calling-the-angels

[calling-the-angels]

I don’t know how to explain to liberals that a leader behaving like a whipped dog while obeying a separate country’s fascist genocidal leader who is trying to cause a regional war after months of genocide so he can stay in power is the sign of a bad politician and especially a bad president. Joe Biden does not deserve uncritical support and protests against him are justified and warranted and he is risking a bigger war and losing to Donald trump for his own radical zionist beliefs. He deserves even more protests with how he’s handling Israel attacking Iran.

#yeah the whole 'lesser evil' shit people try to say #regarding the upcoming election between trump and biden #it aint it #i am not voting for someone complicit in genocide #and you saying “but trump would have been worse” during this situation #does not fucking matter #trump could have been worse and biden IS the fucking president actively supporting a genocide #living in the future and past saying what could have been and what could be #doesnt hold any water over what IS happening currently #grow the fuck up with your bullshit #genocide joe #trump

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weird anti ideology finally leaking out into the mainstream

[calling-the-angels]

‘The machine did it coldly’: Israel used AI to identify 37,000 Hamas targets

Israeli intelligence sources reveal use of ‘Lavender’ system in Gaza war and claim permission given to kill civilians in pursuit of low-ranking militants

The Israeli military’s bombing campaign in Gaza used a previously undisclosed AI-powered database that at one stage identified 37,000 potential targets based on their apparent links to Hamas, according to intelligence sources involved in the war. In addition to talking about their use of the AI system, called Lavender, the intelligence sources claim that Israeli military officials permitted large numbers of Palestinian civilians to be killed, particularly during the early weeks and months of the conflict. Their unusually candid testimony provides a rare glimpse into the first-hand experiences of Israeli intelligence officials who have been using machine-learning systems to help identify targets during the six-month war.

[...]

“This is unparalleled, in my memory,” said one intelligence officer who used Lavender, adding that they had more faith in a “statistical mechanism” than a grieving soldier. “Everyone there, including me, lost people on October 7. The machine did it coldly. And that made it easier.” Another Lavender user questioned whether humans’ role in the selection process was meaningful. “I would invest 20 seconds for each target at this stage, and do dozens of them every day. I had zero added-value as a human, apart from being a stamp of approval. It saved a lot of time.”

[...]

Several of the sources described how, for certain categories of targets, the IDF applied pre-authorised allowances for the estimated number of civilians who could be killed before a strike was authorised. Two sources said that during the early weeks of the war they were permitted to kill 15 or 20 civilians during airstrikes on low-ranking militants. Attacks on such targets were typically carried out using unguided munitions known as “dumb bombs”, the sources said, destroying entire homes and killing all their occupants. “You don’t want to waste expensive bombs on unimportant people – it’s very expensive for the country and there’s a shortage [of those bombs],” one intelligence officer said. Another said the principal question they were faced with was whether the “collateral damage” to civilians allowed for an attack. “Because we usually carried out the attacks with dumb bombs, and that meant literally dropping the whole house on its occupants. But even if an attack is averted, you don’t care – you immediately move on to the next target. Because of the system, the targets never end. You have another 36,000 waiting.”

[...]

“We were constantly being pressured: ‘Bring us more targets.’ They really shouted at us,” said one intelligence officer. “We were told: now we have to fuck up Hamas, no matter what the cost. Whatever you can, you bomb.” To meet this demand, the IDF came to rely heavily on Lavender to generate a database of individuals judged to have the characteristics of a PIJ or Hamas militant.

#this is horrifying and more people should be talking about it #a computer program decided whether palestinians got to live or die #a preauthorized 'collateral damage' limit ensured more would be dead #the officers using it talk about it as if it made their lives so much easier and efficient #like those targets and 'collateral damage' werent human beings #what are the parameters that this AI is using to choose targets?? #why are their 37000 targets?? #this is terrifying #fuck israel #fuck the iof #free gaza #free palestine #from the river to the sea palestine will be free #gaza genocide #gaza #palestine

[calling-the-angels]

🔻DISMEMBERED🔻

#deserved #fuck israel #fuck the iof #fuck the us #free gaza #free palestine #from the river to the sea palestine will be free #gaza genocide #gaza #palestine

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#fuck that guy frfr 😤 #damn troll killed me so many times #partially cause im impatient to level properly #or gear up even #haha

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#fuck yeah #bread

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#i oop-

[calling-the-angels]

[calling-the-angels]

do people even know the extent of sanctions on the iranian people? my mom's family can't afford fruit anymore. it's a state of psychological warfare; literally nobody living there has any sort of hope for the future. added sanctions from the EU are going to destroy the lives of 87 million innocent people

#a part that people overlook when discussing sanctions #sanctioning the innocents or sanctioning a dictatorship? #when did we start punishing the many for the sins of a few? wasn't that a whole thing we weren't going to do? #middle east #iran #israel

[calling-the-angels]

A tweet about the complicity of zionist academia:

#free gaza #free palestine #from the river to the sea palestine will be free #gaza genocide #gaza #palestine

[calling-the-angels]

Shame on you, USA Today!

