EACLucifer wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2023 5:44 am
Bewildered wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2023 3:39 amI’m finding this thread strange. The attacks in Israel were awful and sad, so is the response.
You lot are right the bbc etc should really not quote numbers of deaths if it’s clear any numbers could not yet have been gathered. I don’t really know what is standard practise in these things etc but it sounds bad.
They pushed Hamas's narrative almost entirely uncritically until the narrative was established. It's not just the numbers - the claim was that the hospital was levelled. It wasn't. NYT and AP used photos from different incidents to illustrate it, hell, AP used a photo of grieving relatives that ought to have been obviously unconnected as some of those mourning where wearing kippot. Since then we've had synagogues burned, mobs in the streets going after embassies. Overnight, I discovered a rabbi was stabbed, which may or may not be connected.
The single thing that most commonly caused pogroms was false claims about Jewish malfeasance. I saw was, but I think it is quite optimistic trying to confine that to the past tense.
Despite the evidence being entirely incompatible with Hamas's version of events, they were *much* more critical of the Israeli pushback, even though since then multiple nations investigations, along with OSINT, the AFP's visual verification team etc have all confirmed it was a rocket launched from Gaza, meant to kill Israeli civilians, that instead killed Palestinian ones, though thankfully likely less than a tenth as many as Hamas claimed.
BBC Hamas Stenographers 1.jpg
BBC Hamas Stenographers 2.jpg
Of course it took a little time for the truth to emerge, and in the meantime, the Hamas narrative, unencumbered by any need to conform to reality, spread like wildfire. If it was the first time the BBC had pulled sh.t like this - always assuming the Jewish source is untrustworthy compared to everything else - it might be something, but I have very distinct memories of them hearing a bit of Hebrew during a recording of an antisemitic attack on some f.cking schoolchildren and deciding it was really an anti-Muslim slur, while the attacker's motive got the "allegedly" treatment. Quite why they thought someone would throw a random anti-Muslim slur in English into the middle of a Hebrew sentence, when the words, when parsed as Hebrew, were a necessary part of the sentence I don't know.
Not just the BBC, of course. Papers like the NYT were just as complicit. Coincidentally - or perhaps not coincidenallly - they've just re-hired Soliman Hijjy, who is a big fan of Adolf Hitler.
Sure there is bad journalism and some of it might stem from serious bias. I haven’t looked deeply into the bbc stories to know really tbh, I know you think you have and I can see they and others got this one wrong. I have also read many complaints about various media orgs parroting the Israeli government or IDF line (I also haven’t looked deeply into these), but you only complain about things from one side. I take it you either think there is no such bias or that they are from much less mainstream significant sources? To me it seems highly implausible that you are really an unbiased assessor and things are the way you present them. I think you do have strong biases on this issue
I think you are right to be concerned about violence against Jewish people resulting from inflammatory stories and to remind us of the pogroms. However…
EACLucifer wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2023 5:44 am
However I’m finding both the general tone in here weirdly selective / one-sided compared to what I am hearing from main stream centrist sources and that this discussion and outrage at the bbc irresponsibility sits poorly with the fact that in this thread we had someone posting unverified stories about babies being beheaded and no one raised any objection to the sharing of that kind of lurid / emotive detail (as I recall the fact that it was unverified was raised but no one really challenged it being shared).
Well we did discuss the degree to which it was verified. And more and more witnesses confirmed it. Despite this, the same far left f.cking vermin that lauded the attack as it happened still denied it, to the point photographs had to be released - not that many of them didn't fall for a 4-Chan level photoshop job to try and pretend that they weren't seeing the charred corpse of a child.
I don’t see how later information changes the fact that it was unverified when you brought it up.
I *really* don’t want to get into a debate about the detail of whether it happened as I agree with woodchopper’s point that the particular way they were killed is not really important, but I did just finish reading that whole article and what I saw there was the statement that they couldn’t be sure it happened before or after death. I haven’t looked for other evidence or followed this much outside of here, so I am not really trying to argue anything here other than that is what your link says and I expected something else based on your post.
I was going to say at least you put it in a spoiler but then I realised it was mod-chopper who did that. I think that is exactly the kind of emotive presentation of facts and details that can be dangerous. Although I don’t see them in your link (just saying because some might think these details were drawn from that based on your post) I don’t really doubt it’s truth and I don’t really know if it’s right or wrong to hold back on horrific details when they are facts or if it’s better to have them exposed. However a) you clearly put those things together to be as emotive as possible b) I don’t see you describing Palestinian suffering or injustices in an emotive or way or even mentioning them at all.
And again you did just call the bbc irresponsible for making incorrect claims about 500 dead and expressed understandable concerns about violence against Jewish people being the possible result, reminding us of pogroms. But the same can happen to muslims living as minorities in western countries (this is a deep concern of mine) and this kind of emotive thing can drive people to want to lash out so much that they do not consider innocent Palestinians and can lead to far greater numbers dying and a huge humanitarian crisis. I am afraid this is already happening
. So I think if you recognise the need to be careful with spreading false information that could lead to harm for Jewish people, I think you should yourself have been more careful with spreading unverified reports.
When I worry about these things leading to harm I alway get myself in a mental knot as to how much difference it makes if the reports are true as they risk the same harm, but maybe the truth does need to be exposed and certainly in contrast there is no excuse for spreading dangerously emotive falsehoods. However as above I think it should at least be consistent. If you want to write emotive details here about the awful things that have been done by hamas , then I think you can also write emotive details about Palestinian suffering when it is verified, and there are many such cases.
And also just to be clear in saying you should be consistent, I am not equating both sides and saying they are equal, or that you should always make them balanced. Just apply the same principles.
