Within a short space of time, the New York Times published a fake map of Israel and a photo of a little girl whom it alleged Israel had killed, only to find out that the girl was actually alive.
The New York Times issued a tepid defensive correction of the photo, blaming the anti-Israel group it had been working with to assemble the hit piece, and refused to correct the map, describing it as “art”.
After James Bennett, the New York Times had outsourced its op-ed page to anyone who hates Israel. And the paper’s writers about Israel include Sheera Frenkel, the former BuzzFeed disinformation troll who got famous by spreading the false claim that Hamas had not kidnapped and murdered three Israeli teens. These days Frenkel is accusing Israel of disinformation for the New York Times.
Obviously.
The upshot is that anti-Israel content at the New York Times is indistinguishable from social media hate. And involves the same sources and even less fact-checking.
The paper has hired discredited social media trolls like Frenkel and Vox’s Max Fisher. And its op-eds are just social media hate revamped into column form.
The New York Times is packed with former Nation, Vox, and BuzzFeed people with low standards and a lot of hate. Especially for Israel.
The basic question then is why isn’t Big Tech treating the New York Times as the disinformation source that it is?
The answer is obvious, but it’s still worth considering the flagrant double standard.
Jews are being attacked by antisemitic mobs riled up by the same kind of fake news that the New York Times is spreading. Big Tech claimed an urgent need to deplatform President Trump after Jan 6. It’s engaged or been pushed to engage in similar shutdowns over violence in other parts of the world. Yet there has been no real shutdown of antisemitic narratives on social media.
Especially when they’re coming from the mainstream media.
Inciting hate and violence against Jews is okay. Disinformation is okay. As long as it’s coming from the New York Times.
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