Social media posts inciting hate and division have “real world consequences” and there is a responsibility to regulate content, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, insisted on Friday, following Meta’s decision to end its fact-checking programme in the United States.
Some might argue that calling what happens in Gaza a genocide might be hate speach against Israel, and it should be censored. So who decides what is “hate” and what is not?
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In your example, there is clear, observable evidence of genocide occurring. They are killing civilians and demolishing critical civilian infrastructure. So, saying Israel is committing genocide has a certain amount of truth/accuracy in it, and the intent isn’t to smear Israel, it’s to point out what they are actively doing, while the world is receiving constant updates. In other words, there is objective evidence behind the claims.
Hate speech is the opposite. It has no objective evidence behind it, and the intent is to make specific people/groups look a certain way. We can typically infer the intent of hate speech by the words they choose to use, and the way they frame their “argument”. We employ critical thinking to do this. This process can also be peer reviewed for further accuracy.
I’ve seen many denying the evidence which seems so obvious to you. Even my government is denying it.
Who decides about objectivity?
In principle, you don’t need anyone to decide. The facts speak for themselves.
In practice, people get the overwhelming majority of their information third-hand. So the people who decide on objective reality are the people who manage the media infrastructure that provides information of the outside world to their audience.
As audiences become more fractured and information streams more selective (particularly in political media), the different viewpoints provided by various news outlets and propaganda firms can create the illusion of multiple competing objective realities.
But lying and denial and selective reporting don’t change reality. Eventually, the reporting begins to produce contradictions - images and statements that don’t line up with one another, because they are so busy trying to reframe a momentary narrative or shape a shifting popular opinion. That dissonance is a big warning sign of an illusion at play.
We have footage of them bombing schools, hospitals, shooting up aid convoys… What is there to deny?..
Schools, hospitals, and aid convoys that are hijacked and used by Hamas for conducting military operations, which makes them valid military targets under international law.
The “human shields” rhetoric is traditionally used as a reason why you can’t target a militant, not a reason why you can kill a civilian.
Israel has inverted the narrative, both by asserting that a dozen dead Palestinians are justified if one Hamas militant is killed, and by asserting that anyone in proximity to a Hamas militant is a collaborator.
The end result is a free-fire zone, wherein nobody an Israeli bomb or hit squad targets is exempt from the status of “military target”. This is a legal claim that Israel makes independent of international legal courts, and has resulted in the Israeli government being repeatedly sanctioned and threatened with prosecution by those same courts.
So no, they are not
Just the contrary. The IDF is implicated in war crimes by engaging in these rampant and lawless slaughters.
Except, in all cases, there were a lot of dead doctors, teachers, and children. The UN investigated each instance and found war crimes. The aid convoys were with registered international aid organizations and, upon investigation, they were found to be legitimate, had no weapons, we have footage of the attacks happening, they were not entering legitimate Israeli territory, and Israel has not shared any evidence of hamas operating out of these locations or via aid convoys.
If I take the time to back this up with sources, would you be receptive to the information? Don’t want to waste my time if you’re not willing to assess evidence that disproves your currently held beliefs.
Those arguing objective facts when the point is clear tend to argue from a position of bad faith, and should be ignored. Hence the critical thinking.
Look at what those who are denying genocide in this example have to gain from such a claim. If it’s much, those individuals have a vested interest in denying the truth and as such, should no longer be allowed a seat at the table.
There is plenty across history that defines a genocide. Leaders arguing there aren’t exact parallels this time around, makes them despot. Complicit is too kind a word.