: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/metas-israel-policy-chief...

[4]: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/16/israeli-forces-kil...

[5]: https://x.com/Roots_Action/status/1767941861866348615

Hey this Chomsky guy seems pretty smart! Would be great to get him on mainstream media sometime.. hah

Just like IBM on "IBM and the Holocaust" (a must read). A genocide being supported by the US companies / media just in front of our noses.

Well, I‘ll leave this here:

„100+ Meta employees, including Head of AI Policy, confirmed as ex-IDF“

https://thegrayzone.com/2025/04/08/100-meta-employees-ex-idf...

Isn‘t X‘s community lead Israeli as well?

Virtually all Israelis, both men and women, serve in the IDF from 18 to 21 years old. So the criticism is that Meta employs 100 Israelis out of its 74k US employees?

That's 0.1%. The Indians and Chinese immigrants cover a much larger percentage. Does that mean that Meta is controlled by India and China?

It being only 100 seems kinda low for the size of Meta and how many Israelis live in the Bay Area. There is a very large contingent that lives in Palo Alto and Sunnyvale.

They’re nowhere near as large as the Chinese and Indian population but probably close to third place for largest foreign born tech worker populace in SV.

in what positions are these 100 ex IDF soldiers? Just some random frontend developers? Or overseeing community management?

All positions. I've worked with many devs to executives that all were from Israel and had served in the IDF.

Then it’s doubly critical. A tiny country having citizens in top positions in critical media companies suppressing any criticism of their governments conduct sounds like accusations we make against NK or Russia.

You might think: Well, what does that effect the world if a tiny country flattens an even tinier other region. Then have a look at how Netanyahu for decades pushed for US wars in the ME and is now pushing for the US starting a war against Iran.

You could say the same about all the Chinese and Indian people who are massively over-represented in these companies. Go into the FB Ads org and try to find a single all American team, lol. You'll have a hard time even finding one American to begin with.

Since service is manditory for most Isrealies, that just mean the 100 Isrealies in a company of 74,000 employees and somehow that is a conspiracy?

These are people having stronger loyalty to Israel than to the US. Also, would US conpanies employ people with strong ties to Russia, knowing they would suppress any criticism of Russia‘s war in Ukraine? Apparently that’s what these Meta employees with strong ties to Israel did: Suppress any criticism of Israel‘s apparent war crimes in Gaza, for which there are arrest warrants from the ICC.

> knowing they would suppress any criticism of Russia‘s war in Ukraine?

This is a leap in logic. You have no idea that they would know they would do this.

Ahh, that‘s why university presidents were fired because they allowed students to protest against Israel‘s war crimes in Palestine? But no Meta employee is fired for suppressing criticism of war crimes?

For all the illegal or immoral things Meta employees do and do not get fired for, this is very low on the list.

Yeah, and in what positions are these 100 ex IDF soldiers? Just some random frontend developers? Or overseeing community management?

The US is about 0.05% Israeli, so it's not a conspiracy, but Israelis are certainty a much higher proportion of Meta than most other companies and countries outside of Israel.

100/74,000 = 0.00135 or 0.135%

in what positions are these 100 ex IDF soldiers? Just some random frontend developers? Or overseeing community management?

Downvote however you like. We know how strong the influence is.

„ LEAKED AUDIO OF CEO OF AIPAC Rubio, Stefanik, Waltz … they all have sth in common ... relationships with key AIPAC leaders"

Ratcliffe, one of the first candidates I ever met as an AIPAC rep ... he took the oath as CIA director, for crying out loud https://x.com/TheGrayzoneNews/status/1910101143268508094

Judges have now ruled that suspected "expected beliefs" that are "otherwise lawful" is grounds for deportation, if those suspected thoughts are "antisemitic" (read- supportive of peace in Palestine).

They are literally arresting and deporting people for suspected thoughts.

Student visas are being denied based on social media posts.

This is fascism.

> Judges have now ruled that suspected "expected beliefs" that are "otherwise lawful" is grounds for deportation, if those suspected thoughts are "antisemitic"

Do you have a link to what you are referring to?

Quote from Marco Rubio (confirmed 99-0 in the Senate)

"Rubio said that while Khalil's “past, current or expected beliefs, statements, or associations that are otherwise lawful," the provision allows the secretary of state alone to “personally determine” whether he should remain in the country." https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mahmoud-khalil-deported...

The article is a day old, the judges just affirmed that Rubio is allowed to do this today

Thanks for the information. FWIW, I think this is total bullshit and fascism, but your comments aren't telling the whole story.

The most important thing to point out is that "the judges" in this case was actually a single immigration judge. Immigration judges belong to the executive branch, not the judiciary. I agree this law that says that the Secretary of State can essentially just deport anyone they want can't be squared with the constitutional rights of freedom of speech and due process. But that wasn't really this immigration judge's determination to make, i.e. questioning the constitutionality of the law that Rubio is using to deport Khalil. There is a separate case going on in federal court that should address that topic.

This article has more info: https://archive.vn/D890d

In a different deportation case they just defied a supreme court ruling - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/11/trump-deport...

Didn't realize that the judge in the linked one was an immigration judge and not a judiciary judge thanks for the clarification

Realistically, how can we uncover this type of foreign interference? As in, is there any hack someone in our community can perform to expose Israeli propaganda? Israel locked journalists out of Ghaza, and has pretty much dominion over social media in the US. How can someone remain informed or expose misinformation campaigns (ideally without repercussions, which is a dangerous control they have over our gov)?

