Twitter lawsuit threatenedover alleged Hezbollah aid | Hacker News Reader

Twitter lawsuit threatenedover alleged Hezbollah aid

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27 pointsmeadhikari18 comments

Then they'll also need to block the twitter accounts of the Israeli government & co. as many of the acts carried out by the Israeli army in Gaza and other territories against civilians are as worthy or more of being considered terrorism

There is no international consensus on the legal definition of terrorism.

For the purposes of this lawsuit, the only relevant bit of information is whether any of the organizations using Twitter appear on the United States' list of designated terrorist organizations, as determined by the State Department. Neither my nor your personal feelings about any of the organizations involved or not involved matter.

Personally, I'm wondering how they're going to differentiate between an 'official' account owned by an organization and an account operated by a supporter of an organization. Providing services directly to a terrorist organization is one thing; trying to restrict the speech of a supporter of terrorist organizations is another.

> Providing services directly to a terrorist organization is one thing; trying to restrict the speech of a supporter of terrorist organizations is another.

In the context of US law - is there much difference? Doesn't the law just count publicity and vocal support as aid?

The UK doesn't have anything like a first amendment protection of free speech. So it's much easier[1] over here for this kind of thing to be blocked. That does lead to some weird situations - for a few years leaders of political groups appeared on news broadcasts with their voices dubbed by actors[2]. (Something that ended in 1994.)

[1] not saying it's good or bad, just easier.

[2] (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/broadcasters-welcome-en...)

This is a lie. The "acts carried out by the Israeli army in Gaza" involved telephoning people ahead of airstrikes and using dummy munitions to get civilians out of an area before attacking enemy army facilities. This is the opposite of intentionally killing civilians, with the result being that the Israeli operation had a low rate of civilian casualties comparable to NATO's "clean war" against Serbia. That is even more impressive when one considers that the Gaza war was fought in an urban area with civilians present in every crossfire while the war against Serbia primarily targeted military assets separate from urban areas. Israeli policy forbids intentionally harming civilians, and soldiers are punished when they do. Hezbollah does kill civilians as a matter of strategy and they cheer about it. Ask Rafik Hariri, the former Prime Minister of Lebanon and a popular politician. Oh, you can't. They killed him. Look at the reception Hezbollah gave Samir Kuntar, who they considered a hero for landing on the Israeli beach and bashing in the head of a four-year-old girl. In the face of this hatred, Israel continues to teach peace, tolerance, and coexistence. Whoever promoted that comment comparing Israel to the murderous genocidal fanatics that it fights against should be banned from HN.

All of this is beside the point that US law forbids trading with the enemy. US law considers Hezbollah to be the enemy, and Twitter was caught providing services to Hezbollah. A guy in New York was convicted for broadcasting Hezbollah's TV channel. The legal structures here should be no different. If this law did not exist, a charge of treason could be made under the Constitutional definition, although it would be difficult to prosecute due to the lack of precedent.

I am sure this is all correct. But some references would have been nice.

Sigh... the democratic world that didn't terror stamp Israel but Hezbollah seems to disagree.

(You generally won't like the reaction from a country if you put a large part of your economic infrastructure into shooting rocket artillery at the country's cities.)

Afaik, all democracies with terror problems (Germany, USA, Israel, Spain, Italy, etc) threw out the law book. The idea with terror is to scare the general population -- and governments which want to win the next election gets really motivated.

Sigh... the democratic world that didn't terror stamp Israel but Hezbollah seems to disagree.

Sigh... The democratic world of which you speak is the same one that considered Nelson Mandela a terrorist for opposing Apartheid

I'm no saying here that I support the killing of any civilians, but let's not be hypocrites here, Palestinian civilians are as civilians as Israeli ones, and the conflict is not as easily divided into good ones vs bad ones as some would like.

Nelson Mandela was a terrorist. He bombed stuff. He is considered a hero today by that same democratic world because he had a change of heart while he was in jail and decided that terrorism was the wrong way to change society, and he worked respectfully for equal rights from then on and achieved a peaceful end to apartheid without the massacres and thousands of dead people that a violent alternative would have caused.

First, ANC got lots of support from democracies. So your "point" is wrong.

Second, [Edit: even if your "point" had been correct] according to your logic Britain can never complain about other countries' human rights records since they made Turing a criminal for being homosexual?

Sigh, you write bad logic in two comments from a year+ old account with just a few comments. I'll stop feeding you now.

Edit: If you want to be taken seriously, comment on my arguments in the first comment. But I guess you prefer doing wild accusations about all democracies being wrong and some country being terrorist instead.

In my opinion is your logic that is wrong or you don't understand what I'm talking about at all (or don't want to understand).

Countries around the world use the term terrorism to suit their interests. South African government branded opponents of Apartheid terrorists (with the support of the US by the way) and the Israeli government does the same with anybody that opposes injustices committed against palestinians.

And lastly lots of democracies and NGOs around the Western "democratic" world consider Israel's acts against palestinian population to be plain violations of human rights.

(I comment whenever I think I have something interesting to say, if it happens to be just a few times in a year, so it be... don't see anything wrong with that)

I was down voted for feeding a troll?

(I pointed out errors in his claims two times, so the troll just made new accusations. I've realised it is futile and stopped.)

And happy new year to everyone! I'll go prepare for the party now.

Edit: Huh, no answer about down votes? Ah well... gotta go.

I think you were voted down for providing facts and logic to support your disagreement with a fanatic.

Hmm... That would be better than usual, when I'm just trolled :-)

Does he know that some Hezbollah members use gmail too? And have iPhones!

This illogical thinking is blowing my mind. Shouldn't MS be sued because the computers Bin Laden used had Windows installed? Or perhaps Dell for selling computers. The US government for funding the invention of the internet? Cell phone providers for creating communication links?

Nokia for giving Iran the software to block peaceful protests?

The hypocrisy is killing me.

Given the fact that even the education minister in Israel is working actively against that human rights are being taught at school, there's no wonder that country doesn't like free speech. [1]

[1] http://972mag.com/ministry-of-education-officially-against-h...

A ministry of education in a country complains when a school sends pupils on a political march for subject X. An activist magazine writes that the education minister (who might not have been aware of the complaint) is against X.

And you post that as reason to smear the whole country for not "liking" free speech, not even the government?

Please keep hate propaganda and such garbage off HN.

My apologizes, the hyperbole was strong in that one.

I do however stand by that the human rights status in that country is sketchy at best.

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