This is the shoddiest piece of "journalism" I have ever seen. @usatoday

Examples (emphasis mine):

"Explosions were heard in Iran after Israel launched missile strikes in retaliation for a barrage of more than 300 drones and missiles fired by Tehran over the weekend..."

"It was unclear what targets had been hit inside Iran. Iran's weekend swarm of munitions and Israel's response marked the first direct exchanges of fire between the regional arch-enemies."

"Israel, the U.S. and other regional and Western allies joined forces on Saturday to blast hundreds of Iranian drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles out of the sky after they were fired at Israel."

"That attack was itself an act of retaliation after Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khameni, blamed Israel for an airstrike on the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus, Syria, that killed several people including a leading Revolutionary Guards commander."

"Officials have been on edge about the possibility of a regional war since the Palestinian militant group Hamas rampaged across southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 and taking more than 200 people hostage. More than 30,000 Palestinians have died in the ensuing six months in Israeli airstrikes and ground fire, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry."

Language -- and how you use it -- matters, dammit.

It matters what words you use to describe an action. The word you choose tells the reader context clues about what is an acceptable action and what is not. It influences viewpoints about what you are reporting on. Using words and phrases like "barrage" and "swarm of munitions" while painting Israel's actions as a simple "response" without context is a gross manipulation tactic.

It is a gross manipulation tactic to paint the actions of "Israel, the U.S. and other regional and Western allies" as this heroic and epic fantasy where they "joined forces" and "blasted" enemy fire "out of the sky" after they were "fired at Israel." Why did they fire at Israel? Go on, you reported on it. Despite the fact that this linked article features the same shameful use of deliberate word choices to manipulate your readers, you even quoted the Iranian ambassador Hossein Akbari saying that the Iranian response would be "the same magnitude and harshness." Is that not what the terrible "barrage" of missiles and drones fired over the weekend was? Surely, you will bring this up in the article.

"The attack was itself an act of retaliation..." Great, we are going to mention that Israel attacked Iran first. "... after Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khameni, blamed Israel for an airstrike on the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus, Syria." What the fuck. Not only do you then continue on to diminish the lives lost in that airstrike using word choices like "killed several people" and then highlighting one's military connections. It is a blatant manipulation tactic to frame Israel's attack as retaliatory due to an accusation of violence that only "killed several people." Fuck you for diminishing the lives of those in the Middle East living this fucking war/nightmare. Fuck you.

And then, to add insult to injury, you use more inflammatory language to associate Palestinians with a "militant group" called Hamas that "rampaged across southern Israel on Oct. 7." Is Hamas a part of local authority in Gaza? Yes. But painting Palestinians in broad brush strokes with that tone and word association is extremely dangerous and damaging. It's almost similar to how Israeli propaganda speaks about Palestinians...

You then discredit any reporting about the "self defense" that Israel has visited on Gaza and Palestine in the 6 months since October. You do this by stating that the shocking idea of "30,000 Palestinian deaths" (which has already been reported on by far more reputable news sources... though they have their own faults) is the reported deaths by the "Hamas-run Gaza health ministry." Since you have already done the job of describing Hamas as a "militant group" that "rampages" across Israel, do you think that associating the most reliable death count with the "enemy" isn't a disgusting manipulation tactic that belittles and diminishes the very real genocide happening against the Palestinians? Caused by their occupier, Israel?

You aren't news or journalism like you frame yourself to be through your website layout, articles, and tv shows. You are propaganda, bought and paid for by the Israeli occupation. You are on the wrong side of history.

I hope that you and the Western media that have used similar tactics are used in future journalism classes at universities and colleges around the world. I hope you are used as an example of terrible, bad reporting informed only by biases and internal memos telling you what to say. I am disgusted.

Fuck Israel. Fuck the IOF. Fuck Western media.

