Saturday, 2 March 2024

Post No. 2,724 - And another social media platform gone ... (for me) [Content Warning: discussion of sexual assaults and atrocities, including mass atrocities]

Note: CONTENT WARNING - some of this content is about upsetting, disturbing or triggering events & attitudes. Seek competent help - including professional - if you need it. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that linked articles may contains names and/or images of deceased people. READER CAUTION IS RECOMMENDED! For anyone distressed by anything in this post, or for any other reason considering seeking support, resources are available in Australia here, here, and here. In other nations, you will have to do an Internet search using terms such as “mental health support - <your nation>” (which, for instance, may lead to this, this, and this, in the USA, or this, this, and this, in France [biased towards English-language - my apologies]), or perhaps try https://www.befrienders.org/. 

Note: in my “from the news” posts, quotes are shown italicised and blue, my comments are in a different shade of blue, and “good” items are shown in green. I have loosely grouped the posts where such seemed reasonable, but that is subjective (i.e., my opinion - others are free to disagree), and challenging, as some posts belong in multiple “groups”.

I joined Medium for two reasons: 

  • because I liked the writing there, and wanted to access the stuff behind their paywall; and 
  • to maybe get paid for some writing of my own. 

Medium changed the rules in a way which meant that my writing, which was ... less commercially focused, would be unlikely to ever get paid, but I still liked what I was reading, so I continued to pay and stayed. 

There were, however, a number of writers I liked who moved elsewhere, and I have followed them as much as I can, but there have been problems (such as extremist fascists) with some of the platforms they went to as well, which all goes to show the challenges of running a platform - and that probably nothing is perfect in the world of social media.

For the writers I liked, I stayed on Medium - until last night. 

I have had quite a few people start following me - in fact, in terms of numbers, the best thing I ever did was stop writing /j. 

Some of them have been ... dodgy, to the extent that I blocked a few (none merited being reported, though). 

That all changed last night. 

Someone started following me who appeared (I have no way of knowing whether it was true or not) to be a Palestinian writing from Gaza - the descriptions were certainly consistent with what I have been reading in media sources, but that could also indicate that they were reading much the same as me and then writing something based on that. 

Until they claimed that _____ (I have a policy of not giving violent extremists oxygen by naming them [I don't name mass killers for much the same reason] nor describing them as t________s) did not commit rapes. 

Rubbish!!! 

Yes, they did - on a horrendous scale, in horrendous ways, and to a horrendous range of victims. 

There also have been rapes by Israelis, true, but denial of human rights abuses by anyone is problem - and that includes sexists/misogynists lying that they were “only joking”, workplace abusers saying “everyone does it”, or either/both sides of a war claiming they aren’t committing atrocities when they are - or misrepresenting what the other side is doing or not or what is happening generally.

One of the biggest problems in the current war in Gaza is that Israelis are not seeing what is happening on their media - it is difficult enough for the rest of the world to know (especially given Israeli attacks on journalists), and the same would apply even more so to those in Gaza (which is why I have chosen not to report that user, as they could be as much a victim of Israeli attempts to silence the media as Israelis are).

On that, I have included a few news links below. 

However, going back to what I read on Medium last night, that article’s claims that _____ did not commit rapes (which the author may genuinely believe owing to a lack of credible news sources) are wrong and thus egregiously offensive, and has crossed a red line for me. 

I have blocked that particular person, but I have given them the benefit of the doubt, in that they may have no way of knowing what happened, and thus did not report them. (If they are a deliberate propaganda channel, me reporting them is likely to just result in them creating a new channel under a different ID.) 

I have also cancelled my membership - with regret, given the good writers still there, but I cannot give money to a platform that allows such lies. 

I have not deleted the content I wrote for that platform, as I consider it worth others looking at - which also means my membership will appear to continue until the next renewal.



Those news links I mentioned are: 

  • This is just part of why the events on 7th October changed everything - this is NOT new news, it has been known and reported about from the start ... ALL of it - and warnings have been made about the ongoing risks for female hostages still being held! This is why I consider calls for a ceasefire will not be listened to - but imperialistic Israel’s reaction has also been appalling and, IMO, genocidal  

    [Content Warning - graphic descriptions of sexual assaults and other brutality, including on young and old]:   https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/18/evidence-points-to-systematic-use-of-rape-by-_____-in-7-october-attacks       “Evidence points to systematic use of rape and sexual violence by _____ in 7th October attacks”
  • “What the Israeli Public Doesn’t See”   https://jewishcurrents.org/what-the-israeli-public-doesnt-see   “In largely ignoring the suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, the Israeli media both shapes and reflects public opinion”   A long read, but one which covers the issue well - particularly for people (such as myself) living outside of West Asia       “Why do Israelis and the rest of the world view the Gaza conflict so differently? And can this disconnect be overcome?”   https://theconversation.com/why-do-israelis-and-the-rest-of-the-world-view-the-gaza-conflict-so-differently-and-can-this-disconnect-be-overcome-223188   “Decades of mutual grievances, tit-for-tat violence, daily rights violations of Palestinians and intergenerational trauma have eroded whatever goodwill may have existed once for the “other side”.   ...   The only hope for peace now is of a plan imposed from the outside.   ... mediators will have to demonstrate both fairness and a previously missing commitment to push the parties into making such concessions – on assurances of robust and durable international support   ...   Hate comes easily in the face of injustices   ...   Selective denunciation of atrocities based on one’s support or rejection of a cause — any cause — is not only morally flawed, but counterproductive as well   ...   Those who have been severely aggrieved may struggle to apply the same yardstick to others, but the rest of us could and should. We can do better.”        “Are there any innocent civilians among Palestinians in Gaza?”   (satirical question: the answer is YES)   https://www.juancole.com/2024/02/innocent-civilians-palestinians.html   “... these heartless and fascist sentiments most resemble the attitude of the _ t________s, who targeted civilian buildings in New York, on the grounds that there are no innocent Americans and all of us are guilty of the crimes of US imperialism. US imperialism has committed many crimes ... But the individuals in the World Trade Center weren’t responsible for those crimes by virtue of being Americans. (By the way, this sentiment contravenes settled Islamic law, which forbids killing non-combatants.)   ...   In fact, only a minority of Palestinians has ever belonged to _____. Much of its staying power derived from the support of Israeli intelligence, which wanted to keep the Palestinians divided.   ...   The roughly one million children in Gaza are protected persons.   And women.   ...   Mothers ... are not wielding bazookas.”   The remarks which led to this article include fundamental errors of fact which are also corrected in the article  



Possible flaws 

Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider:

  • there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend Brendan  Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”;  
  • I could be wrong - so keep your thinking caps on, and make up your own minds for yourself.

 

If you appreciated this post, please consider promoting it - there are some links below, and there’s also Instagram. 

Remember: we generally need to be more human being rather than human doing, to mind our Mӕgan, and to acknowledge that all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering” (just as binary gendered [men’s and women’s] sporting teams are either both given the gender descriptor, or neither).

Copyright © Kayleen White 2007-2024     NO AI   I do not consent to any machine learning aka Artificial Intelligence (AI), generative AI, large language model, machine learning, chatbot, or other automated analysis, generative process, or replication program to reproduce, mimic, remix, summarise, or otherwise  replicate any part of this post or other posts on this blog via any means. Typo’s may be inserrted deliberately to demonstrate this is not an AI product.     Otherwise, fair and reasonable use is accepted under Creative Commons 4.0 on an Attribution-ShareAlike basis https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/  




 

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