A month after Hamas militants from Gaza attacked an Israeli music festival last October, the Hebrew rap duo Ness & Stilla premiered “HarbuDarbu” on YouTube. The military hype song celebrates Israeli forces waging war in Gaza and has drawn over 25 million views; its critics have termed the song a violent and hateful anti-Palestinian “genocide anthem.” “One, two, shoot!” its refrain thunders.
Despite demands from employees and activists for its removal, “HarbuDarbu” has been allowed to stay up on YouTube. Crucially, YouTube determined that the song’s violent rhetoric targets Hamas, not Palestinians as a whole, and that as a US-labeled terrorist organization Hamas can be subject to hate speech without penalty, according to three people involved in or briefed on content moderation work at YouTube but not authorized to discuss it.
Employees who want the video removed say it should count as hate speech because, they contend, the lyrics urge violence against all Palestinians by mentioning Amalek, a Biblical term used throughout history to describe Israel’s enemies.
There was a u.s law passed just a few months ago that makes it illegal in the u.s to talk against Israel.
There are allot of sentences stating what could be antisemitic but it’s not limited to those, and theirs a specific definition it tells people to look at.
However, there are many reasons that add up to why the video may had been removed. I personally don’t think there was exclusively just one specific one reason for the videos removal but a atleast a couple of leading factors.
Some examples of what might add up to why it was removed could be,
- various countries just this past year introduced various hate speech laws,
2)many countries concluded together and have a more united focus on tackling hateful speech. Trying to keep the world at a peaceful state, especially for minority groups that need these protections.
There are a few others I can’t think of right this second. but all these reasons add up to the final decision for the moderation action of the video takedown.