🇵🇸FREE PALESTINE🇵🇸

#iran #israel #palestine #middle east #regional war? #usatoday #western media #free gaza #free palestine #from the river to the sea palestine will be free #gaza genocide #gaza #i hope this post makes sense i was so blinded with rage that i kind of blacked out while typing #the lack of journalism ethics bothers me to my core

[calling-the-angels]

The U.S. will use its veto power against a Palestinian bid to be recognized as a member state of the United Nations during a vote at the Security Council expected to take place Thursday evening. Vedant Patel, principal deputy spokesperson for the State Department, described as premature an effort by the Palestinian Authority (PA) to gain member status at the U.N. He said there was not unanimity among the Security Council’s 15 members that the Palestinian Authority had met the criteria for membership, with unresolved questions over the governance of the Gaza Strip, where Israel is in a war to defeat and eliminate the controlling power, Hamas. “And for that reason, the United States is voting no on this proposed Security Council resolution,” Patel said.

Earlier it was revealed that the United States was secretly pressuring other members of the Security Council to shoot down a Palestinian state membership so the US wouldn't have to use its veto as that would lead to a wave of local and international criticism for Joe Biden.

#fuck the us #seriously #as an american i have been truly devasted by learning about America's true actions #history classes here are so biased its actually a fantasy version of events we are taught #so to exist as a someone with this patriotic upbringing with america being the hero and moral and right #and to be able to use the internet to learn about the viewpoints on america across the world? #im grateful to have this ability and the fact that there is real censorship and gaslighting still #is extremely aggravating #my father is so far up his right wing 'Murica ass that even bringing up a social issue #gets a scoff and him dismissing you outright #its so frustrating #i keep trying #ill keep trying #because its what i can influence #and thats enough

[calling-the-angels]

Gaza ceasefire celebrations in Palestine. 

#fuck #free gaza #free palestine #from the river to the sea palestine will be free #gaza genocide #gaza #palestine

[calling-the-angels]

so I got this email a couple hours ago

the UNRWA is disbursing payments again! the US had to walk back its disastrous decision to quit funding Palestine relief. is $5m a very small place to start considering the work needing to be done, yeah, it is, but we are moving in the right direction finally.

if a poorly cropped email means nothing to you, here is their official statement!

#yes good #unrwa funding #free gaza #free palestine #from the river to the sea palestine will be free #gaza genocide #gaza #palestine

[calling-the-angels]

A little-discussed detail in the Lavender AI article is that Israel is killing people based on being in the same Whatsapp group [1] as a suspected militant [2]. Where are they getting this data? Is WhatsApp sharing it? Lavender is Israel's system of "pre-crime" [3] - they use AI to guess who to kill in Gaza, and then bomb them when they're at home, along with their entire family. (Obscenely, they call this program "Where's Daddy"). One input to the AI is whether you're in a WhatsApp group with a suspected member of Hamas. There's a lot wrong with this - I'm in plenty of WhatsApp groups with strangers, neighbours, and in the carnage in Gaza you bet people are making groups to connect. But the part I want to focus on is whether they get this information from Meta. Meta has been promoting WhatsApp as a "private" social network, including "end-to-end" encryption of messages. Providing this data as input for Lavender undermines their claim that WhatsApp is a private messaging app. It is beyond obscene and makes Meta complicit in Israel's killings of "pre-crime" targets and their families, in violation of International Humanitarian Law and Meta's publicly stated commitment to human rights. No social network should be providing this sort of information about its users to countries engaging in "pre-crime".

#jeez wtf #fuck meta too #fuck israel #fuck the us #fuck the iof #free palestine #from the river to the sea palestine will be free #free gaza #gaza genocide #gaza #palestine

[calling-the-angels]

Today marks 14 years since Wikileaks released the 'Collateral Murder' tape displaying American targeting of civilians & healthcare workers in Iraq. This chilling pattern of atrocity continues to this day, as evident from recent events, through the genocidal actions of America's 51st state, Israel.

#oh israel learned it from us #fantastic #as an american i hadnt known this level of detail about americas actions in the middle east #i hear what the news said and i took it at face value #then i went to college and took one (1) journalism ethics class and looked at western media with new horror #western media is just as complicit in americas crimes in the middle east as the govt is #they are the propaganda arm of the us govt and damn are they integrated into the culture #the main companies buying up all small news stations and shutting them down #means that they control the narrative from the top down #its fucking insidious #fuck the us #fuck israel #free gaza #free palestine #from the river to the sea palestine will be free #gaza genocide #gaza #palestine

[calling-the-angels]

sunsets after 7pm now !!!!!!!!!!! we made it guys !!!!!!!!!!!!