Meta could start by being transparent when they are asked to take down a post and could be transparent when they comply.

They have released this data for at least ten years at this point. That's one of the sources the Human Rights group used.

Why is the word Israeli removed from the title? and Meta added? Seems like quite a politically-important modification

I did those title edits to (marginally) reduce the flamebait effect of the title, in keeping with standard moderation practice (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). Titles have by far the biggest impact on discussion quality, so this is a big deal. Especially when the topic is divisive.

The entire endeavor was orchestrated by Israel - that’s kinda the point here. Meta didn’t act on its own, as the edited title would imply.

I know, but for HN purposes, the point I made about titles is the higher-order bit.

Threads like this, at best, waver on the edge of a hell pit. If it plummets in, the discussion won't stay on HN's front page anyhow. Title de-baiting is a way to support having a discussion that doesn't completely suck, to the extent that this is doable.

Its meta's website. Its entirely in their control as to how they respond to a takedown request.

I think in this instance the perpetrator is central to the story/article

speaking as someone who gets a lot of their posts flagged (to the annoyance of dang), a less-inflammatory headline can be less satisfying but a post that isn't flagged will get a lot more traffic than one that is flagged

FWIW I support this. It's more relevant to HN to talk about Meta, the big tech company, doing something wrong than a nation, regardless of where you stand on this issue.

At this point, is it feasible to implement user-submitted or generated tags for submissions that can subsequently be concealed?

Our focus is shifting towards the news aspect rather than the hacking aspect, which is the primary reason for my presence here.

There are fluctuations, such as a swing towards current affairs stories during turbulent times, but the basic mix has been stable for years and the baseline isn't likely to change. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 for how far back this question goes...

Not that it helps, necessarily, but the people who have the opposite preference to yours are complaining loudly about how much they feel the current affairs stories are being suppressed on HN.

Re tags: I've always resisted the idea of adding it to the core HN site, but I do think we can do more to support alternate front-ends to HN. With any luck, we can publish the next version of the API this year, which should make that a lot easier.

Least favorite anecdote: Reddit. After an introduction, a friend said, “Why are you on the front page like a new person?” I am auto-subscribed to the front page content channels when I want to be in my subscriptions. However, I miss relevant content because others overwhelm the front pages.

I appreciate your response and the work you continue on the front ends. I obtain political news content from other sources, so my cumulative content feed contains a significant amount of duplicate content.

The current title (11:36 AM PST) is:

"Leaked Data Reveals Massive Israeli Campaign to Remove Pro-Palestine Posts on Facebook and Instagram"

@dang IDK if this matters, nor when the title was changed (from submission, to now). Just an FYI.

Btw there's a lot more information about the moderation on this post here, if you or anyone want to read about that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43657264.

It's unfortunate that turning off flags for a story empowers the people who want to use this site for ideological battle. "dang made an exception once for , so the guidelines forever more don't apply to it!" There were several variants of this sentiment expressed on the tomhow welcome thread.

I'm not following the argument here, but turning off the flags on a given story doesn't turn HN into a free-for-all on a topic (on the contrary, we don't want too much repetition of any topic), and certainly the guidelines continue to apply as much as anymore. More, in fact ("Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

The problematic point here is that Facebook is more than willing to obliterate certain topics and political views when requested, not which ones or by whom orders in particular.

Because you can't imply Israel is a bad actor. It's politically-censored in the US, including self-censorship.

We can't control which words people are super-reactive to in titles; we can only empirically observe what they are and try to dampen the effect, with the hope of making a thoughtful discussion at least a little more likely.

I this case you have completely changed the meaning of the title though. It sounds Like Meta did this of their own initiative which is a very different message.

I don't read it that way, FWIW.

I think some of you are overly focusing on the title instead of the overall effect of the moderator interventions here, which is that the article gets more attention and the story more coverage. In that sense, I'd think it would be in you guys' interest to take yes for an answer, much as zzzeek has here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43657317.

I am not sure that linking to one post that agrees with your decision to provide your own title for the article (in contradiction to one of HN’s core rules no less) in order to intentionally steer discussion away from the subject of the article is that compelling of a way to convince people that your editorial decision here was correct. It certainly does nothing to address a valid concern about the precedent that this sets.

Rather than taking on the task of manually editing headlines to be more sympathetic to Israel perhaps the site could implement a filter that disallows the word from being used in titles or posts altogether? If that is the aim, it would save you time having to answer questions about it.

> in contradiction to one of HN’s core rules no less

There's no contradiction. The rule is "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait."

Nor is there any attempt to steer discussion away from the subject of the article. That would have been a hapless attempt, had it existed, since the thread is filled with such discussion.

>> The data show that Meta has complied with 94% of takedown requests issued by Israel since October 7, 2023.

Nice to see Zuckerberg taking free speech as seriously as he claims.

I m not sure he ever claimed that

I recall he made changes at the beginning of the year specifically because "it's time to get back to our roots around free expression."

Full transcript of his remarks can be found here: https://www.techpolicy.press/transcript-mark-zuckerberg-anno...

Tell me: how do you define “actual” genocide when the goalposts keep moving and the top courts responsible for prosecuting genocide keep getting ignored and (in the case of ICC) sanctioned?

At this point, anyone with even an ounce of awareness & empathy should realize that international law is dead until further notice.

Good question, but also, study some history. This did not start in 1948, nor in that century even.