Post by @aral@mastodon.ar.al

Have you considered why people in Gaza have to continuously ask for help?

Do you think it might have something to do with being the victims of apartheid Israel’s ongoing genocide, ethnic cleansing, and settler colonialism?

Have you asked yourself how your taxes and your government support Israel’s crimes and your complicity in their suffering?

Maybe do all these things before getting upset because your infinite scroll was interrupted by someone in need. And maybe at the very least simply mute or block them yourself instead of reporting them to get their voices permanently silenced.

Linda Rose Smit

@lindarosesmit@mastodon.social 6 hours ago

@aral it worries me to know that we see the tip of the iceberg. Those young and knowledgeable enough to get here.

Trash Panda

@raccoon@hollow.raccoon.quest 7 hours ago

@aral@mastodon.ar.al
What upsets me is that I am too poor myself to help them.
I had to nag people with mutual aid requests this month, paycheck is hopefully arriving the 15 and I have 60 bucks left.

I wish I could help them but I can barely help myself 😞

Aral Balkan

@aral@mastodon.ar.al 6 hours ago

@raccoon Please take care of yourself first. And bless your beautiful heart 💕

Truth Collector

@collective_truth@mastodon.social 7 hours ago

@aral Yes and that's why I don't use money a lot - and minimally.

Also the way of sending seems hard (maybe it's easier than before) so it's Stripe or one of these other US companies... Can an EU person do a bank transfer for example (like they might move money to someone locally around them / in the same country).

Actually how it works might be useful.

Yora

@yora@mastodon.gamedev.place 8 hours ago

@aral I am still too much a chicken to kill one of the billionaires who own my government.
But I know that it's the moral imperative of all good people.

Layan🍉🇵🇸

@Layan2002@mastodon.social 8 hours ago

@aral My friend Aral, and dear friends
Some people may think we want to ask for help. We don't.
We are an educated family.My mother is a teacher, and my father studied economics. Before the war, we had a home, a garden, dreams, and ordinary lives.
Today, because of genocide enabled by some and met with the silence of others, we are forced to ask for help just to survive.
Humanity should reject the shame that has stained its conscience through the ongoing genocide, instead of silencing our voices

David Culley

@davidculley@hachyderm.io 7 hours ago

@Layan2002 By now there's hundreds of Palestinians on Mastodon. I can no longer read every post of every account, nor can I react to every notification or reply to everyone writing to me.

But I don't go out of my way to silence Palestinians or banish them from my social media experience.

If I see a comment of theirs, I will have a supportive chat with them. Like I do right now with your post. (And I donate what I'm able to give away, of course.)

AsarSameer

@AsarSameer@mastodon.social 10 hours ago

@aral
It is truly heartbreaking that scammers have taken advantage of people's suffering. Because of them, many donors have lost trust and now believe that everyone asking for help is dishonest.
But we really did lose everything, and we don't know how to prove that our need is real.
Meanwhile, some people keep reporting our accounts to silence our voices. They don't want to help us, and they don't want others to help us either.
Thanks to Gaza Verified, our story is finally reaching more people.

Natasha

@nusher@mastodon.scot 10 hours ago

@aral I wish there was a better way to help all of them, the only way sadly is for governments to act against Israel which they seem reluctant to do in spite of it being the will of the majority of people. The more Israel gets away with what it is doing, the worse their actions seem to get.

Alda Vigdís

@alda@topspicy.social 10 hours ago

@aral My take on this, if I may, has been that if anyone is overwhelmed by multiple Gaza Verified individuals asking for direct contributions, then donating to UNRWA or your local UNRWA committee is an acceptable alternative.

kat donegan (she/her) 🇵🇸✊

@kathimmel@mstdn.social 10 hours ago

@aral i think there's a crisis of conscience at play here that means people would rather punish the messenger (or, in many cases, the subject of injustice) than confront their own feelings about things that feel outside of their control.

Bilal Barakat 🍉

@bifouba@kolektiva.social 10 hours ago

@aral

The absurdity of the "It must be a scam because there's so many of them!” response boggles the mind.

Epic Null

@Epic_Null@infosec.exchange 6 hours ago

@bifouba @aral I don't really think that's the logic.

Gazans are a very visibly desperate group that no one can question need help, but also that no one has the tools to actually verify.

If I were a scammer, that's exactly who I would want to be impersonating.

Aral Balkan

@aral@mastodon.ar.al 6 hours ago

@Epic_Null @bifouba Which is why we verify them using video calls with actual Gazans on our team verifying that they’re real.

https://gaza-verified.org

This is about those people who have actually been verified being reported, silenced and suspended.

And don’t get me wrong: our verification is not a character reference. But it does say yes, this person is a Palestinian in Gaza facing genocide.

Gaza Verified

We’ve personally had video conversations on Signal with the people from Gaza whose Mastodon accounts on the fediverse are listed here and we verify that their accounts are genuine. – Joy & Aral Balkan

Paddy Duke

@paddyduke@mastodon.social 5 hours ago

@aral @Epic_Null @bifouba But Aral, someone who’s given it less than a minute of thought has decided “no-one actually has the tools to verify” Gazans are who they say they are.

That’s surely the matter settled. No?

You going out of your way to actually verify these people are who they say they are, specifically to help with this exact problem, doesn’t soothe my conscience when I ignore them.

Won’t somebody think of the real victim here? Me, in my intact home, who might get scammed out of £25.

~1 more replies

Epic Null

@Epic_Null@infosec.exchange 5 hours ago

@paddyduke @aral @bifouba You say that as if we didn't have an anti-LGBT group set up a scam asking for donations on behalf of LGBT people.

Would you really feel comfortable knowing your $25 meant to go towards helping someone went towards hurting them?

You also say that as if the act of paying online is a safe and private affair, rather than one that gives the recipient a surprising amount of information that can be misused by either the recipient or a middleman. The risk is not just $25.

We need better solutions than this. Ones that are distinguishable from scams in a real and auditable way. Ones that correctly limit exposure to individuals. Ones where a donator is guaranteed not to be flooded in even more requests for help the way my grandma is when she financially supports the democrats.

This is a system level issue. It needs a system level solution.

Paddy Duke

@paddyduke@mastodon.social 4 hours ago

@Epic_Null Once again, these people being banned or hidden ARE verified, and using a well-known donation platform.

They’ve had video calls with team members of @gazaverified and link to that verification from their bios.

If you’re suspicious about an account, check with the Gaza Verified team via https://gaza-verified.org/team/

Beyond that, you’re asking for an unreasonable level of verification from people in a war zone, often living in tents, with limited internet access.

Gaza Verified

Epic Null

@Epic_Null@infosec.exchange 5 hours ago

@aral @bifouba It's better than the DMs I get saying they were verified by 90-ghost on Tumblr, but now I still have to verify a DIFFERENT source that I have no tools to verify.

Don't take this the wrong way but... How the heck do I know you're real? Not in the sense that there's a real person here, though that is a problem in the age of AI, but in the sense of you are doing what you say you're doing? I can't find any third parties with known history backing you up, and this isn't the kind of job that can be proven with a few recipts.

This is in contrast with say, a food bank which have audits and budgets they post. Found one for the New York food bank with a little digging. (https://www.foodbanknyc.org/who-we-are/about/financials-and-reports/) I went with the New York food bank to avoid doxing myself. My donations are to one that's more local.