Zerohedge, like any site that allows comments, is free to set the rules for its comments section. On the right side of the home page, the reader is advised of the blog’s stance on “racial discrimination.”
A casual stroll through the comments section and archive, of course, will assure one that this doesn’t apply to Arabs, African-Americans, and myriad other groups.
Who it seems to apply to only is Jews.
So what is “discrimination” against Jews in my case?
Well, it’s pointing out that while a story about a gunman killing two Israelis becomes national news and a story on ZH, quite egregious acts of murder by Israel or Jewish “settlers” of Palestinians never seems to become a national story – or a story on zerohedge.
Now on the other hand, many ZH comments are very critical of Israel, which is never per se “anti-semitism,” or of Jewish power, which, ‘as such’ isn’t anti-semitic either. But there are also just naked statements of anti-Jewish hate.
I never made one of those – so my sin seems to have been pointing out selective media coverage of violence to, versus by Israelis {the story and post was about Israel, not about Jewish people generally} and including ZH in that rubric.
“Tyler” apparently is a champion of free speech – to a limit.
Fair enough.
And while some commenters banned from that site during my couple of years of lurking are not people I at all respect or agree with, some were thoughtful and articulate and seemed to deal in facts.
For example, I provided links to articles indicating video evidence of an IDF soldier planting a knife on a little girl, another similar incident involving a Palestinian boy, a Jewish member of the British Parliament expressing the opinion that Israel had ‘faked’ at least some of the knife attacks, and a story about an IDF soldier being found not guilty for literally emptying his clip into the head of a 12 year old Arab girl. There was also a link to a story about a family burned to death by Jewish settlers.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=75c_1449001183
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/nov/16/israel2
The more one looks into Israel’s behavior, it’s treatment of the people it occupies particularly, the more one realizes two things:
1] the American media simply doesn’t cover it and;
2] anyone daring to cover it or talk about it – even very fairly, without racial bias or hyperbole – is smeared as an ‘antisemite’ because while Israel is building racial colonies and bulldozing Arab homes and letting settlers burn crops, etc. it is still perceived as a ‘victim’. Anything that dispels this notion is just bad PR. Hence an army of”hasbara” commenters who blindly, and reflexively defend Israel no matter what it does.
My ban came probably less than a minute after posting those links, again, with the comment that such stories never seem to make the news, including ZH…which was the point.
Apparently one of the Tylers figured this was too much.
But facts about Israel – the state’s – behavior, and about Jewish power and influence on and in the media, politics, banking, etc. All fair, if delicate issues to talk about.
And yet despite the ‘racial discrimination’ boilerplate, it doesn’t seem to be in effect. Presumably the same “hasbara” pro-Israel commenters, well organized and even funded, will send emails to the ‘abuse@’ if Israel is maligned – irrespective of the TRUTH of the matter.
In any case, effectively, bigots are given free reign, which from a free speech perspective I agree with. However the bans seem to stem only from criticism of Israel or Jewish/Zionist power – some of that criticism was absurd, and just naked Judeophobia, but some, in my judgment, was eminently reasonable, typically highlighting double-standards in the news and history.
On the other hand, absolutely false statements, and absolutely hateful statements about Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims are replete in the zerohedge comment section.
Which goes back to the point – it’s not “hate” that is punished, but speech Israel’s well organized apologists find “offensive” that is punished.
So “Fight Club” just isn’t quite so when it comes to talking about Israel and Jewish/Zionist power matrices. Now, people may differ to some extent on what is “hate speech” but as I look at it, true statements or fair inferences about power, politics, and money are not “hate” when they are analyzed as a function of “white privilege” or “colonialism” etc. – they certainly are not suddenly hate when discussing the power and influence of the most powerful ethnoreligious group in the country, nor when discussing the influence, wildly disproportionate, of the pro-Israel lobby.
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2015/12/31/mossad-caucus-exposed/
This is just a first post and I’m not sure what I’ll put here. In a comment section I’d like to see people who have actually been banned from ZH or other sites to find out examples of speech, that can reasonably be described as true/accurate and fair, led to bans.
I’ll close out here that I respect the right of anyone or any organization to set its own rules and so forth.
What I don’t respect is intellectual cowardice and hypocrisy.
bannedfromzerohedge 
feel very free to leave comments – particularly if you were once banned for reasons you sincerely believe were specious, or if you have ideas about what sort of “intellectual” blog relying as much or more on smart commenters than the author’s questionable intelligence and mental health…would be interesting to you in a world where absolutely everything has been covered, and all the great themes, used up.
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I was banned, so far as I can tell, for suggesting Tyler’s Apple-bashing was based on absolutely no technical basis, never discussed the tech at all, and was perpetually wrong.
Oh, and Dan’s been wrong about gold and hyperinflation for about 5 years but – hey, it’s a niche product.
As to Israel, etc. seems like people complain about them all the time on there. It may have been you pointing out that ZH figures a guy killing 2 Israelis merits a story but never seems, like the msm, to cover the far more frequent instances of murder by IDF or settlers.
Because again, the comments section is basically still the Wild West. Although I don’t doubt no one is getting banned for Muslim and Arab bashing.
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