A month after Hamas militants from Gaza attacked an Israeli music festival last October, Hebrew rap duo Ness & Stilla premiered “HarbuDarbu” on YouTube. The military hype song, celebrating the Israeli forces waging war in Gaza, has been viewed more than 25 million times; critics have called the song a violent and hateful anti-Palestinian “genocide anthem.” “One, two, shoot!” the chorus bellows.
Despite demands from employees and activists to remove it, “HarbuDarbu” has remained on YouTube. Crucially, YouTube has determined that the song’s violent rhetoric is aimed at Hamas, not Palestinians as a whole, and that Hamas, as a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, can be subject to hate speech without penalty, according to three people involved in or briefed on YouTube’s content moderation work but not authorized to speak about it.
In the closely watched decision on “HarbuDarbu,” YouTube’s trust and safety team consulted with executives and reviewed internal and external expert interpretations of the song’s lyrics, which contain slang and clever phrases with contested meanings. The final finding was that one of the song’s opening lines, describing rodents emerging from tunnels, shows that the song is about Hamas (which regularly uses tunnels to navigate and hide in Gaza) and therefore cannot be considered hate speech, the sources said.
Employees who want the video removed say it should be considered hate speech because, they claim, the text calls for violence against all Palestinians by mentioning Amalek, a biblical term that has been used throughout history to describe enemies of Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used the term in remarks last October following the music festival tragedy, but his office later clarified that he meant to invoke Hamas and in no way call for genocide against Palestinians.
The reasoning behind leaving the video up indefinitely, first reported here, is a prime example of what a handful of employees at YouTube and across Google who spoke to WIRED see as a pattern of inconsistent moderation of content related to Israel’s war with Hamas. The sources believe that management at the world’s most popular video platform has played favorites and attempted to justify takedowns or find exceptions to keep content online.
YouTube spokesman Jack Malon did not dispute WIRED's reporting on “HarbuDarbu” and other videos mentioned in this story. But he strongly disputes allegations of bias and calls it misleading to draw broad conclusions about YouTube's enforcement approach based on “a handful of examples.” He adds that internal disagreements over such cases are common.
“We dispute the characterization that our response to this conflict has deviated from our long-standing approach to major world events,” Malon said. “The suggestion that we apply our policies differently based on the religion or ethnicity of the content is simply untrue. We have removed tens of thousands of videos since this conflict began. Some of these decisions are difficult, and we do not make them lightly as we debate and arrive at the right outcome.”
War tear
While there have been discussions about what belongs on YouTube and other major social networks before, the war in Gaza has made it nearly impossible to reach internal consensus on removing photos, sources say. At the same time, decisions about what can and cannot go online are crucial to shaping public response to a crisis that has left Israel in turmoil and Gaza in ruins.
Sources tell WIRED they wanted more control over YouTube's decision-making because they felt accountability was limited, even internally. In the past, YouTube employees would summarize their logic with employees at other Google units in emails, chats and phone calls. Since October, to avoid contentious discussions, that transparency has largely disappeared, the sources say. Malon says the flow of information has increased. But as one source puts it, the substance is now missing: “Here's the decision, we're moving on, let's not dwell on it.”
