A DOCUMENTARY FEATURING mothers surviving Israel’s genocide in Gaza. A video investigation uncovering Israel’s role in the killing of a Palestinian American journalist. Another video revealing Israel’s destruction of Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank.
YouTube surreptitiously deleted all these videos in early October by wiping the accounts that posted them from its website, along with their channels’ archives. The accounts belonged to three prominent Palestinian human rights groups: Al-Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights.
The move came in response to a U.S. government campaign to stifle accountability for alleged Israeli war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
People say that the internet never forgets… but they didnt take into account the centralization of the internet and the control they have over the content.
It might be crazy to think this… but imagine in a few years all videos and posts and articles on various sites documenting the genocide were fully purged. Leaving only people’s frail memory of events. Even the IDF and Israeli civilians incredibly incriminating videos would be removed, and anyone caught with an archive on a personal device could be criminally charged or have it taken from them for destruction.
Basically this shit is beyond 1984. And I don’t use 1984 that often as a metaphor.
When you realize that this is the way a majority of people (at least in america) live by default, its really not that crazy. I work a blue collar job and I promise you no one out here gives a shit about any of this. If given the option, they would probably willingly and purposefully “push delete” on this entire topic because they are sick of hearing about “the bullshit”. Also why data archival is of utmost importance.*
I dont know how formatting works. But i think I got my point across either way.
The internet never forgets, but only for those things the internet wants to remember.
Forreal though, the internet isn’t so centralized that records could be purged like this. Made less easily publicly accessible? Sure. But I doubt rumble or bitleaks or the thousand other sites that popped up and mirrored LiveLeaks after it shut down are going to all cooperate with that idea.